[ExI] skyhook elevator

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick
> Subject: [ExI] skyhook elevator
> 
> It occurs to me (can't recall ever seeing this discussed, 
> although it must be an ancient sub-topic of skyhook dynamics) 
> that as your elevator climbs or is a shoved up the thread, 
> you'd not only be pressed against the floor but also against 
> the west wall. Maybe you wouldn't notice if the trip took a 
> couple of days, but you're going from rest to 11,000 km/hr. 
> Is that especially noticeable? What say the space gurus?
> 
> Damien Broderick


Coriolis effect sounds like what you are describing, and it would be durn
near negligible.  I will calculate it if you wish.  To give you an idea by
using only numbers in my head and single digit BOTECs, geo is about 36000 km
from the surface as I recall so add 6300 km earth radius and that's close
enough to about 40,000 km so the circumference of the orbit is about 6 and
some change times that, so 250000 km in 24 hrs, so you accelerate to 10000
km per hour or about 3 km per second or so.  

How long do you guess it would take to haul you up to GEO?  An few hours?
Lets say 10.  To accelerate 3 km per second eastward in 10 hrs would be
about 0.1 meters per second, or 100th of a G.  The elevator passengers would
scarcely notice.

It is proportional of course.  If you theorize they get there in 1 hour,
then the coriolis component is about a tenth of a G, but if they get all the
way to GEO in an hour, there is some serious upward velocity involved.

spike