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A space elevator is a long ways off - assuming that human interest in space continues and technology develops at similar rates to today, I wouldn't expect somet
by headcanon 8y ago
A space elevator is a long ways off - assuming that human interest in space continues and technology develops at similar rates to today, I wouldn't expect something like that to be constructed for at least a couple centuries. Hopefully I'm wrong, I'd love to see something like that, but a project of that sort would make the space station look like a dinky house-boat in terms of scale and complexity. As crappy as rockets are, I expect we will continue to be using them for the duration of our lifespans.
- credit_guy 8y agoWhat do you think about space elevators for asteroid mining? A large asteroid has a non-negligible escape velocity (e.g. for Ceres it's 500m/s), so taking stuff from them via regular rockets requires a significant amount of fuel. On the other hand, a space elevator could just be possible with our current materials and technology.
- headcanon 8y agoI think a mass driver in most cases would be simpler and more economical. We would use them on earth if we didn't need to worry about the atmosphere. A Space elevator would require that the body spins fast enough that the centripetal acceleration would equal the gravitational acceleration. Ceres spins roughly every 9 hours - I haven't done the math but that seems like it could work in that case, but even so I would still vote mass driver.