A LONG CLIMB: An artist's conception shows a climber pod ascending a space elevator's tether to deploy a satellite.
Image: ISEC
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SEATTLE—“I think building an elevator to space is maybe the best thing I could do in the world,” Michael Laine says.
His company, Liftport, has just raised over $62,000 on Kickstarter to build robot climbers on a skyward cable—an early step toward his eventual goal of putting a space elevator on the moon. A space elevator is just what it sounds like—a capsule that travels to and from space along a track or tether to provide reliable access to orbit.
Behind Laine is the cavernous Great Gallery at Seattle's Museum of Flight, where dozens of aircraft are on display, chronicling the human adventure of flight. Meeting in a nearby conference room are about 40 space enthusiasts, in town for the annual Space Elevator Conference hosted by ISEC, the International Space Elevator Consortium. Some of them have sacrificed their careers, credit ratings or savings accounts—all in pursuit of a simple concept that has thus far proved impossible in practice.
None of the conference participants could be accused of thinking small, whether the discussion is about a 100,000-kilometer tether made of carbon nanotubes, space-based solar power, or man's ultimate destiny to seed the galaxy.
Peter Swan, retired from over 40 years building space systems and now serving as ISEC's vice president, calls a space elevator a way to “make the human condition better.” His altruism was shared by many of the conference attendees.
But it's not all starry-eyed optimism. “I'm trying to tackle a project that a lot of people think is science fiction,” says Laine, who has gone into foreclosure seven times over nearly a decade to keep his company, and his dream, alive. “It's appropriate to be skeptical, even at this stage.”
UNOBTAINIUM
The idea of a space elevator has set the heart of many engineers aflutter. But all eventually run into the same obstacle—the so-called unobtainium problem, or the need for a material that does not exist.
A space elevator is a theoretical structure that reaches from the Earth's surface into space, balanced by its own mass and the outward centrifugal force from the spinning Earth. The physics is sweet—complicated enough to be interesting, simple enough to seem doable, and the space elevator’s intrigue has grown exponentially since Arthur C. Clarke gave it a fictional treatment in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Paradise.
The problem is the construction material, which must be superstrong yet very light. Equations worked out decades ago by Russian engineer Yuri Artsutanov and, independently, by American space scientist Jerome Pearson, found that the ideal tether should be tapered, widest at the geosynchronous orbit altitude of 35,800 kilometers, and narrowest at Earth's surface and at its far end. The tether should extend far past geosynchronous orbit, where a counterweight would help provide the needed tension.
The rub is that the tether must have sufficient tensile strength to hold up its own large mass. Any material works in principle, but even for stainless steel the tether would need to be 1043 times wider at geosynchronous orbit than at the ground.
The only known material that offers the required strength-to-density ratio is a carbon nanotube, a cylindrical chickenwire lattice of carbon atoms. The problem is that nanotubes exist in a form akin to a pile of soot, and no one knows how to fashion them into an extended rope, braid, cable or ribbon. In the view of elevator enthusiasts, carbon nanotubes, or CNTs are the last major “if only.”
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Add Comment"Some of them have sacrificed their careers, credit ratings or savings accounts—all in pursuit of a simple concept that has thus far proved impossible in practice."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust like Moonies, Nuns,the folks at Jonestown, etc. These are silly groupies obsessed with a silly idea. There will not be a 'space elevator' in the next 100 or 1000 years.
It may seem very far fetched but what is life without dreaming? Check out my Mars blog if you please:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://thoughtsonmars.wordpress.com/
Perhaps after some kind of nanotech revolution we could see it happen. Far fetched right now but the benefits would be tremendous.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDreamers worked on inventions to enable manned flight for centuries, and many people thought they were nuts for dreaming and trying and in many cases, dying for their vision...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank goodness they didn't give up on it!
I'm taking this opportunity to announce something very rare: I agree with geojellyroll, at least up the 100 year mark. 1000 years, who could know? It's more 'realistic' than a (Star Trek) transporter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgeojelllyroll said: "There will not be a 'space elevator' in the next 100 or 1000 years."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA similar sentiment was shared among the world's preeminent physicists and engineers about powered human flight, AFTER the Wright Brothers made their initial successful flight. Many were so convinced of the impossibility of powered human flight that they thought it was a hoax. They weren't the first to too-quickly apply the "impossible" label, and they obviously won't be the last.
