Giant leap for space elevator tech!

[epicstruggle]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4799369.ece

Im glad to see a nation put a big chunk of resources into this. Hope they get some good success from it.

 

[Arwin]

Weird. I almost can't imagine this being possible. Though if it is, you could use it for generating electricity also - there was some research into creating a 7km high tower that would create an ammonia cooling/heating cycle that would provide huge amounts of electricity (similar to what happens in the sea here and there). It had a similar price-tag, but so far hasn't been greenlighted.

Some questions that I started worrying about have are if something that size would have the power to slow down the earth's rotation, but that's silly of course, because as it moves along with the earth and most everything on it. The other is what happens if a plane flies into it - it will make flight-plans a tiny bit more complex, at any rate.

It would be pretty amazing - right now I'm still grappling with even the concept.

 

[Sxotty]

I missed the leap. All I saw was more of the same. (In other words more talking about carbon nano tubes and the like...I personally think this stuff is too far out, but what the heck why not give it a try, oh right b/c resources are finite and we have to allocate them. Oh drat)

 

[cloudscapes]

this is exciting if they can somehow pull this off! I'd love to see it in my lifetime

 

[_xxx_]

This is a stupid idea.

 

[Sc4freak]

People are still laughing at the idea, so it's still another 50 years off at least.

 

[Mariner]

This is a stupid idea.

Actually, it's a fantastic idea. If a space elevator could be built it would open up the opportunities to explore our solar system which, of course, is packed with resources ready to be exploited.

I agree, however, that we're certainly decades away from having the technology to build such a mechanism.

 

[epicstruggle]

It seems to me that we are one breakthrough away from it being realized. Now getting it done might take years or decades, but its worth investing in it. Carbon nanotubes are useful for many things outside the space elevator.

 

[KimB]

Well, the difficulty with a space elevator is the Coriolis force. This makes it an extremely challenging engineering problem, and you can't launch things off of the elevator at any reasonable velocity. If you go slow enough up the elevator, it makes orbit relatively easy, but you can't go much above that. I'd also worry that there's precious little way to damp oscillations in the structure once they start.

But regardless of the engineering difficulties, it seems to me that we're going to have to have some way of physically launching ourselves into space, without carrying the propulsion fuel on board. And the space elevator is one potential way of doing that. This has the added benefit that if it's possible, it could play a huge role in securing our energy future, because it would make orbital solar collectors a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper to put into orbit (the primary cost of the technology, I should think), aside from the potential to use it to generate electricity from the structure itself.

 

[suryad]

Gundam 00 anyone?

 

[Fred]

The article is right basically. The tensile strength of the lift is everything. You can imagine a lot of stress and torque being applied to the carbon nanotube line at it must be able to resist such strains (lest you have a multi billion dollar investment come crashing down on your head (literally)..

The other problem is we have no idea how to manafacture such a thing in a suitable quantity.

But this is something I fully expect will one day be a reality.. Maybe not tommorow, or even in 50 years, but somewhere down the road people will get it to work.

 

[_xxx_]

Actually, it's a fantastic idea.

If it matrialized just now for free, maybe. But otherwise, I can't see how that could be more useful or viable than the alternatives.

If a space elevator could be built it would open up the opportunities to explore our solar system

How that? It would maybe help explore the Earth orbit, but not much more.

which, of course, is packed with resources ready to be exploited.

Again, how? What's that got to do with the elevator being there or not?

 

[Sxotty]

It seems to me that we are one breakthrough away from it being realized. Now getting it done might take years or decades, but its worth investing in it. Carbon nanotubes are useful for many things outside the space elevator.

Things like causing cancer? Well they may be

The point is there are risks not just wonderful Utopian visions from this.

 

[Mariner]

Current costs of putting material into orbit using traditional rockets are thousands of dollars per pound in weight (tens of thousands for Geosynchronous orbit). This means that the probes and satellites we send up are extremely limited in their capabilities and scope compared to the ideal. Similarly with manned spacecraft - they need to be able to survive both launch and re-entry so the vast amount of weight on them is designed with these factors taken into account.

After the large capital initial investment in building the elevator itself, the cost per pound of putting material into orbit would be a tiny fraction of that of using rockets. You'd also be able to endlessly run material up (or down) the elevator rather than all the detailed planning which goes into launches at present.

Therefore, with a Space Elevator, you couldn't need build satellites/probes/spacecraft on Earth then spend vast amounts launching them into orbit. You'd use the elevator to take components up into space and build the devices there. This should mean investigation into and exploitation of the solar system's resources would become much more viable than at present.

