I missed that notice at where its says: Here be a near mars atmosphere in temperature, pressure (40 kms up) but not as hostile composition and with less radiation. Thats five Mt Everests high.
Space Elevator
71–80 of 414 posts
Re: Space Elevator
#72The other direction: https://neal.fun/deep-sea/
And "up", but shown sideways, and on a different scale: https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.... "If the Moon were only 1 pixel"
Neal also made one:
Re: Space Elevator
#73The other direction: https://neal.fun/deep-sea/
I'm here to find this one, thank you!
Re: Space Elevator
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bigger problem I think is the elevator itself. Cutting it and letting it fall would be far more destructive than any weapon ever fired or even conceived.
Probably no easy task. Snipping off just the first few kilometers is not catastrophically destructive yet, and cutting it down further up would require multistage rocket designs, sophisticated steering/targeting and potentially significant yield (you'd need to cut unobtainium, after all...). If you can build a space elevator, you can defend against those. You better thoroughly inspect what cargo you put on the elevat…
Only if the material is way over provisioned. In general, the higher the intrinsic structural load is on a material, the easier it will be to destroy. So, to defend from these attacks, you not only need a cable that can support its own weight, plus the weight of the desired payload, plus some small-is extra tolerance. Instead, you probably need a cable that can support, say, twice its own weight plus four-five times the payload. Not to mention, now you don't only need excellent strength along the cable, but also across from it, and extreme heat resistance too (all of the strength is irrelevant if it's enough to coat some part of the cable in thermite and ignite it)
Re: Space Elevator
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
While a space elevator doesn't contradict any fundamental limits of physics, that doesn't mean it's actually possible to build one. There is no reason to be certain that it's actually possible to create a material that has the required characteristics in terms of tensile strength to support it's own weight, plus the weight of the elevator, plus the weight of all the additional cabling. It also has to endure the huge…
A terrorist attack on a space elevator happens to figure in the first episode of the TV series Foundation. https://foundation.fandom.com/wiki/Bombing_of_the_Star_Bridg... It’s about as devastating as you would expect.
That's odd. The first episode was the only one I watched and I don't remember that bit. It might have grabbed me.
A terrorist attack on a space elevator is a pivotal plot point in Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, which IMHO is a better work in basically every way than Asimov's magnum opus.
Re: Space Elevator
#76Perfect. I think it just needs explanation of Karman line. Why is it 100km. What is the meaning?
Re: Space Elevator
#77TIL it's estimated that over 48 tons of meteors hit the atmosphere every day. Regarding actual space elevators though, while they're not sci-fi to the extent of something like FTL travel - ie. they're technically not physically impossible - they're still pretty firmly in the realm of sci-fi. We don't have anything close to a cable that could sustain its own weight, let alone that of whatever is being elevated. Plus,…
While a space elevator doesn't contradict any fundamental limits of physics, that doesn't mean it's actually possible to build one. There is no reason to be certain that it's actually possible to create a material that has the required characteristics in terms of tensile strength to support it's own weight, plus the weight of the elevator, plus the weight of all the additional cabling. It also has to endure the huge…
The issue of the line falling back to earth is solved by putting the base of the elevator on water. If the top part of the elevator was cut of you could even detonate charges along the line to make sure all pieces fall into water.
Re: Space Elevator
#78Perfect. I think it just needs explanation of Karman line. Why is it 100km. What is the meaning?
It's my understanding that the Karman Line the conventionally accepted "edge" where you leave the atmosphere and enter outer space, but many call this out as a fairly arbitrary point, arguing that there is no measurable boundary. Useful as a point of reference for positioning, though. Neal possibly just used it as a marker but chose to not define it for this reason.
Re: Space Elevator
#79This was incredible! Couldn't stop scrolling and reading. For a kid of a certain age and curiosity it'll blow their mind! I'm so grateful the creator made this, shame that his "buy me a coffee" isn't a simple PayPal or Apple Pay but you have to put in credit card or bank details!!
PayPal and Apple pay take a significant cut of the transaction. CC is a lot less and bank is mostly free of TX fees.
Most users don't know/don't care, so given the option, they will likely take it and funnel their donations to conglomerates.
Re: Space Elevator
#80Lovely, as all neal.fun experiments. My favorite is probably https://neal.fun/infinite-craft/
This type of interactive learning experience reminds me of how fun it was to browse Encarta back in the day. It was full of interesting facts, presented in fun interactive ways. As much as I love that we have Wikipedia today, a static web page with text and limited multimedia is far less engaging and conducive to learning.
I think that Neal Agarwal and Bartosz Ciechanowski should be sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation to create similar experiences on Wikipedia. That would do so much to facilitate learning for students of all ages.