At this point, all we need to make space elevators a reality is to find a way to make really, really long chains of CNTs. The other remaining engineering problems are trivial. Considering what material science has managed to accomplish just in the past 5 years, I think it's incredibly short-sighted to just dismiss this idea out of hand.
The same way it was short-sighted to dismiss the idea of powered human flight. So often "impossible" really just means "I haven't figure out how to do it yet". There are countless examples of the formerly "impossible" that now are just commonplace. And countless dead people, scientists, engineers and others, with posthumous egg on their face for their lack of imagination.
What person that has read any good Sci-Fi would not want to chip in a buck (or hopefully more) to help keep the dream of a working Space Elevator alive? It makes so much more sense than using rockets in the long term, as Earth Based resources are limited as we all know!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMining asteroids and even the Moon for those "replacement" resources would change life as we know it on Earth and the Space Elevator would allow all those resources to be delivered to the surface in a reliable and cost effective manner.
Suggestion: How about chipping in what you would pay for a beer at a Ballgame or a bottle of dinner wine and become part of the solution to Earth's greatest challenge, dwindling Resources; this is the time to get in on the "Ground Floor" before things go up!...
The space elevator concept has been a dream for a long time but as material science evolves it become closer to reality. Forget using rockets to "lift" when you can do it with a much slower, more fuel efficient and safer way...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust one use of the Space Elevator would be to safely lift radioactive waste into low orbit so it could then be shoved into a trajectory that would send it into the Sun for "recycling" instead of spending BILLIONS trying to store it on/under the surface of the Earth.
I we can throw money at silly futuristic nuclear like Borium-Thorium, why not build the Space Elevator instead and use it to save the Planet from nuclear waste?
Great comment, SALUTE!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe best analysis of this argument was on the old TV show the Addams Family, where Gomez ranted "They persecuted Galileo, they laughed at Edison, they said Frambini was a lunatic." When asked who Frambini was, he said "He was my uncle. He was a lunatic." The skeptics also said it was impossible to turn base metals into gold and that Columbus could never reach Asia by sailing west (wholly apart from the unforeseen problem, it was much too far). The non-skeptics, on the other hand, said the passenger pigeon was inexhaustible and by now we'd have fusion and flying cars. Why is it always the same few cases that are used to bash skeptics? Because there are very few good examples, that's why. Bet on the skeptics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr we could simply build breeder reactors and get the remaining energy out of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo: GeoJelly Maybe you can tell all of us where we are going to get our resources from when they start to dwindle the very near future BESIDES Space...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs just one example, All the Copper gets used up in about 20 years...
People like you walk around with puffed-out chests because you're always right -- until one day you're not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCaptD
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"To: GeoJelly Maybe you can tell all of us where we are going to get our resources from when they start to dwindle the very near future BESIDES Space...
As just one example, All the Copper gets used up in about 20 years..."
Huh?....we haven't used one millionth of the copper. Copper resources are more or less unlimited...it's the cost of bringing any metals on line that's the variable that impacts supply.
The cost of mining metals from a space source would be multiple times that of developing earth resources. There is a finite demand that make mining viable or not.
Stgreve D
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Why is it always the same few cases that are used to bash skeptics? Because there are very few good examples, that's why. Bet on the skeptics."
Also, they are often based on a some elusive consensus that never existed among scientists (see the posters comment on the Wright brothers).
And...regardless...non-sequitors are meaningless. Because some scientists were wrong about 'A' does not make 'B' any more or less valid. 'B' is only valid on its own merits in accordance with scientific methodology.
Link Please!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis book says much different! Red Alert
and so does this Best Seller: The Crash Course http://is.gd/eQrfyT
You can even read it online or watch the video's for free...
Nuclear is so "Old School" and $0 RISKY (Ask The Japanese!) and yet another nuclear "R & D" way to slow down our conversion to Solar (of all flavors)... Let China squander Billions on it and good luck to them!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the Planet does not get going toward Solar (of all flavors) very soon we may not be able to because of the Resource Wars that will start soon...
As it is now China is grabbing up everything they can to build out their own infrastructure, what happens when India and other Countries want to do the same?
To me that is why the Space Elevator is a "MUST DO" Project, hopefully one funded by all Countries for the benefit of mankind...
Attention IT Dept.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about a blog site that puts replies to comments under the original comment?
