Space elevator
Space elevator |
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Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Space elevator
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Report in the Telegraph, says Japanese construction firm will build a space elevator in 40 years. | |
ID: 1198470 ·  | |
The company said it would carry up to 30 passengers at a time and travel at a speed of 120mph for a week, stopping off at a station at 22,370 miles. Surprised at the Torygraph, this is pure science fiction .... | |
| ID: 1198515 · | |
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lol it reminds me : the space elevator in the game : Sid Meyer's Civilisation IV ^^ | |
| ID: 1198526 · | |
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The Space elevator is one of those things that look good on paper but to me defies any logical means of construction. I can see how it would operate and stay in place after it is built but I can't figure out how it would be erected before tearing itself up. | |
| ID: 1198746 · | |
The company said it would carry up to 30 passengers at a time and travel at a speed of 120mph for a week, stopping off at a station at 22,370 miles. That's what they said about Arthur C Clarkes prediction about geo-stationary satellites in 1947. The Space elevator is also one of his idea's and about 10 years go they said that material stength only had to be increased about 100 fold for it to be possible. | |
| ID: 1198747 · | |
The Space elevator is one of those things that look good on paper but to me defies any logical means of construction. I can see how it would operate and stay in place after it is built but I can't figure out how it would be erected before tearing itself up. My view and therefore probably totally impractical (another way of saying stupid); Build geostationary space station Ferry to space station 24,000 miles of very strong but light string. Fix firmly to space station and then take free end back to earth Use this string to drag stronger thicker rope up to space station repeat as necessary, until strong enough to fix elevator to it. see, easy, but with so many holes in it, it probably is impractical now. | |
| ID: 1198752 · | |
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The Two err 3 main problems i see are the earths wobble, Wind, and the massive amount of space junk floating around our planet. Lets also not forget that the elevator would have to pass through a layer of satellites then have to be sheilded from the routine meteor shower for which the earth is constantly being exposed. | |
| ID: 1198812 · | |
Anyway, it was the Star Trek movies that came to my mind when reading this. teleporting is a totally different subject and other than being impossible at this time has nothing to do with the space elevator concept. ____________ Bob DeWoody | |
| ID: 1198838 · | |
The Two err 3 main problems i see are the earths wobble, Wind, and the massive amount of space junk floating around our planet. Lets also not forget that the elevator would have to pass through a layer of satellites then have to be sheilded from the routine meteor shower for which the earth is constantly being exposed. Wind shouldn't be a problem since the majority of the mass of the thing will be well above the atmosphere. Kind of like an ant pushing on your shoe. You wouldn't even notice it. Space junk and meteor showers are related issues and solvable. First, decide what the smallest bit of space debris can do damage, then build detection systems that can detect that size of an object far enough away to allow time for lasers (or something similar) to shoot 'em down. Dunno about Earth wobble. Maybe it would just wobble along with it? I'll have to muse on that one for a bit. Still, since the whole thing is pie-in-the-sky <snicker>, we can invent all sorts of technical gizmo's to make it work. ____________ | |
| ID: 1198952 · | |
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Don't think earth wobble comes into it. If the earth did wobble all the geo-stationary satellites that we use for communications like TV wouldn't work, because the footprint they transmit too must always be covered. | |
| ID: 1198954 · | |
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GPS satellites are being continuously updated to account for relativity. within days they'd be so far off for locations that they'd be useless. Pluss non-military GPS is only good within 10-15 meters IIRC One of the most significant error sources is the GPS receiver's clock. Because of the very large value of the speed of light, c, the estimated distances from the GPS receiver to the satellites, the pseudoranges, are very sensitive to errors in the GPS receiver clock; for example an error of one microsecond (0.000 001 second) corresponds to an error of 300 metres (980 ft). This suggests that an extremely accurate and expensive clock is required for the GPS receiver to work. Because manufacturers prefer to build inexpensive GPS receivers for mass markets, the solution for this dilemma is based on the way sphere surfaces intersect in the GPS problem. The earths wobble is only about 10-20 meters a year so it pretty much falls into the margin of error for a civilian GPS device. However having a device hanging out at 22k miles and having to keep the line taught at all times would prove nerve wricking even for a machine. Depending on the material used the top of the elevator would have to be able to move with the wobble otherwise I would suspect minor ossilations would occur along the shaft. So the problem is how to keep a 22,000 mile long string straight. ____________ Proud member of TSWB. End terrorism by building a school  | |
| ID: 1198969 · | |
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GPS receivers are actually quite accurate. A few years ago, when I worked for a water taxi service, our units routinely gave better than 10m accuracy. For example, at the end of the day, when I tied up at the pier, I could pinpoint which end of the pier I was closest to with just the GPS. (The pier was about 15 m long, which would presume approx 7.5 m accuracy.) I would imagine that newer unites improve on that. | |
| ID: 1198982 · | |
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the whole problem with GPS is distance and time. Time is the enemy GPS satellites are in LEO. To get a space elevator to maintain position become about 1000X harder even when onboard computers adjust for time and distance. there is only so much that a computer can guess at before something bad happens. | |
| ID: 1199098 · | |
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Is it me or is musicplayer on a different thread but his/her responses are appearing here? | |
| ID: 1199166 · | |
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If we can't understand music player , | |
| ID: 1199255 · | |
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Different planet? | |
| ID: 1199359 · | |
Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Space elevator
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