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The key point: the Columbia study differs from previous proposal in an important way: instead of building the elevator from the Earth’s surface (which is impos
by kuu 7y ago
The key point:
the Columbia study differs from previous proposal in an important way: instead of building the elevator from the Earth’s surface (which is impossible with today’s technology), it would be anchored on the moon and stretch some 200,000 miles toward Earth until hitting the geostationary orbit height (about 22,236 miles above sea level), at which objects move around Earth in lockstep with the planet’s own rotation.
Dangling the space elevator at this height would eliminate the need to place a large counterweight near Earth’s orbit to balance out the planet’s massive gravitational pull if the elevator were to be built from ground up. This method would also prevent any relative motion between Earth’s surface and space below the geostationary orbit area from bending or twisting the elevator
- coldtea 7y ago>instead of building the elevator from the Earth’s surface (which is impossible with today’s technology), it would be anchored on the moon and stretch some 200,000 miles toward Earth until hitting the geostationary orbit height (about 22,236 miles above sea level) Yeah, that's totally feasible and useful... /s I hope those guys are not paid with public money...
- echelon 7y ago> I hope those guys are not paid with public money... I hope they are. Engineering feats like this propel us as a species forward. Imagine the material science involved in simply achieving the correct tensile strength. Every thought that goes into this will find application in other areas. I can't imagine this will get built, especially not in our lifetimes, but I do hope that it is one of many such endeavors humans will embark upon.
- coldtea 7y ago>Engineering feats like this propel us as a species forward. Note that there are no feats thus far...
- asavadatti 7y agoWhat device did you type your comment on?
- ElFitz 7y agoProbably specifically meant the purely theoretical (and devoid of any tangible engineering feat) paper
- coldtea 7y agoNot a space elevator or anything designed by the team in the article, I can assure you of that... It's not like there can't be some research that's realistic and have tangible (even if remote) goals, like e.g. rocket research in the 20s and 30s, and some that's just theoretical filler -- and that we can never tell one from the other...
- detcader 7y agoWithout looking anything up, can you give an example of what material science advances have come out of NASA or other space programs, that have propelled us forward as a species?
- rewq4321 7y ago> Without looking anything up Not GP, but... what? Why are you filtering materials by the GP's in-brain knowledge?
- detcader 7y agoThere is the general-knowledge question I asked about space programs, and then the more personal question of whether someone has a familiarity with the subject or if they've adopted a talking point, perhaps as a side-effect of economic incentives much larger than themselves and their own lives. I think the personal question is at least as interesting as the general-knowledge one
- patagonia 7y agoThis would enable getting back from the moon to be much easier.