You site requires you not only to look for comments but further divides them into groups, all of which makes following a conversation TOUGHER than it needs to be...
Thanks for your consideration!
The same comments were levelled at flight, a circular earth amd many other ideas thru history. One should never say never in the science. Obstacles exist to be overcome.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStervedD.."Or we could simply build breeder reactors and get the remaining energy out of it.'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue. a 'down to earth' practical solution
First, I would like to see some planning for building one on the moon. Because of the lower gravity and no atmosphere it will be orders of magnitude easier. Also, any accidents such as a broken shaft will not have the kind of disastrous consequences that it would have on Earth like tens of thousands of miles of cable wrapping itself around the equator. The trick is to build it on the moon using lunar factories and materials. They don't have to be manned. They can be easily be monitored and controlled from the Earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce the lunar elevator is usable the moon becomes a manufacturing and mining base. Besides mining the moon itself, missions launched from the moon (via the elevator) can mine many low gravity objects in the solar system, basically asteroids and comets. Uses are unlimited. Some are:
- Manufacture of all kinds of devices including giant solar cells and Earth satellites which can then be deployed by sending them up the elevator and launching them into a trajectory that inserts them into Earth orbit.
- Any products can be delivered to the Earth by putting them in containers with heat shields and dropping them into designated locations on the oceans.
- It would be much easier to send missions to deflect NEOs and other objects that might collide with the Earth.
- Big telescopes can be built on the moon and placed on the far side. No atmosphere, and no E-M interference from the Earth. They would have 2 weeks per month of night. Much better than orbital telescopes.
So many more. The main point is that it would have most of the benefits of an Earth elevator at a fraction of the cost and risk. The only thing it does not do is facilitate getting people into space. The engineering challenge is in bootstrapping the Lunar manufacturing process with a practical set of lunar missions.
Any thoughts?
There are a distinct set of commenters here: Those that understand the fundamental physical requirements for a space elevator (impossible with current or even long projected technologies), and non-scientific wishful thinking anti-realists, who think those who base things on basic physics are 'skeptics', or worse, and think that if you are positive, basic physical constants can be 'overcome'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are going to try to propose a scientific endeavor without basic scientific knowledge, keep it simple. Just suggest going back to the moon by jumping up to it. Jump. Jump higher. Keep jumping higher! Don't listen to those 'negative' scientists who say you can't jump that high. Don't listen about your blood boiling in space. Don't listen about being asphyxiated on the moon because of a lack of atmospheric oxygen. Just keep thinking positive about jumping higher and higher! (Oh, and add something about solar power)
There will be a space elevator. The physics show just what is needed. Do not forget that other nations are working on this very concept with a lot more investment than these people in this article. I predict it will be a Chinese or Japanese project. The West has thrown in the towel on much invention. As an example of the lack of imagination....look at the pathetic chunk of glass and metal built to replace the Twin Towers and compare thst thing with the amazing architecture in such places as diverse as Malaysia or Beijing ot Tokyo or for that matter the Middle East. What can be imagined oft times can be done given sufficient funding that is. The writer who sneered at the story subject declaring it would not happen for a thousand years is simply a thick headed fogey. I expect the prototype within two or three decades. Yes, it will require carbon nanotubes and I understand thst there has been progress on msking them into longer fibres than this article mentions. It will happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere will be a space elevator. The physics show just what is needed. Do not forget that other nations are working on this very concept with a lot more investment than these people in this article. I predict it will be a Chinese or Japanese project. The West has thrown in the towel on much invention. As an example of the lack of imagination....look at the pathetic chunk of glass and metal built to replace the Twin Towers and compare thst thing with the amazing architecture in such places as diverse as Malaysia or Beijing ot Tokyo or for that matter the Middle East. What can be imagined oft times can be done given sufficient funding that is. The writer who sneered at the story subject declaring it would not happen for a thousand years is simply a thick headed fogey. I expect the prototype within two or three decades. Yes, it will require carbon nanotubes and I understand thst there has been progress on msking them into longer fibres than this article mentions. It will happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't tell for sure if you are just joking. "The physics show just what is needed"? What could that possibly have to do with it? Physics could be shown for what it would take to enclose the sun inside a moon size container. That doesn't in any way make it the slightest bit possible to do. No 'nation' or any other organization is working on anything even remotely related to a prototype concept. Two or three decades is closest to being off by an order of magnitude than anything else. Do you have even the slightest idea of the physical requirements for such a thing? Seriously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this8. CaptD: There is no such thing as "nuclear waste." It is perfectly good fuel that is being wasted. Spent fuel should be recycled or used directly in a Generation 4 reactor. Spent fuel has been used as the fuel in a nuclear battery for a heart pacemaker that was used in humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this17. CaptD: 573 certified deaths were due to evacuation-related stress at Fukushima. Zero due to radiation. February 4, 2012 http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/2/4/japanese-authorities-recognize-573-deaths-related-to-fukushi.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Japanese authorities recognize 573 deaths related to Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Catastrophe
As reported by the Yomiuri Shimbun:
"A total of 573 deaths have been certified as "disaster-related" by 13 municipalities affected by the crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant....
