It's too small to be a civilization-killer. We're only talking a gigaton-range boom when it impacts.
Yeah, it would suck to be under it, or even within a couple hundred miles of it, but beyond that, it's mostly just a lightshow and something to keep the bookies busy.
Tell that to Nancy Pelosi, she'll be happy to know that she could have rammed through any healthcare legislation she wanted. Except it didn't work that way, did it?
I don't know, did it?
Are you sure that what we got wasn't exactly what she wanted? It's not like anyone else ever read the bill in advance of the vote (it's not even sure that the authors read the entire bill before the vote)....
People, like say, the UK's royal family, where it has been so many generations since anyone worked, that those ancestors are lost in memory.
And here I'd always thought that those male Royals in the UK all did their time in the Royal Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force. Hardly the same as "so many generations since anyone worked, that those ancestors are lost in memory"....
What do you think the Van Allen Belt is doing up there? It ain't for holdin up our trousers.
It's also not for stopping gamma rays.
The Van Allen Belts stop charge particles - the kind of thing tossed out by the Sun. It does nothing at all to gammas (which are mostly stopped by the 100 or so km of atmosphere).
Inflation only matters if the price of stuff is going up without wages also going up.
Inflation matters as long as you don't spend every penny you make every month.
Anything you save is worth less next year than this year.
This encourages people to not accumulate significant wealth, since most anything significant will require you to save money until you can afford it. And any money you save is worth less as time progresses.
yes, there is, it was generaly believed that god and (good) dead people etc lived "up there"/heaven/that high place, and the devil and (bad) dead people was "down there"/hell. The sun/stars/planets was also "up there"
That's not a "doctrinal problem". Seriously, the guys who wanted to nail Galileo were Church scientists. And the Pope, because Galileo called the Pope a fool in w book explaining the whole "the world is round" thing...
Once you hit distances that could best be described using Mm (like say 100,000km) you're probably best using fractions of AU.
100,000 km (properly, 100 Mm) is 0.000668 AU. Not a terribly convenient number, really.
That said, I hadn't heard that AU was a metric unit.
Damnit, people! If you're going to harp on us about not using metric, use it correctly yourself!
And no, effectively using the km (1000 meters) as an alternate to a mile (1000 paces) isn't really being metric. Metric is using the units correctly, and the scales correctly - megameters when appropriate, and newtons as a unit of weight (no, the kg isn't a unit of weight), as examples....
I don't think it's possible within the timelines they propose either but my guess would be they lower the cable from the counterweight.
Umm, no.
They'll lower the cable from the terminus, and raise the counterweight above the terminus at the same time, so as to maintain the terminus in the desired orbit during construction.
Actually no. A space elevator is a bit like a train track with only 2 stations at each end. If you want to go anywhere else, it is more or less useless. For example its almost totally useless for LEO. Well tbh it is totally useless for LEO.
Umm, no.
Below the terminus at GEO, the elevator is moving at less than orbital speed. Above the terminus (all the way to the counterweight), it is moving at more than orbital speed.
This can be taken advantage of to deploy things to positions in LEO (release something at just the right altitude along the space elevator, it'll drop down to a perigee at the altitude you want it, then a small boost from a conventional rocket, and you're in a circular orbit in LEO. At much lower cost than a rocket from the ground.
Likewise, it can be used to toss things into the outer system - the counterweight is moving at far above escape speed (~7000 m/s at 96000 km), so you can just let something go there, and it'll be heading off in the general direction of Jupiter. It won't go as high as Saturn's orbit without a higher counterweight, of course, but lower aphelions are possible by releasing at a lower altitude than the counterweight...
Great destination! The view never changes! Sun rises and sets once per day; just like home!
Umm, no.
It'll be equatorial, with an inclination to the ecliptic the same as Earth's axis. Which means that it'll be in Earth's shadow only at the equinoxes. So the Sun will set only twice a year, at most.
If that often, since if the moment of the equinox doesn't happen to be close to local midnight, the terminus won't ever go into Earth's shadow.
If someone ever wants to attack a space elevator, it's a perfect terrorism target. One homemade cruise missile (in 2050, I suspect making a cruise missile won't be much harder than RC airplanes are today. Heck, some garage tinkerers already have done similar projects) and the ENTIRE elevator falls.
Unless the cruise missile hits above the 36000 km high terminus, the space elevator won't fall - it'll fly off into space, maybe, but it won't fall.
Remember, the counterweight is required to keep the cable under tension - breaking it at the bottom will leave the top (which is moving faster than orbital speed) free to just fly away.
Note that if it's properly designed, it may be possible to set the counterweight to a position such that a failure near the ground will put the remainder of the elevator into an orbit that will return to the vicinity of Earth in two (or three or four, etc) years, allowing for the possibility of recovery and reattachment to ground of same.
I'm the OP. A word got cut off, it was supposed to say "It will take a week at 200 kph for your party of 30 to reach the 36,000-km-high terminal station, while the counterweight sails along 96 km high, a quarter of the way to the Moon."
You do realize that 96km is much less than 36000km, right? As well as much less than a quarter of the way to the moon?
Because any law enforcement seeing that or the video can have your Concealed carry permit revoked.
You seem to be unaware that you don't actually need a Concealed Carry permit to carry a shotgun...
