Giant leap for space elevator tech!

[tongue_of_colicab]

Ive read at least 3 sci-fi books where these elevators come crashing down
but hey Im all for the idea.

If ppl are willing to pay virgin $100,000 for 6 minutes of weightlessness at 100km high (I think this venture will fail btw),

Offtopic, but I dont see why people wouldnt. Space is pretty much the only place you cant travel to relative easy (expect for the deep see, but nobody cares about that as you cant see anything there). I think 100k isnt alot of money for something so special. We already had a couple of people willing to spend tens of millions to go into space, people that got 100k to blow away are alot easier to find. I think, and I hope it will succeed so that the price will come down faster and more people can go and space will be explored more. Because as it looks to me, we arnt really going anywhere right now. There isnt a single country that is really putting in a big effort to set the next step in space exploration. Maybe if it is commercially interresting things will speed up more (afterall, if you think about it, it didnt took that much more than 20 years from the first manned space flights to a relative cheap 100k commercial flight, that is quite fast I think, especially under the circumstances that craft has been build and developed).

 

[epicstruggle]

There isnt a single country that is really putting in a big effort to set the next step in space exploration.

China is. They should leap Russia, EU and the US in the coming years. Their program is accelerating forward while everyone else has stalled.

 

[zed]

But I would use a big pipe at the side of the mountain instead of a hole through the center as the barrel. Much simpler and cheaper.

yes I did mention that ("enclosed ramp on the outside"), my english sucks, barrel is the better word.
part of the reason is if theres an accident + the barrels destroyed it should be quite easy to repair.

I still have serious doubts about the possibility of actually successfully launching something into orbit, though. It just seems to me that the air friction would make it nigh impossible to build a vehicle that could survive. And the accelerations might be too great for human flight

humans would still be launched from the top of the mountain in a conventional rocket, I dont know what the air density is at 15km high (I quickly searched but couldnt find it) but it should require a lot less feul to achieve orbit than what they use now;

I think 100k isnt alot of money for something so special. We already had a couple of people willing to spend tens of millions to go into space, people that got 100k to blow away are alot easier to find. I think, and I hope it will succeed so that the price will come down faster and more people can go and space will be explored more.

yes apparently the price is gonna come down a lot, but even if I had the cash I dont know if I'ld pay, the ppl are only weightless for 6 minutes (+ theres no inflight movie)

(afterall, if you think about it, it didnt took that much more than 20 years from the first manned space flights to a relative cheap 100k commercial flight, that is quite fast I think, especially under the circumstances that craft has been build and developed).

quick!!! its been nearly 40 years since a persons been on the moon.
1961 (person in space) -> 1969 (person on the moon) . now thats fast,
Personally it seems like we've gone backwards over the last few decades

 

[nutball]

China is. They should leap Russia, EU and the US in the coming years. Their program is accelerating forward while everyone else has stalled.

Are they? Looks to me like their current efforts revolve around catching up with where everyone else is. Man in orbit, space station in orbit, trip to the Moon. All of which has been done before. They say they're going to go to Mars, well NASA and others have said that too.

China has a lot of enthusiasm at the moment, and they have the political advantage that they can kill as many astrononauts as they have to to achieve their goal, a luxury which the West doesn't have. But their goal clearly is catch-up, and catch-up with 40-year-old technology at that. Anything beyond what NASA/ESA/Russia currently do routinely is just window-dressing.

Ultimately none of what China is doing counts as developing the next-generation of anything.

 

[epicstruggle]

Are they? Looks to me like their current efforts revolve around catching up with where everyone else is. Man in orbit, space station in orbit, trip to the Moon. All of which has been done before.

Like I said, they should leap the current leaders in a few years. They first need to catch up before they can "leap" ahead.

They say they're going to go to Mars, well NASA and others have said that too.

Im almost willing to be that the first person to step on mars will be Chinese and not American/European.

China has a lot of enthusiasm at the moment, and they have the political advantage that they can kill as many astrononauts as they have to to achieve their goal, a luxury which the West doesn't have.

I havent heard of any of their astronauts being killed. Has it been a major problem?

But their goal clearly is catch-up, and catch-up with 40-year-old technology at that. Anything beyond what NASA/ESA/Russia currently do routinely is just window-dressing.

Ultimately none of what China is doing counts as developing the next-generation of anything.

Err... I never said that. I probably should have stated it more clearly, but my point is that China will most certainly catch up to Nasa/Esa/Russia within a short period of time and then they will blow us away. They have the money, they dont have the stupid bureaucracy that is preventing big projects from moving forward, and they have the will power necessary for such endeavors, that's not even counting the fact that it will be another "Olympics moment" where they can show off to the world.

 

[nutball]

I havent heard of any of their astronauts being killed. Has it been a major problem?

Point is that much of the bureaucracy that plagues NASA has come about because of an obsession with managing risk. NASA can't be seen to be putting astronauts lives at unnecessary risk, both the media and Congress would come down on them like a ton of bricks. This makes them cautious as an organisation, and they try to take steps to put in place every conceivable measure to study, quantify and ameliorate risk. Reducing risk is expensive, eventually prohibitively so.

It wasn't like this during the Mercury, Gemini or Apollo programmes of course which was when NASA was at its best. There was a different view of the balance between risk and reward which came from the President downward.

I doubt that the Chinese media are in a position to make so much fuss, or that Chinese politicians share the concerns of their US equivalents (oh they'll be worried about failure because it'll look bad). The space programme managers can take a different perspective from those at NASA I think.

 

[Frank]

I still have serious doubts about the possibility of actually successfully launching something into orbit, though. It just seems to me that the air friction would make it nigh impossible to build a vehicle that could survive. And the accelerations might be too great for human flight.

