4 ms·

Self healing cables. You could use three parallel cables separated from each other by struts, with sufficient margin of safety that severing just one or two st

Self healing cables. You could use three parallel cables separated from each other by struts, with sufficient margin of safety that severing just one or two strands still allows the surviving strand to hold the elevator's entire weight while repairs are performed. When a meteorite hits a strand, or two, robots going up and down the cable will immediately repair the break. What about lightning though? When a cloud contains an imbalance of electrons, won't the lightning strike much rather travel through the cable and weaken the material so it breaks?

mrfusion 13y ago
If anything it would work like a lightening rod and discharge the currently gradually so it never builds up in the first place.
- mmphosis 13y ago
  And, could that current in the tether be used as a source of energy? And, would stopping lightning cause other problems for Earth?
  - Tuna-Fish 13y ago
    > And, could that current in the tether be used as a source of energy? Yes, but the actual continuous power delivered by it would be surprisingly low, making it pointless. > And, would stopping lightning cause other problems for Earth? No, as the effect would be very localized.
VLM 13y ago
"What about lightning though?" We have commercial experience (well, at least in Russia) making communications towers a mile or so tall. Making one five miles tall would not be a huge stretch of the imagination, and those are fairly tolerant of all kinds of ridiculous abuse. Simply attach the elevator at the top of the tower instead of ground level and you've eliminate pretty much any man-portable non nuke attack potential and most mechanized vehicle attacks (or accidents). Ditto the elevator material. We can't afford for weight reasons to make the entire thing "airliner proof" but we can afford to make the bottom 10 miles or so "small cessna proof". So make the bottom couple miles quadruple redundant steel battleship anchor chain or whatever. 99% of it will still have to be light as a feather, but nothing can hit it, so thats OK.
- LoganCale 13y ago
  What tower has been built a mile tall? According to Wikipedia, the tallest radio tower ever was the Warsaw radio mast at 646.38 meters.
  - VLM 13y ago
    You are correct. I had the peculiar idea that Ostankino was 1800 meters tall (well over a mile) its actually 1800 feet. Which is still pretty tall. There are other towers taller than Ostankino now. This comes up a lot at a telecom company, "You think climbing a 100M tower is a PITA, there's one in Russia thats.. etc etc"

mrfusion 13y ago

If anything it would work like a lightening rod and discharge the currently gradually so it never builds up in the first place.

mmphosis 13y ago
And, could that current in the tether be used as a source of energy? And, would stopping lightning cause other problems for Earth?
- Tuna-Fish 13y ago
  > And, could that current in the tether be used as a source of energy? Yes, but the actual continuous power delivered by it would be surprisingly low, making it pointless. > And, would stopping lightning cause other problems for Earth? No, as the effect would be very localized.

VLM 13y ago

"What about lightning though?" We have commercial experience (well, at least in Russia) making communications towers a mile or so tall. Making one five miles tall would not be a huge stretch of the imagination, and those are fairly tolerant of all kinds of ridiculous abuse. Simply attach the elevator at the top of the tower instead of ground level and you've eliminate pretty much any man-portable non nuke attack potential and most mechanized vehicle attacks (or accidents). Ditto the elevator material. We can't afford for weight reasons to make the entire thing "airliner proof" but we can afford to make the bottom 10 miles or so "small cessna proof". So make the bottom couple miles quadruple redundant steel battleship anchor chain or whatever. 99% of it will still have to be light as a feather, but nothing can hit it, so thats OK.

LoganCale 13y ago
What tower has been built a mile tall? According to Wikipedia, the tallest radio tower ever was the Warsaw radio mast at 646.38 meters.
- VLM 13y ago
  You are correct. I had the peculiar idea that Ostankino was 1800 meters tall (well over a mile) its actually 1800 feet. Which is still pretty tall. There are other towers taller than Ostankino now. This comes up a lot at a telecom company, "You think climbing a 100M tower is a PITA, there's one in Russia thats.. etc etc"