Earth-to-space Elevator Proposed

[Barbarossa]

Originally posted by bigboab@17 October 2003 - 17:49
I am trying to imagine how this is going to be achieved. We have to assume a giant tube just hanging in the sky while the earth passes it by at its rotating speed.
Now the difficult bit. How do you make a connection. Or am I missing something.

The top of the elevator would essentially be in geostationary orbit, i.e. it would always be over the same point on the earths surface, so it could be permanently anchored there.


@rat faced, can't remember a space elevator in the Foundation series.... Trantor was a world-encompassing city, the centre of the Galactic Empire.

Looks like I might have to re-read them...

[Billy_Dean]

The space elevator is credited to Arthur C Clarke, whether that makes him the first to mention it, I don't know.

[Barbarossa]

Originally posted by Billy_Dean@20 October 2003 - 14:38
The space elevator is credited to Arthur C Clarke, whether that makes him the first to mention it, I don't know.

I'm sure in the back of "The Fountains of Paradise" he credits someone else with the theory, I'll have a look when I get home.

There's loads of stuff on the web about it anyway.

http://www.spaceelevator.com/

Also, from http://www.eurekasci.com/SPACE_ELEVATOR/intro.html

The space elevator first appeared in 1960 (Artsutanov) in a Russian technical journal. In the following years the concept appeared several times in technical journals (Isaacs, 1966; Pearson, 1975; Clarke, 1979) and then began to appear in science fiction (Clarke, 1978; Stanley Robinson, 1993). The simplest explanation of the space elevator concept is that it is a cable with one end attached to the Earth's surface and the other end in space beyond geosynchronous orbit (35,800 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity at the lower end and outward centripetal acceleration at the farther end keep the cable under tension and stationary over a single position on Earth. This cable, once deployed, can be ascended by mechanical means to Earth orbit. If a climber proceeds to the far end of the cable and releases it would have sufficient energy to escape from Earth's gravity well and travel to the Moon, Mars, Venus and the asteroids.

[ilw]

The competing forces of gravity at the lower end and outward centripetal acceleration at the farther end keep the cable under tension and stationary over a single position on Earth

That statement is just crap physics.

Theres an in depth analysis here(table of contents the first page of which is definitely worth glancing at here (Its an nteresting site, but I'm not sure the physics explanations are any better they make reference to centrifugal acceleration?)
Personally i'd never considered the scale of it, but check this picture out


It faces quite a few problems as well

There is a whole set of environmental threats the space elevator will need to survive including:

    * Lightning
    * Meteors
    * Space debris
    * Low-Earth-orbit
    * Wind
    * Atomic oxygen
    * Electromagnetic fields
    * Radiation
    * Erosion of cable by sulferic acid droplets in the upper atmosphere (Hieken, 2000)

Most of these are capable of destroying our space elevator on short order if we aren't careful. The first lightning storm or strong wind would destroy the bottom end of the cable, meteors would shred it before we even got the initial ribbon deployed, atomic oxygen will eat it in a month whereas a low-Earthorbit object would hit it every 250 days. Fortunately there are solutions to each of these problems.

[mogadishu]

why dont they just get the elevator from willy wonka and the chocolate factory... it could go anywhere.

[Neo 721]

The project was being considered by the European space agency, but these guys dont seem like the kind of orginization that consider such an undertaking judging by the amount of funding they get.
There is another problem where the hell would put such a thing, you could put in the middle of the sea but what about storms (one hell of a fall). and who would take resposibility of maintaining it. Also the cost, around $10 bln

[Rat Faced]

I feel that $10 Bn is rather on the low side for a space elevator

[Evil Gemini]

PMSL!!!!! LMAO!!!!!

why dont they just get the elevator from willy wonka and the chocolate factory... it could go anywhere.

Thats the exact same thing that popped in my head when i read the subject.


This is the most stupidest idea i have ever heard!! How wide is this thing going to have to be to keep its strength and how far under the ground is it going to have to be to keep it steady ??

Imagine if it smashed and tipped

[Virtualbody1234]

Just think about how high man has been able to build the tallest buildings.

Once you think about it you will realize how impossible this elevator is.

[SodiumChloride]

Reminds me of the space elevator from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

It was a secret project you could only build after researching such futuristic things such as high-tensile solids and other high sci-fi stuff.

Maybe in a couple generations we'll build it