Space Elevator
neal.fun
Space Elevator
1–10 of 216 posts
Re: Space Elevator
#2At 74km/h you would reach space (100km karman line) in an hour and a half but you would need to keep going for another 20 days at that speed reach geostationary orbit in order to not fall back to earth when you exit the space elevator.
Re: Space Elevator
#3I love this. Space elevators are going to be here much sooner than it seems with carbon nanotube tech. :)
Re: Space Elevator
#4Simply beautiful.
Re: Space Elevator
#5I don't understand why so many seemingly educated people keep discussing Earth space elevator. For a long time there is a conclusion that the elevator is incompatible with Earth satellites, which mostly fly below GEO, and elevator will collide with satellites, with all negative consequences. The inherent elevator problem has nothing to do with the material of the cable.
Am I missing something?
Re: Space Elevator
#6Amazing visualization. The most interesting part to me is the weird fluctuation in temperature. You'd think it would trend in a single direction. What causes all the frequent ups and downs?
Re: Space Elevator
#7I don't understand why so many seemingly educated people keep discussing Earth space elevator. For a long time there is a conclusion that the elevator is incompatible with Earth satellites, which mostly fly below GEO, and elevator will collide with satellites, with all negative consequences. The inherent elevator problem has nothing to do with the material of the cable. Am I missing something?
Maybe because it's an old idea, from a time when non-GEO satellites were rare?
(when I was a kid in the 60s/70s, the cool thing was geostationary satellites)
Re: Space Elevator
#8I don't understand why so many seemingly educated people keep discussing Earth space elevator. For a long time there is a conclusion that the elevator is incompatible with Earth satellites, which mostly fly below GEO, and elevator will collide with satellites, with all negative consequences. The inherent elevator problem has nothing to do with the material of the cable. Am I missing something?
It's an idea that straddles science fiction and reality, but is simple enough for normal people to understand and have an opinion about.
Re: Space Elevator
#9I don't understand why so many seemingly educated people keep discussing Earth space elevator. For a long time there is a conclusion that the elevator is incompatible with Earth satellites, which mostly fly below GEO, and elevator will collide with satellites, with all negative consequences. The inherent elevator problem has nothing to do with the material of the cable. Am I missing something?
To me, a long-time sci-fi reader but hardly a hardcore space nut, your argument reads a little like "I don't understand why people are discussing horseless carriages, I mean what would the street sweepers do without all the manure to clean up?".
In other words, a functioning space elevator would be grand, epic and useful in ways that make the potential loss of some satellite orbits look like a very minor detail. At least that's my take. Too bad about the materials science not doing its part, huh. :)
Re: Space Elevator
#10I don't understand why so many seemingly educated people keep discussing Earth space elevator. For a long time there is a conclusion that the elevator is incompatible with Earth satellites, which mostly fly below GEO, and elevator will collide with satellites, with all negative consequences. The inherent elevator problem has nothing to do with the material of the cable. Am I missing something?
I think the space-elevator concept is sort of silly, but this doesn't seem like the most pertinent criticism to me. Presumably in a hypothetical future in which a space elevator is under serious consideration, vastly greater resources are being devoted to space technology, launch costs are much less than now, and are about to get cheaper still due to the elevator in question. It seems like if we were on the cusp of being able to 100x the number of satellites or whatever, sacrificing the existing fleet for new ones in different orbits that avoided the elevator wouldn't be too big a sacrifice.