A disaster-related death certificate is issued when a death is not directly caused by a tragedy, but by fatigue or the aggravation of a chronic disease due to the disaster. ....""
ZERO deaths were caused by radiation. 573 deaths were caused by the evacuation that was forced by officials. Fukushima's natural background radiation is still higher than the radiation from the reactor leak. Fukushima's natural background radiation plus the radiation from the reactor leak is still less than the natural background radiation here. Natural background radiation varies greatly from place to place. Our background radiation is above 350 milli rem/year.
"milli" means ".001"
350 milli rem/year means 0.350 rem/year
People living in Ramsar, Iran have a background radiation of 10 to 20 rems/year and report no ill effects.
21. bhoffman: There is no such thing as "disastrous consequences that it would have on Earth like tens of thousands of miles of cable wrapping itself around the equator." That was already covered in a paper at http://liftport.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a possibility other than carbon nanotubes. Diamond nanowire is also possible. Nanomachinery is required to make diamond nanowire.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbhoffman:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The trick is to build it on the moon using lunar factories and materials".
Yes that definitely would be a'trick'. The cost of putting a man on the moon to scoop up moon dust to make a pot would cost tens of billions of dollars. Last decade it cost NASA several billion dollars to even take begin to develop technology to return to the Moon..they ran out of money. People have no concept of the complex infrastructure needed to even resupply the ISS in near earth orbit let alone have 'factories' on the Moon.
Oh, and I also forgot that if you put 'nano' before some of your words, and sprinkle in 'carbon' a couple of times, a space elevator suddenly becomes possible (well, possible for a Popular Science cover drawing).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's great to see Interesting research being done. I can guarantee that a 10K km self supporting filament is not happening for at least 50 years.
The Earth based Space Elevator is not feasible nor reasonable at this time, and should be postponed in favor of cheaper launch vehicles like SpaceX is developing. Nuclear Cannon for bulk launch of vast amounts of materials into orbit is ENTIRELY Economical and Feasible - But you would have to send all Greenpeacers to China to dig Rare Earths with a shovel for their Wind Turbines & Solar Panels in order to achieve that goal (I highly recommend that):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnextbigfuture.com/2009/03/underground-nuclear-tests-salt.html
nextbigfuture.com/2011/11/another-attempt-to-make-case-for.html
Earth based Space Elevators not economical at this time:
nextbigfuture.com/2012/08/space-elevator-economics-not-that.html
However Moon based are economical and feasible:
nextbigfuture.com/2012/08/unlike-earth-space-elevators-lunar.htm
NEW YORK - 2035 - Today, the cable of the JFK Space elevator broke again, being hit by the tornado Deirdre. most of the cable fell in the Atlantic ocean. The explosive self-destruction devices in the cable fragmented the cable in to small pieces of about 40 meters to prevent entangling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLuckily, no one was hurt because the space elevator and the surrounding area were evacuated before the hurricane arrived. This was the third major accident with one of the two space elevators after its installation three years ago. As our readers may recall, a previous accident caused the death of 28 passengers as the cable snapped due to a plane collision. The Airplane, a Boeing X848 had entered the no-fly area of the elevator due to a software navigation failure. The first accident was a lightning strike that broke the cable, 48 passengers died on that tragic day.
(there were no casualties in the Boeing X848, as only the wingtip was damaged. The emergency landing was successful)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe tether would have to be built in space from materials mined from asteroids or we would end up spending all the remaining earth resources just getting the materials needed into space. The methods to create carbon nano-tubes here in the gravity well of the earth would not be the same as the methods needed to create those nano-tubes in space. It may even be easier to create them there but the manufacturing process would be different.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that investigations into the the creation of carbon nano-tube wires should be part of the space station agenda.
