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Future of Space Elevator Looks Shaky
lurking_giant writes "In a report on NewScientist.com, researchers working on development of a space elevator (an idea we have discussed numerous times) have determined that the concept is not stable. Coriolis force on the moving climbers would cause side loading that would make stability extremely difficult, while solar wind would cause shifting loads on the geostationary midpoint. All of this would likely make it necessary to add thrusters, which would consume fuel and negate the benefits of the concept. Alternatively, careful choreography of multiple loads might ease the instability, again with unknown but negative economic impacts."
...,kind of, sort of, in Fountains of Paradise.
In that novel he proposed timing the departures of loads for a space elevator on Mars. Not to damp oscillations, in this case, but to cause them. By timing the oscillations correctly, the elevator would oscillate out of the way of the moon Phobos, which orbits lower than the Martian geosynchronous orbit.
Ion drives need physical fuel as well as power... they just are a lot more efficient than traditional chemical-reaction drives. This is because they accelereate the fuel to near-lightspeed, maximizing the reactionary force per kg of fuel. (force is a combination of the mass expelled and the speed of which it is expelled... the faster the exhaust, the higher energy per kg of exhaust).
So, you'd still have to haul up fuel, just not as much as with chemical rockets.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
if the top of the elevator isn't in geo-synchronous orbit, the elevator has to be a free-standing structure. You can only put stuff in geo-synch on the equator...
Good luck with that!
Their big objection seems to be not that the forces on the elevator are unmanageable but that oscillation could lead to payloads being released into orbits that are "10 km" too high or too low, or that the oscillation could put the elevator in the path of a satellite. Correcting that would require thrusters.
For the first, surely you could simply time your release with the oscillation, to get into the orbit you want. Even if you couldn't, the space elevator would be good for putting things in geosynchronous or interplanetary transfer orbits. The cost of a bit of propellant to correct a +- 10 km error is pretty minor compared to getting into one of those orbits in the first place.
For the second, thrusters to purposely oscillate the cable to allow it to dodge out of harms way are a pretty standard part of any space elevator proposal. That is, the ability to move the cable a little is a desired, even necessary part of its design.
You are right, but you are wrong. The Coriolis effect is very real, but it is not force in the strict sense.
The gist of the point in the article is that as a payload is moved up the elevator, it must be accelerated to the side, since the upper portions of the elevator are moving circumferentially faster than the lower portions. The force required to accelerate the payload must come from the elevator itself, causing small displacement of the elevator. The use of the term "Coriolis effect" is not strictly wrong, though it is somewhat sloppy.
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The "Space Elevators are unstable! The concept is doomed!" Slashdot summary would have been much more thrilling if there wasn't a link to the "Space Elevators are tricky! There might still need to be tiny final orbital adjustments!" New Scientist article, and even that would have been more exciting than the "Space Elevator dynamics is modeled by these stable but undamped equations! Sending multiple payloads up in the right phase causes the minor Coriolis-induced wobbles to cancel out!" Acta Astronautica article.
You people with your damn hyperlinks are ruining journalism. It's getting so a guy can't even wait breathlessly for the News At 11 anymore to find out what common household product might be Killing Our Children.
At 2G the entire way, that rail would have to be 1600km long, and would have to rise >20km into the atmosphere to prevent annihilation by friction.
Even at 4G, the track would have to be 400km long.
Frankly, I am not sure that this project would be any more realistic.
The families of Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee will no doubt be thrilled to learn that their loved ones are still alive!
In all seriousness, the space elevator gets a lot of press because it's the concept that is easiest for the average person to understand, that doesn't mean it is the only option (or even the best option) to efficiently get stuff into orbit without rockets. I always thought the launch loop made more sense (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop/).
The idea is that the moving parts are what keeps the structure stable, rather than tension or compression. In theory it could be built with today's materials and technologies and could be cabable of launching more into orbit in its first month than has been launched to date with conventional rocket launches.
Then of course, there are the non-traditional rockets such as laser propulsion, where a laser is shined up from the ground to superheat the air in the rockets cone, which, in turn, produces thrust. And of course, my personal favorite, there's always Project Orion. Not the wimpy one NASA is using to get to the moon, I'm talking about the original Project Orion. As in, using thermonuclear bombs to launch a city sized spaceship into orbit.
A rotating skyhook (a rotating line connected to a ballast on one end and a payload on the other) wouldn't have that problem.
http://www.nss.org/settlement/L5news/1983-skyhook.htm
But a rocket hook combination makes the most sense right now, it would reduce the launch weight by removing the need for the vehicle to accelerate itself all the way to orbital velocity.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
So much wrong, so little time...
Sorry, most of your post is factually challenged.
1) Space elevators do not lower the energy required - they just use the energy differently.
2) They do not take you to where the gravity is weak - they take you to the point where the force of gravity (which is essentially unchanged) is balanced by centripetal force (which, being linked to w^2r goes up linearly with distance).
3) Rockets typically take you to about 7.7 km/s (orbit), not 11.2km/s (escape).
4) The energy given to the satellite (assuming the same final orbit) is identical regardless of the launch vehicle/elevator used. What is different is the energy efficiency of the system in putting energy into the satellite:
A rocket sends lightweight propellant in the opposite direction very fast in order to transfer the energy. An elevator sends a huge mass (essentially the entire earth) very slowly in the opposite direction. Since momentum is conserved, the mass x velocity of both systems is the same - but since the Earth masses a lot more than most rockets, the Earth's relative velocity is far lower. This is where the e=0.5*m*v^2 comes in - the "wasted" energy is the energy provided to the Earth or propellant. Earth has a small v, big m - which works better than the rockets big v little m.
So you always have to give the satellite the same energy - there are just different efficiencies of giving it that energy. Space cannons have the problem of needing to give that energy extremely quickly... very difficult indeed.
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Speaking of which, there is an airship to orbit concept that was discussed here a few years ago.
You have two airships, a ground ship and an orbital ship. You put your payload on the ground ship where it ferried to a high altitude rendezvous with the orbital airship. The orbital airship raises the payload farther, to the highest point it can on buoyancy. That point is far below orbit, but the atmosphere there would be thin enough to permit the use of ion thrusters. Ion engines take the airship to orbit: a two week process. To return payloads from orbit the process is reversed.
Personally, I don't think this would ever prove to be practical, but it is possible to imagine it working.
The outfit behind this concept (JP Aerospace seems to be a volunteer organization of high altitude balloon enthusiasts. They've done a number of spectacular balloon missions, in one case sending a balloon to over 19 miles, or 1/3 of the way to the official "space" line. They don't seem to have done anything in the last year though.
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Earth's gravity is substantially weaker at GSO. GSO altitude is large compared to the Earth's radius.
Space elevators *do* lower the energy that is supplied by the launch system.In a space elevator, the energy for the sideways motion comes from the rotation of the Earth (hence the Coriolis forces on the elevator mentioned in the summary). For GSO, that's less than the energy spent climbing up the gravity well, but it's still not trivial.
For escape trajectories, the elevator looks even more attractive -- once you pass GSO, the ride becomes free, and you gain energy from the dynamics of the system without spending any propellant / electricity / whatever. Time it carefully, and you just "fall" off the end of the cable on the right trajectory.
All of that said, rockets aren't *that* inefficient. For LEO, they can be 10% efficient or better (slightly worse for GSO). That's not great, but there are no proposed methods of getting energy to the elevator car that are all that efficient either, especially when you count electricity generation losses. Given the disparity in capital costs, and the fact that in neither case is the energy cost a noticeable fraction of the budget, I suspect rockets will win out for some time to come...