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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.'"
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
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.
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.
Actually it was those bevelled corners that were the problem it infringed on an apple patent
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.