[extropy-chat] Re: Space Elevators

[Damien Broderick]

At 02:23 PM 8/3/2005 -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote:

>Rotation...assuming you adjust your angular velocity accordingly while
>spooling out the cable (an easy trick to do, especially if you're
>careful to spool out an exact same amount straight away from the
>surface at the same time).

This don't make no lick o' sense to me, bubba.

Starting at the hind end -- I reckon you need to spool out a damned sight 
more from the farside spigot, on account o' the gravitational gradient 
weakening. Just a detail.

Now as for rotating -- what Mike called " tidally locked", although that's 
not what it is, just what it emulates -- obviously the station has to be 
spun so it rotates completely once a day, otherwise the cable would get 
wrapped around it. That is, you need to spin the station *before* you start 
feeding out the cable. But that doesn't explain (to me, anyway) how the 
cable sheds its five miles per second orbital velocity as it drops ever 
closer to the ground.

Damien Broderick
[ probably making a complete fool of myself here ]