[extropy-chat] Re: Space Elevators

[Damien Broderick]

At 11:30 AM 8/3/2005 -0500, Jay wrote:

>As I remember, the latest problem with a SE was vibration, harmonics,
>and damping. Damien Broderick gave some attention to this during the
>conferences. Any comments, D.B.?

I'm fairly clueless when it comes to the fine grain detail. All I recall is 
the suggestion by Clarke and others that the cable might be able to avoid 
satellites by harmonic twanging. I believe Spike had objections to this.

But the problem I have simply conceptualising this thing is that I still 
don't understand *how* the cable is lowered. My intuition tells me that if 
you simply extrude it toward the ground, it's going to rise slowly and 
majestically to the same height above ground as the station -- that is, 
back into geosynchronous orbit -- where it will hang in a nice curve up 
ahead of the station, while the ballast end will curve downward to hang 
behind it like a tail. Don't tell me gravity will keep the cable straight 
-- every part of the thing has the same GEO velocity it started with. Or am 
I missing something extremely obvious?

Damien Broderick