For now, we need to concern ourselves with effective means to mine the asteroids to provide the materials that will eventually be needed to built the space elevator.
Conceptually i do like the concept of a space elevator, however:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy question is: The risks described in my previous "SF news flash" seem to be realistic.. don't they? How do you manage weather extremes (even winds of < 80 km/h would be disastrous, would bring to much load on the cable, (how do you manage a wind load on about the 50km long atmospheric section of the cable? not to mention debris flying around? What about ice build-up at high altitudes? airplanes going off-course, or even terrorism: e.g. it is quite easy to damage the cable deploying a drone or very small missile. It's a stationary object, a sitting duck! Also:
There are already huge amounts of high velocity spacecraft wreckage debris up there, which can (will, no doubt) damage the cable.. All in all, IMHO a space elevator is simply too vulnerable. Did I mention static electricity? about 100 V/meter?? Perhaps a better option is crafts that make (re)entry supported by surface based laser/ micro wave energy?
Lets take your "list" one at a time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRE: Security against aircraft or terrorists -- The Space Elevator would become a National Resource, with a FAA "No Fly" zone, (like the White House, nuclear reactor or an Aircraft Carrier) and have both passive and active defenses in place to protect it from becoming a soft target...
RE: Wind Loading/Weather issues -- No one sentence answer here, but in short, I think it will be designed to minimize both issues from becoming major limitations... One idea would be to vary the amount of tension at the "end" to prevent oscillations depending on the wind loading, much like the noise canceling technology used in headsets.
RE: Static electricity -- This may prove to be a giant PLUS for the Space Elevator since this energy is "free" and will quite possibly be used to help "power" some of the components needed to run the Space Elevator!
A every important part of the mining of astroids is getting the finished product back to the surface of the Earth safely, at low cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Space Elevator could not only preform that function but it also could "lift" most of the components required to set up that "business"...
Note: There is no "The Space Elevator". The most likely future is there will never be one. If even technically possible (a big if), it is very likely impractical and overwhelmingly costly. I've seen Popular Science covers for much more 'practical' projects (e.g. lighter than air freighters, intercontinental tunnels, etc.) for the last 40 years. How are they coming along?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'mining' asteroids is 50 to 100 years away, even if that ever becomes a useful endeavor. At this point, it is as relevant to be focusing on the type of handle on the 'miners' pickaxes or the color of their space suits, as it is to be talking about 'building' a space elevator from the mined materials. It's fun science fiction. Nothing more. All credit to those who are playing around with ideas. Let's just not confuse small pieces of conceptual research for a project plan waiting to be implemented.
NEW YORK - 2036 - Today the final components were installed to shield the now repaired Space Elevator from accidents like the one that happened late last year. With the new Automatic Tension Modifier (ATM) fully tested and in operation, the new system will automatically cancel out the effects of wind loading up to 250 mph and prevent any further disruptions of the vital Space Elevator mission. Now all the Space Elevators in operation have the new ATM equipment installed so from now on, there should no no delays in moving vital supplies in either direction!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCritics (from the rocket industry) of the Space Elevator who have demanded that the Elevator itself contain a self deploying parachute safety system; so that in the slight chance that the Space Elevator is damaged, it would protect both the Elevator itself and all those aboard. The International Space Elevator Authority (ISEA) in response, is now planning on making those modifications during the next Elevator modification cycle later this year; because then, the Space Elevator will qualify for the lowest Insurance rates ever given to a Transportation Corporation, since the Space Elevator has had only three accidents since its inception, yet they have made travel between the surface of the Earth and low orbit a everyday occurrence in a eco-responsible manner.
FLASH --> Next: We may be taking you and nine other lucky winners of our Go Into Space (GIS) Contest, which ends tomorrow, aboard the Space Elevator for the ride of your lifetime up into low orbit and back all expenses paid! Remember, all entries must be time stamped by midnight EST to qualify for the drawing (see the contest rules and legal fine print posted at our website).
