[ExI] Orbital skyscraper proposal

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, Mar 26, 2017 at 2:52 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>
> I will be surprised if anyone *ever* pulls off an earth to GEO
> elevator.  Carbon nanotubes are about the best we have.  When you put
> a stress on a nanotube that's needed for elevators, the 6 member rings
> become unstable to 5 and 7 member rings and it unzips like a run in a
> stocking.


### Wouldn't it be better to build a combined system with a GEO elevator
ending somewhere in lower orbit, way out of the atmosphere, have
intermediate size non-geosynchronous elevators with the lowest one reaching
almost to the atmosphere, and more conventional systems to reach the lowest
elevator?

This system would not need unobtainium to build, would have more
redundancy, failure of an intermediate stage elevator would not destroy the
whole system, and the benefits of full-length GEO elevator would be still
there. Sure, there would be some chicanery involved in jumping from one
elevator to another but it shouldn't be a showstopper.

Actually, all this won't matter once we have self-replicating technology,
which might happen in the next 50 years but that's another story.

Rafal
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