3 ms·
From what I've read of carbon tube based cables, most of the length would burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the ground. Edit: VLM does have a point in
by BugBrother 13y ago
From what I've read of carbon tube based cables, most of the length would burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the ground.
Edit: VLM does have a point in that a falling cable might be a problem on Mars. The moon doesn't have enough rotation for a fixed skyhook (space elevator) anyway. :-) More advanced rotating elevators in a moon orbit, maybe. But it might be hard because of the moon mascons (the moon is lumpy internally with different density, which results in gravitational anomalies).
- gliese1337 13y agoThe moon doesn't have enough rotation for a fixed skyhook (space elevator) anyway. Actually, it does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator You're just fairly restricted in where you can put it- you can only put one near the sub-Earth and anti-Earth points, such that the cable passes through the L1 or L2 Lagrange points, rather than anywhere along the equator. The cable would have to much, much longer than for a space elevator on Earth, but the Moon's lower gravity actually makes the engineering challenges Not As Bad- i.e., we could build a lunar space elevator with current materials.
- BugBrother 13y agoOK ok, but it is economical insanity. On the moon, an electric rail launcher with 5-10G only needs to be a few km long. (Iirc, 1G acceleration of four minutes is the launch velocity of the moon? ~ 2.4 km/s.) Edit: This assumes local materials for the electric launcher. If everything is skipped from Earth, it might be different. But, consider -- if you need to launch so much stuff from the moon, you must already have the infrastructure to build things there.