[ExI] Space Elevator

Jeff Davis jrd1415 at gmail.com
Tue Mar 25 20:47:08 UTC 2008


The geostationary orbital distance is somewhere around 22,000 miles
out, and to counterbalance what all hangs below you need a
counterweight further out than that.  Anything shorter and it would
all come crashing down (actually it would never get up there in the
first place.)

Low earth orbital distance however, starts at the "top" of the
atmosphere, round about 100 miles up.  So the whole space elevator
thing has to be more than 220 times longer than the distance to "outer
space".   Now, mature nanotech and carbon nanotubes might very well
make it feasible, but setting aside my committed disinclination to
naysaying, I just can't help thinking that the space elevator is...,
well..., tending somewhat toward the "crackpottish".  [My apologies if
I have hurt anyone's feelings.]

I have a bett..., ur..., different idea.  An inflated structure --
dome or tube or ramp-like thingie -- with the topmost part up there
above the hundred mile mark. Even if it were a thousand miles long and
a hundred miles high(at the high point) it would still be a fraction
of the size of the space elevator, and substantially cheaper -- my
opinion -- and easier to construct -- since fabrication and setup
would all take place on good ol' terra firma.

This is part of a much bigger project (of mine) which I'm sharing with
youse guys and gals on account of your being folks of like mind -- you
know, technophiles, first adopters, vanguard of the technorati and
all.  But I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't spread it around too much,
you know, just your best buds and those likely to be friendly toward
such notions.  Mum's the word, mostly.

Best, Jeff Davis

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only
think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the
solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
                      - Buckminster Fuller


On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> Keith wrote
>
>  > The unobtainium part of the space elevator is the cable.  There are
>  > persistent rumors that the University of Cambridge has demonstrated 20
>  > GPa nanotube yarn, the report has been expected to be published in
>  > science for a few months, but nothing has happened.  Even 20 GPa isn't
>  > strong enough, but it's getting there.
>
>  I've never looked into this or studied it at all.  But what about this?
>  Just as we launch today's spaceships from the bottom of a big
>  airliner or a B52, why not tether the lower end to the highest
>  flying dirigible we can find?  Cable still too heavy?
>
>  Lee
>
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