Engineers loved the way Arthur C. Clarke described the materials used for the rope of the Space Escalator in his tale "The fountains of paradise", one never knows how much true science and technology information is in books, from Sci-Fi tales to novels, it seems many literary works start by creating a file or a database.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, the idea was that mining materials would need to come first since the elevator would be pretty massive and it would cost a lot to get those materials from Earth into orbit in order to build it in the first place. The mining would therefor not bring the materials to the surface of the planet but would need to be refined in orbit and used there. Once the elevator was built, then the cost to bring those materials down to Earth would be much cheaper and much more practical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"..the cost to bring those materials down to Earth would be much cheaper.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI doubt it. Just drop the materials into a desert or shallow sea with an ceramic ablative heat shield. Pretty simple-minded & much faster. The Stardust space probe crashed into the desert after its parachute failed to open, but the delicate disks into it were still mostly salvageable.
Space Elevator on Earth remains a pipe dream. Focus on a Moon Based Elevator - quite feasible. Asteroid Mining however WILL HAPPEN and should happen ASAP. Most people don't realize that modern mining projects on Earth often cost in excess of $10B and take a decade or more to get into production. Asteroid Mining for many metals and space resources supply WILL be cheaper.
And the cheapest way to get large amounts of materials from Earth to Earth Orbit remains the ocean-based Nuclear Cannon.
Could someone please tell me what the benefits would be? Other than just proving it could be done. I'm just not seeing it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgeorge19,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe benefit would be that it is an elevator to space.
ATM? To maintain a correct orbit geostationary position you would have to roll in and roll out huge lengths of cable depending on the wind force, not to mention the wind force acting upon the elevator(s) itself..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisinteresting article about safety here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator_safety
Parachutes? heat shields you mean..
I'm a geoloogist and people have no concept of how much infrastructure is required in miningg on a scale to make it meaningful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'Let's mine the asteroids'...Ha! Ha! Go for it. And manufacturer stuff from the materials in space...exactly how? Oh, and build a several kmn long tether in space while you're at it.
Hint....we barely have the technology to keep the ISS in near Earth orbit...and even the ISS has cost just over 100 billion dollars.
Re comments on Assimov..he was wrong just about everything. Isaac was a smart guy but didn't have to mess with the of reality of matter and energy. One can't tale 'little leaps' over logic in the real world. A control panel with flashing lights on a spaceship actually has to have something in it that does the job and not just look good.
What's funny about this idea is that you have to ride the elevator all the way up to geosynchronous orbit. If you ride it up only a few hundred miles, when you step off the elevator you fall like a rock, because you don't have orbital velocity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ISS was a Bill Clinton "international cooperation" boondoggle right from the 1st day. Elon Musk would have a colony on Mars right now for less money. And Asteroid Mining is already being developed by a private company. One near Earth crossing asteroid could easily have over $1 trillion in economically mine-able minerals on it. No environmental reviews, no cleanup, no tailings issues, Nuclear power - why not? Greenies have trouble putting up barricades and protesting in space. And lawsuits don't work up there - jurisdiction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStep off an ocean liner in the middle of the Atlantic you get wet, so your point is?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisElon Musk did not run for President and therefore did not have the HP to get anything "done", Bill C. did... At least a number of Earth's Countries are working together on that instead of each doing their own thing...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisForget the "Greenie" label, many will suffer needlessly because so many are dragging their feet instead of getting US into space; remember we ALL are only one Eco-Disaster from losing mankind, what is your solution to that "problem"?
Agreed with much of your comment but we have to START to get anything done and the sooner the better!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose with Money tends to find solutions or hopefully even more interesting!...
Yes, I was speaking in the Big picture, hat needs to be done is discussed in these great books:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe High Frontier by Gerard K. O'Neill,
Colonies In Space by A. Heppenheimer.
The Third Industrial Revolution by G. Harry Stine
The Space Enterprise by Philip Robert Harris
Mining the Sky by John S. Lewis
"..working together on that instead of each doing their own thing.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, that is a TERRIBLE strategy. The International Cooperation BOONDOGGLES, are just a money pit. Take another similar Bill Clinton fiasco, the ITER. They spent 5 yrs arguing over where to build it. These guys spend much of their budget on meetings in the most expensive hotels at the most expensive locations with lots of incompetent patronage political appointees to administer the whole mess.
Robert Bussard would've had a working Fusion Reactor ready for sale for 1/10th the cost and 1/4 the time. They gave his project about $1m/yr in funding. Crooks.
I don't agree at all, what are we supposed to do what for another Fukushima Trillion Dollar Eco-Disaster, while all the Utilities continue to soak up all Energy profits? Doing nothing is much worse than trying and failing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this+
Bussard was just doing R & D, China and India have squandered Billions on new ZNuclear, why should the USA do that also, unless it is a dodge to do more weapon R & D...?
