Space Elevator | 100,000 KM | VISION

[Echo Park]

has anyone brought up how UGLY a cable rod sticking out of earth would look?

yeah yeah go ahead and say it, I'm a NIMPY. Not In My Planet.

[Jeeper]

Echo can you see a TV tower when you're 20 miles away from it? The ribbon wouldn't be as large as you might think, and it certainly wouldn't viewable from any significant distance.

[Cirrus]

Yeah, you'd have to be pretty close to see the cable.

The asteroid/base on the opposite end might be visible as a star from the continent on which the cable sat, but if anything that would be pretty.

[philvia]

you wouldn't even be able to see the counterweight...
seems like a base would be the most logical and practical thing to build at the end of the tether. as long as it is built past geostationary orbit, it'll hold the weight fine. that is, the base would have to be ~35,000km above the surface--the international space station is only 350km above the earth's surface and how well can you see it?

[Loopy]

.

[metroXpress]

I know that it would be quite cheap for a person to travel up the elevator with a suitcase...approx. US $500?

[Trantor]

Originally Posted by Echo Park

has anyone brought up how UGLY a cable rod sticking out of earth would look?

I dont think you have a good notion of scales here...

it will be invisible from distance...

[Trantor]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

No way this is getting built this Millenium. Heck, we have yet to build that "Ring-Around-The-World" from 3001: The Final Odyssey.

the ring around the world from 3001, as far as I know, connects to the Earth through space elevators (an idea Clarke had already worked out in his book THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE).

Thus, its not "we wont build a space elevator since we havent yet built a ring around the world". Its "we wont build a ring around the world, since we havent yet built ANY space elevator".

[Trantor]

Originally Posted by Another Jake

Of course, the thing would have to be defended by air and by sea/ground like fort knox. Talk about an easy target.

it would be an international venture probably. Located in the middle of the ocean. Its destruction would cust $billions, but its fall wouldnt cause a disaster, specially since humans arent supposed to travel in a space elevator.

plus, I guess if the elevator is 100 times stronger than steel, its not such a fragile target after all, is it?

Originally Posted by NYC4Life

Just imagine how many space shuttle flights would take to build this elevator.

JUST ONE

you take into orbit one THING thread of carbon nanotubes ribbon. Its so thin that 100k kilometers fit inside the shuttle.

From the orbit, you lower the ribbon to Earth, and anchor it.

then, you use robots to go up and down this thin thread, like spiders, weaving around the original cable and making it thicker.

Originally Posted by f4fwildcatpilot

wow...wouldn't this throw Earth's orbit off balance?

no more than ONE virus in your body throw you off balance. The difference in weight between the two is just TOO DAMN HUGE.

and what would it go up to?

it would go up to some counterweight station (maybe an asteroid) or too nothing (100k km cable hipothesis). The objective is not to "go to somewhere", but to make it affordable and easy to put payload into high orbit.

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

^
Note "Economically feasible". A project like this WILL run into the Trillions of dollars, perhaps Tens of Trillions.

no way. It will cost no more than 20 billion dollars. Forget that "artist vision" showin a huge tower that looks like a thousands of kilometers tall Burj Dubai. Instead, think into it more like a DARK GRAY RIBBON that goes up forever. But its just that... a thin ribbon.

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

With Carbon Nanotubes? Uhh....I don't think so.

why not. Each year they are able to make more and more carbon nanutubes, for lower prices and with higher resistance. You soon should have carbon nanotubes in buildings, bridges, etc, etc. It should be cheaper than steel probably.

Originally Posted by Cirrus

BTW, the best spot for a space elevator would be on the equator. Chimborazo, Ecuador is probably the leading contender for best location. If an elevator were built there, you can bet your bottom dollar a new major city would soon follow.

hardly... most projects predict the elevator to be located in the middle of the ocean, not in any country territory.

[Rail>Auto]

Aside from international affairs, why would you want to put this in the ocean. Wouldn't you want to put it somewhere where a city can develop around it? If this thing is just a ribbon, how will people and materials fit in it to transport into space?

[Tom In Chicago]

This is unequivocally the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. . .

. . .

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by Rail>Auto

If this thing is just a ribbon, how will people and materials fit in it to transport into space?

It's a cable or ribbon that specially designed cable climbing vehicles would go up and down on. People and materials don't have to fit inside. You could probably have just about any sized vehicle you wanted to carry stuff up the elevator.

[The North One]

if it looks anything like the space elevator in halo, im all for it!

[JordanL]

Originally Posted by lawfin

Just on a cursory look it would seem angular momentum would tear this suck apart

The tether is in geostationary orbit, meaning that assuming you have a constant supply of fuel to position the anchor, the shearing should be approaching zero.

Coronal mass ejections wouldn't damage this any more than they damage anything else.

And as far as "economically feasible"... there are several hundreds of trillions of resources in space that are too expensive to get at. This project would probably be economically viable on a 25 year timescale even at a price tag of $20 trillion.

This is unequivocally the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. . .

Not much into science, are you.

[JDRCRASH]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

This is unequivocally the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. . .

. . .

Yeah, i've never seen the logic behind this structure.

[Trantor]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

This is unequivocally the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. . .

. . .

why?

oh of course, if we discover anti-gravity, its really a dumb thing.

until then, it has the potential to open up (really) space exploration for mankind, by making it CHEAP to go into orbit.

[M II A II R II K]

Also if it were to be drawn in the Diagrams section it would have to be drawn at 100 Million pixels long!

[Trantor]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Also if it were to be drawn in the Diagrams section it would have to be drawn at 100 Million pixels long!

seems kinda the same reason for people not drawing Mount Everest, Olympus Mons (Mars) or even those visionary projects like Try 2004 and X-Seed 4000.

[M II A II R II K]

This laser guided flying saucer experiment looks like a great way to go, to easily enter Earth's orbit and I would imagine dock with a much larger ship capable of much greater speeds that would have been built in space to not bother having it have to leave Earth's orbit.


http://www.space.com/common/media/vi...729_LightCraft

[JDRCRASH]

Originally Posted by Trantor

seems kinda the same reason for people not drawing Mount Everest, Olympus Mons (Mars) or even those visionary projects like Try 2004 and X-Seed 4000.

Except drawings of superstructures like the "Bionic Tower", "M.O.T.H.E.R", etc., have happened.