Space elevators?!?

The whole space elevator is interesting as an idea, but it is unrealizable...

What happens when a hurrican comes by? Do you know that there are 100+ miles winds up there even without a hurrican??

 

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(wiki)

 

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I created it last evening.

 

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hypersonic?

 

If the outward tether is the same length as the inner tether, then the outward force would be about 4% of a g.

Geosync orbit has a 42,300,000m radius, twice that is 84,600,000m.

Centripetal acceleration can be found by:

a= 4pi²r/T²

where T = 85536 sec.

this gives an answer of .456 m/s²

Substract the force of gravity for this distance (.056 m/s²) and you get 0.4 m/sec² which is close to 4% of a g.

You would leave with the radial velocity. This can be found by:

v= 2r pi/T

v= 2(84,600,000m)(3.14)/85536s = 6214m/s. Which is twice the escape speed from that altitude, which leaves you a net gain of about 3km/sec after breaking free from the Earth. This just about what you need to enter a transfer orbit to Mars.

 

Yeah, but you get that no matter how you launch fron Earth.

 

Helium filled SpaceShip anyone ?

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Do u still want the Elevator ?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5025388/

 

that thing will never be able to lift anything as heavy as the space shuttle. And I really don't think that balloon is high pressure.

 

uhh, yeah, helium is not lighter than a vacuum. therefore, if you want to get into orbit, you have to take off from the balloon with a rocket. carrying a rocket aboard significantly increases the weight, thus requiring a bigger balloon. however, as you increase the size of the balloon, you make it less stable, more expensive, and an overall less efficient design.

I doubt a balloon can be a practical way of getting into space.

 

Perhaps but 42,300,000 m makes a verry verry long cable. And the cable doesn't realy need to be attached to the floor considering most models predict a anckering to a ocean floot. Perhaps a future future space elevator can be attached to a sort of carrier plane traveling around the earth each 12 hours for example.
Doubling the speed would shorten it with 75% right. But that certianly won't be for the near future

 

These balloon shaped rockets can be used as the boosters ie. the detachable side modules of the actual rocket, i dont know why they arent aerodynamic in this picture, i guess they are meant for testing only, first phase perhaps.

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After they reach the last layers or atmosphere, they should detach. The Space rocket should rise above the atmosphere and And guess what then ....

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http://www.tethers.com/OrbitToOrbit.html

 

proberly more complex and in the end better but more far off. Besides using the earths magnetic field as a power source? I believe the air presure is still going to drag you fasther then you can accelerate.

 

Thank you very much. So an object dropped from the far end of the cable could get to Mars; that is what I remembered from elsewhere.

Interesting that the outward force at the far end is so low, yet the tether is in balance; I should have realised that would be the case, because the force of gravity at that distance is much smaller than it is at the Earth's surface.

 

The hurricane problem is a real one; Dani Eder of Boeing proposed a solution which would eliminate most of the stress put on the part of the elevator which is in atmosphere. He suggested building a tower from the ground using advanced carbon materials to rise above the bulk of the atmosphere and avoid any deformation in the tape;
see here
http://yarchive.net/space/exotic/tethers.html

For my model, I assumed that a tower of 15km was do-able, and here it is
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/7071/edertower7jf.jpg

 

If that thing is Eleven km! It looks to bulky.

But how's this go right to the equator a little bid to the north of nairobi in kenia right on the equator and go to mount kenya and build it on top of that place it's a bonus 5.2 km and it's virtually on the equator. Then your building only has to be half a high.

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PS> Do u think that a missile can be fired at it from SUDAN ?

And what about Mount Everest ?

 

Seems like u r among the conspirators of the space elevator.

Any idea how many miles thick the elevator cable should be to take that kinda weight from 36000 miles high ?

 

Hmm good ID perhaps we should first level Sudan before building one. A proper fence around the area with signs like warning trespassers will be shot... well perhaps with a little cartoon for the people who can't read.

Notice the little green line saying equator?
It's at 27°59′17″N mount kenia is at 0°9′S where 0° 0′S/N is ideal. So Mount Kenia is the largest mountain less then 1° from the equator

The Chimborazo in Equador is somewhat further with 01°28′09″S if you don't mind building your elevator on a earthquake prone ?active? vulcano! But it is 6267 m So defenitly higher then Mount Kenia.

Others are higher but none that I can think of are closer or more stable then mount Kenia.

There thinking of abouth 20 000 kg for starters so considering it's lenght it's going to be extremly light weight

 

Not at all. I am only exploring it for the purposes of fiction; there are many other ways to get to space, and we may use any or all of those for centuries befor getting round to building an elevator.

If you mean the Eder Tower, that supports its own weight on the ground. (It obviously needs some good foundations). The elevator would weigh considerably less if the section through the atmosphere is supported on the ground.


And the elevator cable, or more properly tape, could be a few centimetres wide by the time it reaches the top of the tower. The taper factor for carbon nanotube is 29.1 according to this page;
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast07sep_1.htm
so a tape which was a metre wide at the top of the Eder tower would be perhaps a little less than 29.1 meters wide when it reached the geostationary location.

 

The political situation is another reason why the space elevator will not be built for a long time. No-one would like thousands of kilometers of cable to fall onto their country; many countries would resist this with all their might (unless they were investing directly in it or stood to gain by access to space via the tape).


And terrorists of every stripe would see this as a perfect target; cutting the tape close to the Earth would see the tape below the cut fall to Earth, while the tape above the cut would fall upwards.

So the countryside below the elevator would need to be very secure; such severe precautions against terrorism might result in restrictions on freedom and privacy in the affected areas. Some might say that a world-wide security zone would need to be in place to prevent terrorist acts if such megastructures are to be built without becoming targets.

Do we want to live in such a secure, safe, terrorist-free society, or do some of us still value freedom above security? I am having trouble reconciling liberty with safety when imagining a possible hi-tech future society. You might have better luck.