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Space Elevator Conference Prompts Lofty Questions
itwbennett writes "Even the most ardent enthusiasts gathered at the annual Space Elevator Conference on Friday don't expect it to be built anytime soon, but that doesn't stop them from dreaming, planning, and trying to solve some of the more vexing problems. One of the trickiest questions is who's going to pay for the operational costs when an elevator is eventually built. 'It's been nine years we've been looking for someone' to study that, said Bryan Laubscher, one of the leading space elevator enthusiasts and principle at Odysseus Technologies, a company working on high-strength materials."
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Do humanity a favor and set yourself on fire.
It could have something to do with the price tag of maglev tech, which is a little over a brazillion gazillion trillion million dollars per mile of tracks, one way. And I am not even touching the 80 mile high bridge that will have to support it. I'd say at this stage both projects look equally practical.
Projects like this are frequently as interesting, if not more so, for the byproducts that have to be developed in order to make it work.
"The aeroplane will never fly."
— Lord Haldane, Minister of War, Britain, 1907 (yes, 1907).
"No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris ... [because] no known motor can run at the requisite speed for four days without stopping."
— Orville Wright, c. 1908.
"The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space] . . . presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable"
— Sir Richard van der Riet Wooley, British astronomer, reviewing P.E. Cleator's 'Rockets Through Space,' in Nature, 14 March 1936
Well, one idea is that you catch random orbiting junk at the other end, replenishing the lost momentum. In any case, efficiency isn't particularly important. The major limitation on getting things into space right now is construction, launch logistics, etc. If we could somehow be continuously sending things into space, it would be well-worth having to send two or three times the fuel along with.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
A space elevator is essentially a static structure, it does not require any power to stay in place. As such, it is more like a building than a machine. It's much less complex, which means quality control would be much simpler/possible. There are many questions about how you would build a launch loop too. The only real question about a space elevator is the material. They think single walled carbon nanotubes could be strong enough to do the trick. That means the technology is more likely to pan out in the long run. And if you could build it, it could be much cheaper to operate and much simpler to build than a launch loop.
So, in short, the space elevator gets more attention because it is a more compelling proposition, and seems more likely to succeed.
Yep, you're right, I did not perceive the genius at first, I just lazily looked at the picture. In fact, there is no bridge, the structure sustains itself by its own momentum, gravlevitating or whatever. Good luck building that kind of structure without Unobtainium and at only the small price I quoted in my previous post. A 80-km tall bridge won't be much harder.
What about the fact that Space elevator allow easy atmospheric re-entry and the launch loop does not?
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