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A space elevator on Earth would be over 35,000 kilometres long. Depending where it broke it could wrap halfway around the Earth.
by mr_toad 1y ago
A space elevator on Earth would be over 35,000 kilometres long. Depending where it broke it could wrap halfway around the Earth.
- kqr 1y agoAt first I was confused by this because the Kármán line is less than a percent of Earth's circumference up, but then I realised we're probably talking a geostationary anchor or something, which is very nearly a circumference up.
- tsimionescu 1y agoYes, you need a geostationary orbit for the tether, otherwise it would either fall down or spiral away with time.
- gambiting 1y agoCould you make it over double the length needed, so if it ever broke it would be pulled away from Earth and float into space and not crash into the Earth?
- tsimionescu 1y agoNo. You'd need an even more magical material that can witstand at least double the tensile strength (since the parts that go above and below the GEO anchor would be pulling with about the same force in opposite directions). And if you destroyed the GEO point anchor, the cable would just split in two - everything that's below GEO would fall, everything that's above would float away.
- floxy 1y agoLet's say the cable gets detached really close to the geosynchronous tether point (that's the worst case, right?). How much of the cable will burn up in the atmosphere? What is the density of the carbon nano-tube / graphene ribbons? And what is their terminal velocity? Has anyone proposed dimension of a graphene ribbon tether? Like it is 300 mm wide by 0.01 mm thick?