Is this structurally possible?? re: space cable (1 Viewer)

[Rex Bachmann]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

 

[BrianW]

According to a new article in the New Scientist, Engineers have finally done a proper study, and it turns out that the Space Elevator may not be all that structurally sound after all.

Well, DUH! The article says many of the same things we've been saying here all along.

Check it out. The article says:
Man, we're so on the ball! From now on, if anybody wants technical answers to an engineering problem, I think they should come here first.

Poo rail gun.

 

[DominoDeja]

Should work because there isn't gravity in space though you'd have to have thrusters on the object in orbit to control it somewhat...

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Sounds like the ultimate place to rapel or bungee jump.

 

[DominoDeja]

Like I said you'd have to have thrusters on the object.

 

[Cees Alons]

I'm still not convinced the cable and/or the connections could be strong enough to hold the total weight of the contraption.

Of course, the upper part is relatively "light", because it has a complementary centrifugal force working on it(increasing in the upward direction, net result becoming zero at the end), but the resultant mass is still heavy, man!

If it breaks, you don't want to be underneath (also see Twins (1988, Ivan Reitman)) - if you have any idea where "underneath" is, exactly, given the initial speed of the once-upper elements!


Cees

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Yes, one of the issues is that the construction would require, at a bare minimum, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of a material which doesn't even exist yet — although, with the sucessful production of carbon nanotubes, the "monocrystalline diamond fibre" that has always been regarded as the only possible building material is a lot closer to reality than it was when first proposed. And, yes, there is some reason to believe that, if the cable broke, the lower part would around the Earth in an easterly direction like the string winding up on a yo-yo. The result (considering that the length of the cable is comparable to the circumference of the Earth) would be like thousands of meteors striking along the equator at once. Larry Niven wrote a novel recently, Rainbow Mars, in which the question of "things that can go wrong with a space elevator" becomes a plot point.

 

[MarkHastings]

Considering the largest man made structure is less than 3,000 feet tall, I think we have a LONG way to go to reach 75 miles (or whatever the edge of the atmosphere is).

Baby steps!

 

[Will_B]

Wouldn't this be the world's longest lightning rod? I'd wonder how the Earth's magnetic field would interact with it. Assuming it is metal that is.

 

[Cees Alons]

And, BTW, if the cable broke, we would also lose the satellite (and anything in it). To compensate for the weight of the cable, the satellite would be in a much higher orbit, lest it be pulled down inevitably by the weight of the cable.
So when that cable breaks, the satellite loses the cable's mass and its pull and it will be launched to outer space. That's one of David's stones added to Christopher's yo-yo.


Cees

 

[Steve_Pannell]

We may be one step closer:

FOXNews.com - Engineering Breakthrough May Make Possible 'Space Elevator' - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

 

[Steve_Tk]

It would probably be better to just have teleporters like in star trek. That way you can easily get the poo railgun to space to fight some aliens and skip that long elevator ride.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Would you believe I am actually drafting a paper on the applications of teleportation to space transportation issues? It turns out that, depending on how the teleportation mechanism works, it may not be very useful at all.

 

[Jason Seaver]

--sigh-- I love science fiction, but sometimes I wonder if it severely warps people's expectations of science and technology. People do things like include the word "just" in sentences like this, or think we can skip all the difficult middle parts and jump straight to settling Earthlike planets in far-off solar systems.

 

[Lew Crippen]

And you easily solve the quantum mechanics problems by introducing the Heisenberg Compensator.

 

[Will_B]

Did you guys watch the end of the Inaugural parade yesterday? NASA drove the lunar buggy (the new one) up, turned it 180 so the astronauts hooked to the back could wave at the President, and then one of them detached him or herself from the buggy, took an American flag, and walked forward as if to plant the flag on the moon. It was as overt a "hey, Barack, you can put a man on the moon if you feel like it, just sayin', imagine that!" moment as you could get. It was amusing.

 

[Dave Mack]

I think I'm going to change my band's name to "poo railgun"...

 

[BrianW]

If you have telporters like in Star Trek, then what do you need with a poo railgun?

I say, skip the middle man: Poo Teleporters!

Now that's living!


Actually, now that I think about it, my house already has three poo teleportation devices.

 

[Eric_L]

I've eaten a few meals that made me wish there was such a thing as a poo teleporter....

 

[Francois Caron]

A poo teleporter is a defective teleporter after it produced an "accident" (Star Trek I).