Japan To Test Mini 'Space Elevator' (phys.org)

Zorro shares a report from Phys.Org: A Japanese team working to develop a "space elevator" will conduct a first trial this month, blasting off a miniature version on satellites to test the technology. The test equipment, produced by researchers at Shizuoka University, will hitch a ride on an H-2B rocket being launched by Japan's space agency from southern island of Tanegashima next week. The test involves a miniature elevator stand-in -- a box just six centimeters (2.4 inches) long, three centimeters wide, and three centimeters high. If all goes well, it will provide proof of concept by moving along a 10-meter cable suspended in space between two mini satellites that will keep it taut. The mini-elevator will travel along the cable from a container in one of the satellites. The movement of the motorized "elevator" box will be monitored with cameras in the satellites.

Comments

Re:Its not a "Space Elevator"...

[novakyu]

Not to mention Newton's Third Law necessarily puts a very harsh and unforgiving limit on possible payloads on those floating endpoints.

Ignoring material strength requirements, rotational physics alone dictates a functional space elevator has a minimum required size, and that's nowhere near where a label "mini" would be appropriate.

Re:Space elevators aren't problems for simple phys

[lgw]

We have a pretty good idea what will happen if we build it.

Yes: it will swing and bob wildy out of control, and eventually the counterweight will start zooming around the GEO station, if the station is massive. Then the cable will break and the counterweight will shoot off in a random direction, and inevitably destroy Tokyo.

The hard problem for a space elevator, even aside from needing unobtanium, is the lack of any way to damn the pendulum-like energy fed into the system with every payload lifted. Only half the energy needed to get to GEO is in lifting, the other half is in accelerating the payload laterally. That energy will be added to the system with every load lifted, and there's no obvious way to damp it.

And remember, this is not a Freshman Physics pendulum. It's both a spring pendulum and a double pendulum. Each of which is a chaotic system. When combined, it's a mess.