As was true for many technologies, it makes more sense to develop the materials technology before starting on the "big project". Develop the lightweight gas engine before developing an airplane. Develop a battery that is sensible in weight, capacity, and price before selling an electric car. Develop bio-fuels that are based on sound economics before selling ethanol. Develop a medical care system after the efficiency issues are properly engineered. Trying to put the cart before the horse is a recipe for disaster.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting concept.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm afraid that I'll have to back track quite a bit to "catch-up" with all the comments, both for and against developing this "Space Elevator."
While I do that . . .please help buy answering a few simple questions concerning the engineering or this "elevator."
1. The tether's purpose is What? Alignment to a fixed point above the earth?
2. If the elevator is to "climb" the tether by using what? Friction and pull itself up?
3. If the tether's purpose is strictly "alignment" or "track" then why not simply us a laser beam?
4. Propulsion and braking of the elevator cabin by magnetism and switching electric polarity much like the action of a pulse traveling along a neuron.
OK . . .that should be enough to get started while I see how many of my questions are already answere by previous comments. Ciao
Carbon nanotubes are theoretically quite strong but the additional stresses of weather, lightning (nanotubes are highly conductive and will trigger lightning), radiation and cosmic ray damage can all cause destruction of such a device even if we learn to build one. He3 is also a pipe dream as the fusion reaction requires temperatures twice as high as the fusion we have yet to achieve with 59 years of trying. There are much better ways to lower the costs of space travel. ISRU fuel production on the Moon is quite feasible and can be used to refuel in LEO and reduce the size of rockets to the Moon or Mars considerably.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe cable need not be a single cable. There could be several cables held in place by stand-offs or spacers. If one cable broke, it would be theoretically easier to repair.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere could be several cables attached at the top, hence you could have one end coming down at 45°N somewhere and the other coming down at 45°S somewhere completely different. This would help put things into more inclined orbits.
The material problem aside, another problem is the space junk that's out there. I read somewhere that some of the space junk out there at some point passes through every point in an orbital shell around the earth. This means that at some point, something is sure to clip the cable. To solve this, it might be possible to set up a wave to wiggle the cable out of the way, or maybe put some sort of retro rockets on the cable that could be fired to move the cable around as needed. Adding stuff like this to a cable means whatever walks it needs to be able to walk around these things somehow, all adding complexity to the overall project.
Perhaps building from the earth up and geosynchronous orbit down and meeting somewhere in between would be more feasible. The weight of the tower portion being built from the surface of the earth upward through the atmosphere could be managed by providing lift from say helium balloons attached at points maybe every kilometer or so along its length. These balloons could be left in place also to prevent a disastrous crash of the portion of the elevator cable near earth should it break. Perhaps the rest of the cable above the atmosphere could be built to fragment into small enough pieces should a catastrophe happen so that the pieces would burn up in the atmosphere rather than falling all the way to the ground and endangering populations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust some ideas.
Even if a space elevator can really be built less than tens of billions of dollars at least, can anyone begin to imagine level of disaster when eventually its cable snaps?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is an incredibly stupid idea.
I also believe when it really can be built in a cost and time effective way, it would be the time other ways to go space way cheaper and safer.
inspired by the idea! (wrote an original work in honor of this 'lift') KEEP BUILDING, GUYS! ~ I'll be in line when the tickets come up for sale!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpace Elevator of Love
Yuri N. Artsutanov in 1959
sparked the plan for one to love me, Russia’s reason I’m still alive
for a interplanetary woman well beyond the earth’s GSO
it seemed hopeless the love of an earthling man I could ever know
Yuri flipped Tsiolkovsky’s idea of a castle in the sky
to a tensile structure, a plumb bob’s weight, in space, up high
add a carbon nanotube cable
attach it to my heart
and my patient scientific lover
began to woo me from the start
he lets me freely orbit out there
feeling so in control
he is safe from my past, Van Allen belt radiation
on his planet far below
our connection is stronger than any NASA laser beam could score
our commitment withstands lunar gravitation ~ built from burning asteroidal ore
I laugh as Obayashi Corporation has a plan for 2050 space elevator rides into the blue
tourists traveling 20k miles without the aid of rocket fuel
all I have to say is, ‘We were here first!’ ~in love~
& ‘Don’t spoil our view!’