You are aware that a shotgun is too big to conceal, right?
It should also be noted that not all that many hunters bother with Concealed Carry, because they don't have any use for them, carrying, as they do, shotguns and rifles, neither of which are concealable....
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It's too small to be a civilization-killer. We're only talking a gigaton-range boom when it impacts.
Yeah, it would suck to be under it, or even within a couple hundred miles of it, but beyond that, it's mostly just a lightshow and something to keep the bookies busy.
Not so much.
Seat belt laws in the USA date from the 80's and 90's. In general, the effect they'd have had had already happened by 2000.
My library manager is Calibre. Neither Amazon nor Apple even know I own an eBook, much less have any control over the content of my eBooks.
I don't know, did it?
Are you sure that what we got wasn't exactly what she wanted? It's not like anyone else ever read the bill in advance of the vote (it's not even sure that the authors read the entire bill before the vote)....
And here I'd always thought that those male Royals in the UK all did their time in the Royal Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force. Hardly the same as "so many generations since anyone worked, that those ancestors are lost in memory"....
Umm, the first century AD was closer to TWO thousand years ago....
What if most people want a specific minority expelled from the country. Is that bad?
The tyranny of the majority is exactly what the government is supposed to be protecting us from....
More like mid $20K for bare-bones Prius. Up to low $30K....
It's also not for stopping gamma rays.
The Van Allen Belts stop charge particles - the kind of thing tossed out by the Sun. It does nothing at all to gammas (which are mostly stopped by the 100 or so km of atmosphere).
So, why don't you move closer to work? Surely there are places to live in Boston that are closer than 1.5 hours traveltime?
Or with "hmm, if I can figure out how to do this, I can make a metric buttload of money, and get all the babes..."
Inflation matters as long as you don't spend every penny you make every month.
Anything you save is worth less next year than this year.
This encourages people to not accumulate significant wealth, since most anything significant will require you to save money until you can afford it. And any money you save is worth less as time progresses.
That's not a "doctrinal problem". Seriously, the guys who wanted to nail Galileo were Church scientists. And the Pope, because Galileo called the Pope a fool in w book explaining the whole "the world is round" thing...
I'm hoping you mean the Michelson-Morley experiment here....
A quick wiki check indicates that what he copyrighted was an email program he wrote named "EMAIL".
100,000 km (properly, 100 Mm) is 0.000668 AU. Not a terribly convenient number, really.
That said, I hadn't heard that AU was a metric unit.
Damnit, people! If you're going to harp on us about not using metric, use it correctly yourself!
And no, effectively using the km (1000 meters) as an alternate to a mile (1000 paces) isn't really being metric. Metric is using the units correctly, and the scales correctly - megameters when appropriate, and newtons as a unit of weight (no, the kg isn't a unit of weight), as examples....
Umm, no.
They'll lower the cable from the terminus, and raise the counterweight above the terminus at the same time, so as to maintain the terminus in the desired orbit during construction.
Umm, no.
Below the terminus at GEO, the elevator is moving at less than orbital speed. Above the terminus (all the way to the counterweight), it is moving at more than orbital speed.
This can be taken advantage of to deploy things to positions in LEO (release something at just the right altitude along the space elevator, it'll drop down to a perigee at the altitude you want it, then a small boost from a conventional rocket, and you're in a circular orbit in LEO. At much lower cost than a rocket from the ground.
Likewise, it can be used to toss things into the outer system - the counterweight is moving at far above escape speed (~7000 m/s at 96000 km), so you can just let something go there, and it'll be heading off in the general direction of Jupiter. It won't go as high as Saturn's orbit without a higher counterweight, of course, but lower aphelions are possible by releasing at a lower altitude than the counterweight...
Umm, no.
It'll be equatorial, with an inclination to the ecliptic the same as Earth's axis. Which means that it'll be in Earth's shadow only at the equinoxes. So the Sun will set only twice a year, at most.
If that often, since if the moment of the equinox doesn't happen to be close to local midnight, the terminus won't ever go into Earth's shadow.
Unless the cruise missile hits above the 36000 km high terminus, the space elevator won't fall - it'll fly off into space, maybe, but it won't fall.
Remember, the counterweight is required to keep the cable under tension - breaking it at the bottom will leave the top (which is moving faster than orbital speed) free to just fly away.
Note that if it's properly designed, it may be possible to set the counterweight to a position such that a failure near the ground will put the remainder of the elevator into an orbit that will return to the vicinity of Earth in two (or three or four, etc) years, allowing for the possibility of recovery and reattachment to ground of same.
You do realize that 96km is much less than 36000km, right? As well as much less than a quarter of the way to the moon?
This actually sounds like fun.
If someone near where I lived offered something like this, I might even give it a go, bad shoulder and all....
I really hope you just mistyped, and don't actually think a zebra is a type of deer....
You seem to be unaware that you don't actually need a Concealed Carry permit to carry a shotgun...
You are aware that a shotgun is too big to conceal, right?
It should also be noted that not all that many hunters bother with Concealed Carry, because they don't have any use for them, carrying, as they do, shotguns and rifles, neither of which are concealable....
Whichever, it doesn't include a detonator, nor the codes to turn the detonator into something other than a lump...