One thing is for sure, if a single country such as Japan is able to successfully produce such a device they'll immediately 'control' the space race as they will be able to achieve much more than everybody else who is stuck with Earth launches.

As mentioned though, it isn't really anything to worry about too much as I feel certain we are still decades away from the technology required for this type of structure.

 

[WhiningKhan]

If it matrialized just now for free, maybe. But otherwise, I can't see how that could be more useful or viable than the alternatives.



How that? It would maybe help explore the Earth orbit, but not much more.



Again, how? What's that got to do with the elevator being there or not?

Someone obviously has not read Fountains of Paradise, Songs of Distant Earth, 3001: The Final Odyssey and some other stuff...

Let's assume we would want to build a massive space dock for constructing USS Enterprise and a Starbase next to it for launching and supporting deep space missions. How do we haul the materials up there?

Chances are that you see a construction site near you. Observe it for a while. Do they:
a) Throw the concrete elements from the surface on top of the buildings?
b) Use a lifter to move stuff from ground to top?

 

[KimB]

Someone obviously has not read Fountains of Paradise, Songs of Distant Earth, 3001: The Final Odyssey and some other stuff...

Let's assume we would want to build a massive space dock for constructing USS Enterprise and a Starbase next to it for launching and supporting deep space missions. How do we haul the materials up there?

Chances are that you see a construction site near you. Observe it for a while. Do they:
a) Throw the concrete elements from the surface on top of the buildings?
b) Use a lifter to move stuff from ground to top?

Right, but for getting beyond Earth's orbit, it doesn't really solve the fundamental problem that rockets are horrifically inefficient. Our only alternatives to rocket propulsion right now, so far as I know, have horribly low accelerations (even if they last for a very long time), and so aren't really that great unless you're okay with it taking a very long time to get to your destination within the solar system.

This is why I think the space pier is such a cool idea, if it's a viable one:
http://autogeny.org/tower/tower.html

According to his theoretical calculations, a space pier is, as far as the construction materials are concerned, actually much further within tolerances than a space elevator. It's basically a big launcher that gets you up into orbit, and one the size of his proposal can even get you to the moon without too much difficulty. And if we have a launcher that can get us to the moon cheaply, due to the moon's lack of atmosphere we can build a much bigger launching device there, one that is capable of getting us much further out in the solar system. For example, having one that sends us to Ceres would be perfect, as that little dwarf planet has little gravitational field, and therefore you don't lose much landing on it for the next leg of the journey.

You'd still need some form of propulsion for course corrections and landing, but this is a much, much lower requirement than getting into or escaping Earth's orbit.

 

[_xxx_]

Someone obviously has not read Fountains of Paradise, Songs of Distant Earth, 3001: The Final Odyssey and some other stuff...

Let's assume we would want to build a massive space dock for constructing USS Enterprise and a Starbase next to it for launching and supporting deep space missions. How do we haul the materials up there?

Chances are that you see a construction site near you. Observe it for a while. Do they:
a) Throw the concrete elements from the surface on top of the buildings?
b) Use a lifter to move stuff from ground to top?

Oh, I did understand the idea behind it. But you do realize that you could build a huge buttload of rockets for just a fraction of the cost of this thing? Also, it will require lots of maintenance which is bound to be very expensive and hard as hell. You'd need what, a century for it to pay off? Thus I see no economical or otherwise advantages, unless the thing magically builds and maintains itself. And also, how do you haul up materials for building it in the first place?

 

[KimB]

Oh, I did understand the idea behind it. But you do realize that you could build a huge buttload of rockets for just a fraction of the cost of this thing? Also, it will require lots of maintenance which is bound to be very expensive and hard as hell. You'd need what, a century for it to pay off? Thus I see no economical or otherwise advantages, unless the thing magically builds and maintains itself. And also, how do you haul up materials for building it in the first place?

Right, so, that's precisely why this is solely a very long-term project. Sure, it takes a heck of a lot of effort to build, but it pays for itself in the long run (provided nothing collides with it...ahem...), simply by virtue of making getting into orbit orders of magnitude cheaper.

 

[Sxotty]

Why cant they just do rail gun shots into space or something like that

 

[KimB]

Why cant they just do rail gun shots into space or something like that

Well, then you'd be fighting against the atmosphere. It might be extraordinarily difficult to get an object into orbit from a ground-based launcher without it burning up. At least, that's my vague suspicion without doing any of the numbers.