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Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible
Daniel_Stuckey writes "It's the scourge of futurists everywhere: The space elevator can't seem to shake its image as something that's just ridiculous, laughed off as the stuff of sci-fi novels and overactive imaginations. But there are plenty of scientists who take the idea quite seriously, and they're trying to buck that perception. To that end, a diverse group of experts at the behest of the International Academy of Astronautics completed an impressively thorough study this month on whether building a space elevator is doable. Their resulting report, 'Space Elevators: An Assessment of the Technological Feasibility and the Way Forward,' found that, in a nutshell, such a contraption is both totally feasible and a really smart idea. And they laid out a 300-page roadmap detailing how to make it happen."
For anyone interested in the concept of the space elevator, The Fountains of Paradise (1979 Novel) by Arthur C. Clarke, is a must-read!
It's a very well-written novel that focuses on many of the technical aspects of building a space elevator.
Or, just read the linked report by a team of ACTUAL scientists instead of a SCIENCE FICTION story written 35 years ago BY AN ACTUAL SCIENTIST.
FTFY.
Have you read it? Let me know if it's any good. To me, it just looks like a scam to get people's money.
No money involved, they give it away for free if you know where to look:
http://www.virginiaedition.com/media/spaceelevators.pdf
Archived here:
http://www8.zippyshare.com/v/72888832/file.html
http://www.sendspace.com/file/16c8xj
http://wikisend.com/download/118300/spaceelevators.pdf
Someone found a free copy of the report. Enjoy.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I've always liked the idea of space elevators, but I've also been bothered by a problem that I've never seen addressed, "micrometeoroid erosion". Sure, you can build one. But how long is it going to last, with nothing to protect the main cable/strands/shaft/whatever-you-want-to-call-it from a near-endless --though admittedly low-rate-- series of impacts by speedy dust particles?
Simple solution for the Van Allen belts: remove them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
High Voltage Orbiting Long Tether, or HiVOLT, is a concept proposed by Russian physicist V.V. Danilov and further refined by Robert P. Hoyt and Robert L. Forward for draining and removing the radiation fields of the Van Allen radiation belts[29] that surround the Earth.[30] A proposed configuration consists of a system of five 100 km long conducting tethers deployed from satellites, and charged to a large voltage. This would cause charged particles that encounter the tethers to have their pitch angle changed, thus over time dissolving the Van Allen belts. Hoyt and Forward's company, Tethers Unlimited, performed a preliminary analysis simulation, and produced a chart depicting a theoretical radiation flux reduction,[31] to less than 1% of current levels within two months[32] using the HiVOLT System.
If you're going to be building a space elevator, getting rid of the Van Allen belts is a relatively easy task in comparison.