DescentBB

I think this has been discussed here before, but it's interesting and the NYT just did a piece on it. I hadn't seen the video before. It would be pretty radical (and a lot cheaper than space flights) if they could actually pull this off. Check it out:

Scientist Bradley C. Edwards has an idea that's really out of this world: an elevator that climbs 62,000 miles into space.

Edwards thinks an initial version could be operating in 15 years, a year earlier than Bush's 2020 timetable for a return to the moon. He pegs the cost at $10 billion, a pittance compared with other space endeavors.

``It's not new physics -- nothing new has to be discovered, nothing new has to be invented from scratch,'' he says. ``If there are delays in budget or delays in whatever, it could stretch, but 15 years is a realistic estimate for when we could have one up.''

Edwards is not just some guy with an idea. He's head of the space elevator project at the Institute for Scientific Research in Fairmont, W.Va. NASA already has given it more than $500,000 to study the idea, and Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more.

``A lot of people at NASA are excited about the idea,'' said Robert Casanova, director of the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts in Atlanta.

Edwards believes a space elevator offers a cheaper, safer form of space travel that eventually could be used to carry explorers to the planets.

Edwards' elevator would climb on a cable made of nanotubes -- tiny bundles of carbon atoms many times stronger than steel. The cable would be about three feet wide and thinner than a piece of paper, but capable of supporting a payload up to 13 tons.

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Yep, a space elevator is a great idea.

In theory, the project is doable. But in practice, however, the project is extremely high risk.

For a start, you only have a single ribbon, 100,000 kilometres long, simultaneously let *in* and *out* from Geosynchronous Orbit (50,000 klicks out). Now, that process has got to be automatic, and what do you do if it snags?

Also, how do you qualify not just *one* but more than a hundred 100,000 kilometre cables 30cm wide and microns thick? How you you perform QA on it?

I mean, if you create each cable, and QA it at the time of manufacture just before it is spooled, and you are making 1 metre per minute, that's still 19 years to QA a single cable!!

Let's be REALLY generous and say they can produce ten metres a minute and QA it at the same time - that's STILL 1.9 years per cable and that's if each cable is perfect!

Don't get me wrong, the physics is sound, but the engineering challenges are simply mind blowing!

I reckon 10 billion is a joke BTW. I'd say 30-50 Billion might see the project done - but even at THAT price, it's a pittance compared to the annual defence budget.

And of course, for the USA it'd be a pain, because you don't own any convenient territory on the equator where it would have to be anchored. A floating platform is ideal, because you could move it hundreds of kilometres if need be - to keep the thing away from tropical cyclones - which are pretty common on that part of the planet.

Personally, I'm sure I'll eventually ride a space elevator into orbit, and the days of rocket launches will be a thing of the past. But it's still some time off.

It'd be nice to think 2020 or thereabouts - but I'm mor einclined to believe 2040. By that time, nano-manufacturing will be in 3rd of 4th generation, and of a very high quality.

have you read "the fountains of paradise" from arthur c. clark, 1979? fantastic book (well like almost all from clark), has exact this topic (elevator to space).

phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2479

it's still on the front page.

Oops, I missed Chipper's post. Grovel, grovel, self-flagellation.

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Maybe you don't.

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Dealt with.


Great stuff, makes me sad I will be dead by then. Wish I would have been born a few hundred years from now. Oh well, can always hope theres somthing in reincarnation. heh

Popular Mechanics did a story on this idea about a year or two ago. it was proven impratical.

the major factors that deemed it impratical were: objects striking the tower at 17000 MPH. mechanical malfunctions. large enough power sources and mechanical components.

Space Elevator

heres the stuff we need to start looking at seriously for at least a trial run.
they have tried a space tether before with limited results

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Arc ... ation.html

pretty strong stuff
cheers
rij