4 ms·
Strong enough for a space elevator?
by j_m_b 2y ago
Strong enough for a space elevator?
- avmich 2y agoNot strong enough to survive collisions of satellites with the space elevator.
- DigitalHackOp 2y agoNot even close. They optimized for strength-to-weight ratios, which is great for a ton of things, but a space elevator needs insane levels of brute strength. Were not sure the material can exist in our current understanding of physics
- readthenotes1 2y ago"Great for a ton of things" heh
- Qwertious 2y agoDon't forget that space elevators need more than brute strength: they need to be immune to all sorts of cosmic radiation and space debris, they presumably need to be electrically conductive since the elevator carriage will need a lot of power to travel upwards a few thousand KMs before their passengers starve to death, they need to be robust against the elevator carriage's friction, and probably a few other things.
- _w1tm 2y ago> they presumably need to be electrically conductive since the elevator carriage will need a lot of power to travel upwards a few thousand KMs before their passengers starve to death Even a slow space elevator that can only be used for transporting cargo would already be extremely useful. You could even load it with a container filled with life support if you really need to ship living cargo.
- Turing_Machine 2y agoAn orbit to ground space elevator would indeed be challenging, but the cable doesn't have to go all the way to the ground to be useful. Shorter tethers have many applications, and those can be made out of non-exotic materials (e.g. Kevlar). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tether https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_tether There are still challenges, of course.
- beambot 2y agoThe lattice structures shown in the article are likely optimized for compression strength. Tensile strength is the limiting factor for space elevators. Very different design constraints.