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Google Looked Into Space Elevator, Hoverboards, and Teleportation
An anonymous reader writes "Google has a huge research budget and an apparent willingness to take on huge projects. They've gotten themselves into autonomous cars, fiber optic internet, robotics, and Wi-Fi balloons. But that raises a question: if they're willing to commit to projects as difficult and risk as those, what projects have they explored but rejected? Several of the scientists working at Google's 'innovation lab' have spilled the beans: '[Mag-lev] systems have a stabilizing structure that keeps trains in place as they hover and move forward in only one direction. That couldn't quite translate into an open floor plan of magnets that keep a hoverboard steadily aloft and free to move in any direction. One problem, as Piponi explains, is that magnets tend to keep shifting polarities, so your hoverboard would constantly flip over as you floated around moving from a state of repulsion to attraction with the magnets. Any skateboarder could tell you what that means: Your hoverboard would suck. ... If scaling problems are what brought hoverboards down to earth, material-science issues crashed the space elevator. The team knew the cable would have to be exceptionally strong-- "at least a hundred times stronger than the strongest steel that we have," by Piponi's calculations. He found one material that could do this: carbon nanotubes. But no one has manufactured a perfectly formed carbon nanotube strand longer than a meter. And so elevators "were put in a deep freeze," as Heinrich says, and the team decided to keep tabs on any advances in the carbon nanotube field.'"
Anyone who's seen Back to the Future knows hoverboards are just around the corner.
"so your hoverboard would constantly flip over as you floated around moving from a state of repulsion to attraction with the magnets." That's not a problem. Use many tiny magnetized cylinders beneath a hard top for standing. The cylinders can constantly flip, it wont affect the top which can be held in place separately - but they will be able to keep whatever they're holding up afloat. The rider wont even feel the cylinders spinning or flipping. Innovation lab my ass, pfft. :D
Once thing they should look at is a city within a single mega-structure. A old idea seemingly long since abandoned but one that incorporates many research oppurtunities and even the possibility of near future development. It allows investigation into waste removal incorporating energy generation, acceptable internal living space design, fire control, sound control, effective heat utilisation and management, network communications, delivery systems, internalised productions, internal transport systems, air control systems, energy management and recovery etc. This kind of major development research project provides great returns because of the large varied range of individual research projects that are incorporated with it.
Logically crafting an MMO simulation of it allowing in depth investigating of the personal interactions as well as prompting public input into the various research components would be a major part of the modern developmental exercise.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The things have more uses than space elevators. A thinner stronger cable is always going to have uses even if it's only a few metres.
And more generally, if you are the world's leader in fetching, organizing and navigating the information, it puts you in a great position to jump on new trends.
I believe Google's business plan goes like this:
1. Master the world's information flow.
2. Make some money in the process.
3. Invest in promising new technology.
4. Strengthen your competitive advantage even more.
5. Massive profit.
6. World domination.
See? No "???" item.
As a technocratic optimist, I am glad that this plan extends the human knowledge and power. But I'm also worried that this power will likely be concentrated in one mega-corporation.
After reading the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, I think when talking about the space elevator, we should always consider what happens if (when?) it fails. Space fountains seem much more appealing.
* The center of mass is in orbit, the structure won't fling itself far off into space.
* The segment of the string above the break will be under less tension which means it'll spring back a bit, but it's not in orbit down there so it'll be pulled back down to the earth so we could repair it.
* The segment below the cut will plummet down. Regardless of the material, we can safely assume at least several hundred tons of material will be falling from the sky which will completely destroy the ground based installation.
* Weird part is that it's not going to fall straight down. Even though the thing is stationary over the surface of the earth, the angular momentum at the top is going to be higher than below. As the top falls, it'll speed relative to the Eastward rotation of the Earth causing it to fall on the stuff to the East.
I think you hit the nail right on the head: besides projects they can undertake themselves if a study shows they are more or less feasible, they are looking for longer term investment opportunities. The article didn't mention any of that, but it seems reasonable that Project X is not just about turning ideas into products, but also a factory of patents, and a way to get the jump on competitors when it comes to buying companies that do actual research into promising new tech.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The things have more uses than space elevators. A thinner stronger cable is always going to have uses even if it's only a few metres.
If we could fab them cheaply (and they don't turn out to be as carcinogenic as irradiated super-death-asbestos or anything), we'd probably use carbon nanotubes in everything. All sorts of neat thermal and electrical properties, strong as hell, just replace fiberglass with engineered carbon and feel the strength!
However, (aside from the pure sci-fi value) I think the reason that space elevators get the attention is that, unlike many other things that are entirely doable with lesser carbon fiber, fiberglass, aramid, etc. but would be X% better with nanotubes; the going consensus seems to be "If you want to stretch a rope from earth to orbit, it has to be This Strong, and that really narrows the options down to carbon nanotubes and, um, um...
The question of whether what we build with carbon fiber composites today will be better tomorrow is interesting; but its a 'difference of degree not of kind' sort of thing. 'Space elevator' vs. 'Haha, huddle in your gravity well like pitiful ants!' is a much more dramatic matter.
In space, 'just use rockets' is not the answer people want to hear, because mass is precious.
In an atmosphere, though, all you need is a little extra battery power to shove air in whatever direction you prefer, which works just fine for modifying your path. It wouldn't be much like skateboarding; but I suspect that if you threw some accelerometers, clever math, and a mixture of control surfaces and glorified model airplane thrusters at the problem you could have a system that can be 'steered' by shifting your body weight, as people are accustomed to, with the actual work being handled by the aerodynamic components, since you don't have solid objects to push off of.
Doesn't solve the 'make hoverboard hover' problem; but if you ignore that...
And there are only so many times you can hear "The Girl from Ipanema" before you go homicidal.
Low earth orbit is only about 200 km in space. Even if you're talking about a speed of 1 km per day you'll still be able to deliver payloads to LEO within the year. Rockets still exist with their $25k per kg fee for stuff you need in space NOW but the space elevator has the ability to bring things into space at a much cheaper rate (maybe $300 / kg)
Plus "climbers" are envisioned to come in multiple forms and be able to pass each other. You might have a "human transport climber" that ascends at 20km / h but is unable to hold more than a few people and crew and a cargo climber that is bigger but slower.
Wikipedia, as always, is a good starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
* The segment below the cut will plummet down. Regardless of the material, we can safely assume at least several hundred tons of material will be falling from the sky which will completely destroy the ground based installation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator_safety#In_the_event_of_failure
" However, in most cable designs, the upper portion of any cable that falls to Earth would burn up in the atmosphere. Additionally, because proposed initial cables have very low mass (roughly 1 kg per kilometer) and are flat, the bottom portion would likely settle to Earth with less force than a sheet of paper due to air resistance on the way down."
I imagine it would start to hit a gray area, certainly they can't use their gmail info, because they'd be an insider, but it could be argued that searching could be insider info. I think they'd have a hard time doing it legally.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Hard to translate facetiousness in text, but trust me, I wasn't being serious :D if it were that simple I'd be slangin' that shit direct from China.