As I said, you would still need the second (and possibly third) stage(s), but you could lose the first one and the booster rockets. That's about 80% of the mass right there.

 

[KimB]

As I said, you would still need the second (and possibly third) stage(s), but you could lose the first one and the booster rockets. That's about 80% of the mass right there.

That would have to be an incredibly monstrous launcher, and I still have doubts about the heat generated from the air friction, even in this case.

 

[Sxotty]

Err... I never said that. I probably should have stated it more clearly, but my point is that China will most certainly catch up to Nasa/Esa/Russia within a short period of time and then they will blow us away. They have the money, they dont have the stupid bureaucracy that is preventing big projects from moving forward, and they have the will power necessary for such endeavors, that's not even counting the fact that it will be another "Olympics moment" where they can show off to the world.

China actually has plenty of stupid bureaucracy. In case you haven't noticed look at the milk example. That is because of stupid bureaucracy. Stupid in that it did not catch on...

China still relies heavily on copying designs from elsewhere so they will have a much more difficult time moving far beyond than you seem to imagine. Once they catch up there will be no one to copy from.

They can spend enough money to do it though if they wish, but they will slow down at that point.

 

[KimB]

I'm expecting them to have far more problems when they hit a resource crunch that suddenly and dramatically halts their growing economy.

 

[epicstruggle]

At least they are moving forward at the moment, even if they have a while to catch up. Ive been disappointed with NASA for many years.

 

[Sxotty]

NASA is in an impossible situation IMO.

Their funding is so unpredictable and the mandates for what they should accomplish so unrealistic (go to mars seems to be the magic thing that comes up repeatedly for no real reason) that they seem to spend all their time chasing their tail and not accomplishing as much as they otherwise might.

 

[1BFC]

How to return?

On the subject of the Space Pier....how would payloads return? As in, any human cargo would have to do a space shuttle style re-entry still?

I don't know about you guys.... But every time something goes wrong with various space program projects... it seems to happen on re-entry. Be it here on Earth or on another celestial body.

So, the pier certainly reads like it would be a great boon to get us off our little rock. I just want to be able to come back home as easily/cheaply/safely

Elevator would provide up and down safe travel. The Pier would not (if I read it correctly).

Still, fascinating proposal for the Pier idea, I actually like it even though I'm playing devil's advocate with it.

 

[KimB]

On the subject of the Space Pier....how would payloads return? As in, any human cargo would have to do a space shuttle style re-entry still?

I'm expecting small thrusters to change orbit on a heat shield-protected vehicle.

Elevator would provide up and down safe travel. The Pier would not (if I read it correctly).

Sorry, but the elevator doesn't provide downward travel in any significant capacity.

And, by the way, I'm not aware of any problems on reentry other than the Colombia disaster. But that was a problem due to damage on launch. All of the other US space accidents of which I'm aware happened on launch.

 

[Sxotty]

I'm expecting small thrusters to change orbit on a heat shield-protected vehicle.


Sorry, but the elevator doesn't provide downward travel in any significant capacity.

And, by the way, I'm not aware of any problems on reentry other than the Colombia disaster. But that was a problem due to damage on launch. All of the other US space accidents of which I'm aware happened on launch.

Reentry problems:
I think they are referring to the many probes that have crashed into mars, or other bodies.

The soyuz that keep screwing up. And the columbia of course.

 

[KimB]

Reentry problems:
I think they are referring to the many probes that have crashed into mars, or other bodies.

Well, it's much harder to build a probe that will land safely on Mars, due to the thin atmosphere. You get much more of a chance to brake when landing on Earth. Not sure what other probes have crashed elsewhere.

The soyuz that keep screwing up. And the columbia of course.

Guess I haven't kept up with the Russian vehicle failures, but I would have expected to hear of any manned vehicle problems...

 

[RussSchultz]

Sorry, but the elevator doesn't provide downward travel in any significant capacity.

???

Surely whatever goes up, goes down. Or are we saying a 'space elevator' is just a guidewire to lift things up, and then detach from?

 

[KimB]

???

Surely whatever goes up, goes down. Or are we saying a 'space elevator' is just a guidewire to lift things up, and then detach from?

Well, the main problem with taking them down is that you would have to have the released object reattach to the space elevator. This is a problem because after detaching, the object would have had to enter an orbit which never intersects with the space elevator (for obvious reasons). So the orbit would have to be readjusted very precisely to not only intersect with the space elevator, but to do so at a very low relative velocity. This is only going to be possible at the height of a geosynchronous orbit, so I doubt it would be very easy to pull off (at any other altitude, the space elevator is in motion with respect to an unpowered orbit).

Anyway, due to the delicacy of the docking operation, and due to the fact that you do not want to damage the elevator, I seriously doubt it would ever be used to bring things down from orbit. Much, much easier to just use a heat shield and use a bit of thrust to cause the orbit of the manned vehicle to decay.

 

[Sxotty]

Guess I haven't kept up with the Russian vehicle failures, but I would have expected to hear of any manned vehicle problems...

They were screw ups not failures. Something to be said for landing with parachutes instead of gliding. I think some explosive bolts were not breaking right or something.

In any case it seems going up can be dangerous as well.

 

[Frank]

???

Surely whatever goes up, goes down. Or are we saying a 'space elevator' is just a guidewire to lift things up, and then detach from?

You can take goods up and down at will, but when you assemble a spaceship in orbit, it won't be able to use the elevator to come down again, unless you dismantle it again. But it could land on it's own.

I think there was a bit of miscommunication with Chalnoth.