Space Elevator

Catastrophe?

If the cable breaks, does it collapse like an accordion (a la the Twin Towers) or does it fall like a tree? How much damage would it do if it dropped on a city? How much damage would the tsunami it causes do when the cable drops into the ocean?

Obviously, the upper half shoots off (hopefully) harmlessly into space, but the lower half is still anchored to the planet.

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such construction wouldn't be constructed until antigravity is discovered - it's that simple

 

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Space Hook

I think it was Arthur Clarke (or maybe Gregory Benford) that speculated on the idea of a "space hook" instead of a "space elevator". The principle is the same except that the satellite acts as the anchor point rather than the Earth.

Imagine yourself (playing the role of the Earth) standing in a western town with a cigarette in your mouth. Along I come (playing the role of the satellite) swinging a whip (playing the role of the hook) around my head. Using incredible timing and accuracy

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D), I flick the cigarette out of your mouth without hitting you (now you know why I didn't put myself in the role of the Earth

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).

The advantage of this is that, in the event of a catastrophe (see my previous message), the whole thing is likely (but not guaranteed!) to go spinning off harmlessly into space.

 

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except for the hook

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Why?

The first thin strand could be carried aloft (perhaps in connectable pieces) by the shuttle. This thin strand could then be lowered from orbit and stretched to geosynchronous orbit. The tricky part would probably be accurately aiming the lower end of the strand so that it could be caught at the anchor point, but that's what supercomputer calculations are for.

After the first strand is in place, it's just a matter of using simple robots to run more strands up and down the (growing) cable. Eventually, the cable become sufficiently strong enough to carry the elevator.

Simple, right?

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why?

because of safety measures

and great expenses

 

Free economy

Hey! It's a free economy out there. If I want to spend the venture capitalist's (and government's) money on an impossible dream, why should I let a little thing like "safety measures" get in the way?

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I suspect there is not so much money in all the western world or all the world to build such a structure

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anyways it can't be done before we advance yet a more little in nanotechnology

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They could play Stairway to Heaven

 

Or Burt Bacharach.

 

mmmm not trying to start an argument but do you know what carbon nanotubes are? and how they are made?

I got a huge stash of almost pure single walled nanotubes in my lab. Does that make me rich???

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Of course we have known this would work for decades. We have been waiting for someone to invent Fictionite which would be strong enough to support the enormous stress.

 

Someone told me they knew of fab machines for the construction of nanotube materials that had already been built. Then somebody else told me that they were nowhere near ready. Any information, people?

 

As I've said before, NOPE! Or at least, nothing outside this article and what my father's told me.

But I don't think the article is without basis.

But whatever.

No one's actually READING it they just all want to talk about how it is or isn't ever going to be made. Let's all disregard the fact that the article's TELLING you it IS being made REGARDLESS of the time and money and likely more research that it's going to take.

BLAH.

 

fair enough

 

64,000 miles above the Solomon Islands
the spider awaits the command.
Noiselessly it begins knitting .
Pure carbon nano tubes stream down.

Stretched, bundled and wound around
billions of diamond threads descend.
Now 10,000 miles long it is seen from daytime Earth
Glowing blue white in the electric solar wind.

Dragonflies in the ionosphere grapple with glass claws
clasping the huge diamond rope
A slender pilot thread raised by balloon
connects the cable to Earth.

The tens of thousands of volts are amped up
to power the climbing craft
to christen man's first trip
up the elevator to space.

Ten years later
the relatavistic centrifuge engine
makes the space elevator as obsolete
as the Erie Canal.

The quaint slow boat to weightlessness
is now a family budget vacation
or romantic ritual to climb to a union in space
along the glowing diamond lace.

 

What would happen if a completed space elevator breaks and falls to earth? THis is supposing it would be made of articulated carbon molicules (so it mostly wouldnt burn up)

 

An interesting question (which I asked early in this thread)...

I suppose a failsafe could be included in the elevator system such that, if there was a problem, the cable connection would be severed at it's base. Then, centrifugal force would probably whip the rest of the cable out into space.

However, that probably depends upon where the problem is on the cable.

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If it fell downwards I could imagine it essentially cutting a continent in half. Scary.

If it flew away I could imagine it taking out half of our geosynchronous satalites, spinning, and launching itself out of the solar system. Lord knows who the next person who sees it would be.

Be interesting if there was a colony stuck to one end of that thing.

Thats what I think.