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1. How fast can a satellite travel up the tether? Let's say 50km/h, and it's going to an altitude of 35,000km. That's a month just in travel time. Using the tet

1. How fast can a satellite travel up the tether? Let's say 50km/h, and it's going to an altitude of 35,000km. That's a month just in travel time. Using the tether for that period of time would be extremely costly. Currently, around 125 satellites launch a year, so they would need to be going up the tether at 500km/h, one after the other, day and night. And if we need to wait for a platform to descend, they need to be moving at 1,000km/h. Otherwise, we need multiple space elevators, or multiple shipments climbing at once and passing one another to meet current demand. 2. What's the cost of building and maintaining a space elevator? 3. What's the cost of having a satellite climb the tether to an altitude of 35,000km? That's a lot of energy. Taking this into consideration, is it tantalizingly cheap compared to strapping on a rocket? SpaceX has run tests with a reusable Falcon 9 rocket. Cost of fuel for a launch is $200,000. I'm skeptical the space elevator would be much cheaper. The magic of SpaceX... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDkItO-0a4 Downside of a rocket, it's heavy, and most of the energy is wasted lifting the rocket, and not the payload. Advantage, you don't have to pay to maintain cables that are long enough to wrap around the entire Earth.

percentcer 13y ago
Couldn't you launch multiple satellites at a time?
- Schwolop 13y ago
  Seems legit to me - a bunch of robots on the elevator that are each responsible for perhaps ten kilometres of travel, and they pass the parcel to the next one in line then move back down. You could launch way more things in pseudo-parallel that way. Or just an up line and a down line like most cable cars.
userulluipeste 13y ago
Many activities are affordable only as long as the true costs are not paid in full. The world had to allow massive burning of fuels, even if it's costly for the environment, only because the alternatives were not feasible yet. When better technologies allowed even a mild reduction of the pollution's effects (like combustion engine improvements, and later development of hybrid/electric solutions), things started to change and the reckless burn of fuel is now discouraged. Don't stop at the level of 125 launches per year, expect it to grow orders of magnitude, and the effects to grow proportionally. The market cost for fuel may be only $200,000 and it might get even lower, but the true costs... well, I think you got the idea.

percentcer 13y ago

Couldn't you launch multiple satellites at a time?

Schwolop 13y ago
Seems legit to me - a bunch of robots on the elevator that are each responsible for perhaps ten kilometres of travel, and they pass the parcel to the next one in line then move back down. You could launch way more things in pseudo-parallel that way. Or just an up line and a down line like most cable cars.

userulluipeste 13y ago

Many activities are affordable only as long as the true costs are not paid in full. The world had to allow massive burning of fuels, even if it's costly for the environment, only because the alternatives were not feasible yet. When better technologies allowed even a mild reduction of the pollution's effects (like combustion engine improvements, and later development of hybrid/electric solutions), things started to change and the reckless burn of fuel is now discouraged. Don't stop at the level of 125 launches per year, expect it to grow orders of magnitude, and the effects to grow proportionally. The market cost for fuel may be only $200,000 and it might get even lower, but the true costs... well, I think you got the idea.