©ruth follmann
sources:
http://npr.tumblr.com/post/18189099375/propagandery-japanese-company-announces-plans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
published in cosmic words: http://blurbprod1000.s3.amazonaws.com/e5d4f2e520654e5dbd60a0ba6b2fca6d/1320e087-d632-3dca-022c-418a7edf6fa0/cosmicwords.epub
Yes, very expensive for "manned" moon shots. Much more reasonable if we can develop a single launch probe that manufactures what it needs out of lunar materials, including the manufacture of other machines. That is what I mean by bootstrapping.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that the scientific fallout from the effort of designing such a probe would be very fruitful even if we never get around to sending it to the moon :)
Get the latest on the Kickstarter project here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://kck.st/P2KaSd
Until I see a 1-inch diameter cable made of carbon nanotube, space elevator is still science fiction. Keep on dreaming. Space flight was science fiction only 70 years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to agree with geojellyroll on this one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. The potential for disaster is tremendous. You need to engineer it with a huge extra margin of strength. Otherwise, if even a small meteor hits the cable and reduces its strength even a little, it snaps. Then part of the elevator falls to the earth from a tremendous altitude, and the rest flies away into space. If a meteor hits near the counterweight and it breaks off, then what falls is something like 40,000 miles of massive carbon cable, miles in diameter for most of its length.
2. Any shielding will add enormously to its weight without adding to its strength, thus requiring even higher margins of strength.
3. The amount of material required to build it would be far greater than any payload we could reasonably want to ship into orbit. We're talking cubic miles of carbon nanotubes. It would be like building a railroad, with tracks, locomotives, and freight cars, and plenty of fuel, to carry your turnips a mile to market, instead of using a wheelbarrow.
4. By the time it is feasible, it would probably be obsolete. If we had the technology to build it, we would probably not have the need to build it.
5. You have to engineer it to have an extremely long lifetime, or it is not worth doing. It has to withstand the flexing due to weather or due to moving it out of the way of known orbiting objects. It will be under constant abrasion due to the tiny particles in orbit. It will be heated and cooled dramatically once a day. It will be stressed by the loads moving up and down.
6. It isn't enough to just build the elevator. Only part of the energy needed to raise payloads of the earth is to overcome gravity. You also have to accelerate the payload horizontally to orbital velocity. That means you also have to build some kind of accelerator, like rocket engines, to accelerate payloads horizontally as they rise, or slow them down as they descend. If you don't, the payloads slow down the top part that is supposed to be in geosynchronous orbit. If you are lucky, ascending and descending payloads will be matched, so that they cancel each other out, but it seems to me that most of the point is to raise things to orbit.
I agree that the space elevator is a cool idea, and that it can inspire research that would be very useful. But I just don't see how it ever actually be practical.
There is a better way. Railguns are feasible right now:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/nasa-engineers-propose-combining-rail-gun-and-scramjet-fire-spacecraft-orbit
I would suggest additional features, such as raising the entire rail gun on balloons closer to the top of the atmosphere. You could put the bottom end on a huge balloon platform well above the weather. Passengers and payloads could reach it by either airplane or dirigible. (Or even an elevator, if you want practice building a elevator.) The top part rises far enough that there will be little atmospheric resistance. You can move it around if needed, and point it in different directions. You could lower it to the ground for repair.
A railgun could be powered by banks of capacitors, charged by solar power, which would be plentiful above the clouds.
Elevator Update 09/12/12:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this3009 Backers and over $91,600 collected so far with about 19 hours to go to break the $100,000 goal I posted as a challenge!
Together we can make it, please consider "gifting" some of your spacey friends BACKER STATUS as an early Xmas present or just because you want their names on the elevator* going to the Moon and beyond.
* See pledge of a $1 or more http://kck.st/P2KaSd
GreenMind,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may want to contact Mr. Reuben Goldberg about further ideas along these lines.
Mission Control: We are now at T minus 10 hours and COUNTING...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEach of US needs to speak to at least one other person about becoming a "Backer" so that together, we can support this great effort toward moving UPWARD INTO SPACE. I don't know about you but I'm looking FORWARD to proving the NAYSAYERS wrong and getting to not only see "MY" elevator work but knowing I helped from the beginning...
Together we can Reach Space in our lifetime!
Let's GO...