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They hit the same wall everyone else who's ever looked at space elevators hit: the cable materials aren't currently feasible. What else did Google do around th

by Zikes 13y ago

They hit the same wall everyone else who's ever looked at space elevators hit: the cable materials aren't currently feasible. What else did Google do around this? Did they go about designing the elevator apparatus itself? Did they devise plans for launching the cable/tether into orbit? Did they explore options for what would anchor the tether in space? Without any further details on this "project", it's as good as a lunchtime spitballing session any one of us might have had recently. One might as well say I've also tried to design a space elevator.

Shivetya 13y ago
Why would you build it down here? You go grab an asteroid, move it into far Earth orbit. Eat it to make your cable then get that runners down to earth while spooling one the opposite direction. So yeah, once we can grab an asteroid or two, chop them up for materials, then I think we can have something like a space elevator. Heaven help us if it ever does break/fall (not snapping of the cable but destroying the anchor point)
- wsinks 13y ago
  Holy shit. Now there's an idea. Forward that one to Elon.
- ufmace 13y ago
  I'm not sure why this is catching downvotes; it's probably the most viable idea for how to go about actually manufacturing a space elevator and putting it in place. Granted, we would need to figure out how to manufacture that cable that's 100x stronger than anything we currently have in space instead of on Earth, but that's probably easier than figuring out how to get the entire manufactured cable from Earth's surface into orbit.
zacharyz 13y ago
It is a bit annoying. Arthur C Clark suggested using nano tubes in a space elevator over 20 years ago - so what exactly did google x bring to the discussion?
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  You miss the point, imagine you're in a company that makes billions buying electrons for nanocents and selling them for millicents. Now most of the people in the company are not part of the money making apparatus, so what do they do? They think up new things. But that is hard, it is actually much easier to prove impossible thing is impossible. To its credit you get self driving cars out of this sort of strategy, and you also get less PR worthy work :-)
- ertdfgcb 13y ago
  Probably engineering know how and money.
- alooPotato 13y ago
  This comment is a bit annoying. Had they set out to build an elevator, looked at the problem from a different angle, came up with a different solution that had a chance at working we would all be praising them for going after a problem so many people had failed at before. The fact that they came to the same conclusion (infeasibility) we now question their intentions/motivations and whether it was a good idea or not. We either applaud attempts or we don't - but we can't choose based on the outcome of those attempts.
  - Zikes 13y ago
    There's no evidence they put any serious effort into actually trying to build a space elevator. The article doesn't discuss any alternate cable materials they explored/considered, nor does it even mention any of the many other aspects of designing a functioning space elevator. If they were even remotely serious, they'd be continuing work and research on everything else relating to building a functioning space elevator and waiting for materials science to catch up, or better yet directly contributing to the advancement of the materials. Edit: I'm not criticising Google for looking at space elevators. Hell I do applaud that, and I think it'd be a great direction for them to explore. What I'm upset about is Fast Company's journalistic standards about covering it. Google X mentions they looked at space elevators and Fast Company would have you believe they threw millions of dollars and man-hours at it and actually tried to design one. Journalists apparently have no idea how to cover scientific topics. If someone reports they've found a chemical that's shown to target and destroy a specific strain of cancer cells in a petri dish under laboratory conditions then Fast Company would be reporting that they've cured cancer.
sgustard 13y ago
Exactly my thoughts. That nanotubes are the best option, but are still far from feasible from an engineering standpoint, has been publicly well known for some time. But if you're Google you can generate press just from your water cooler talk. For actual design work on space elevators check out http://liftport.com http://liftport.com.
- christemmer 13y ago
  Would graphene be a good alternative, especially if it becomes more mature a lot sooner in the mainstream market?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - cdash 13y ago
    This is just from what I have read on the internet, I am not by any means an expert. As far as I know, graphene is just as good or a little bit better than currently producible carbon nanotubes. There are a few other materials out there such as colossal carbon tubes and something being called carbyne ( linear acetylenic carbon). Carbyne as far as I know is supposed to have better properties than any of the others but is only a predicted material from computer simulations and some small traces of it supposedly found in interstellar dust. So far, there has been no real success in creating it in a lab.
cadalac 13y ago
This is what I would try to reach space: I would make a rope ladder system with poles extending at intervals to hold hydrogen balloons. I would space the balloons in a way that they won't affect other balloons or the ladder if they explode.
- Zikes 13y ago
  Contrary to what Red Bull would have you believe, balloons aren't a very effective means of reaching space. A balloon got Felix Baumgartner about 24 miles up, but the cable would have to go out beyond 22,000 miles.
  - tinco 13y ago
    Well you can't just fly 22,000km of cable into space with a rocket, and then drop it down. Using balloons to cover the first few km could save a bunch. Also, there's a rather large difference between a multi-billion dollar internationally supported scientific operation, and a few million dollar marketing stunt. If you can make a few hundred meters long carbon nano tube (which we can't right now), what's stopping you from making a balloon with a circumference of a few km, and how much cable could you lift up how high with that? Since gravity decreases quadratically, the first miles are the ones that count.
    - nickff 13y ago
      Gravity does decrease quadratically, but the origin is the center of the earth, not the cable's anchor. The earth's diameter is over 12000 km, so gravity would not decrease significantly over the 10s of kilometers the balloons supported.
      - tinco 13y ago
        Argh you are right at 160km it's only dropped about 10%. It's a tough world out there :(
      - JabavuAdams 13y ago
        Well, to be fair to an otherwise impractical idea, getting up above the dense part of the atmosphere helps. If you're trying to get to space quickly, then much of the air-resistance losses are in the first 10 km. Look up "rockoons" for more info on replacing a rocket's first stage with a balloon platform.
samstave 13y ago
Just out of curiosity; how would you get the cable up there.... I assume the following: 1. Launch a relatively thin line, with high strength to orbit. 2. Spool it out to earth; attach another, thicker cable to the line and reel it up to orbit .... N. Step 2 repeated until you have the cable thickness and strength needed. N+1. Attach a cable climbing robot to that cable to haul up additional lines. N+2. Attach a larger cable-robot to the multiple cables to climb into orbit and haul a real load.
lovemenot 13y ago
I believe that's the point. X is no different to your water-cooler chats. Rather than degrade the former, this comparison is meant to upgrade the latter. There is a class of problems that don't sit nicely in a single domain and can benefit from collaboration. When we engage in spit-balling we are (un)consciously looking to extend the scope of our solution search. From experience such discussions almost never go anywhere beccause that space is really vast and intractable. I imagine a new service here: Google Watercooler, providing tools to extend X into your spitball sessions and vice versa. Like TedX: call it XX.

by Zikes 13y ago

Shivetya 13y ago

Why would you build it down here? You go grab an asteroid, move it into far Earth orbit. Eat it to make your cable then get that runners down to earth while spooling one the opposite direction. So yeah, once we can grab an asteroid or two, chop them up for materials, then I think we can have something like a space elevator. Heaven help us if it ever does break/fall (not snapping of the cable but destroying the anchor point)

wsinks 13y ago
Holy shit. Now there's an idea. Forward that one to Elon.
ufmace 13y ago
I'm not sure why this is catching downvotes; it's probably the most viable idea for how to go about actually manufacturing a space elevator and putting it in place. Granted, we would need to figure out how to manufacture that cable that's 100x stronger than anything we currently have in space instead of on Earth, but that's probably easier than figuring out how to get the entire manufactured cable from Earth's surface into orbit.

zacharyz 13y ago

It is a bit annoying. Arthur C Clark suggested using nano tubes in a space elevator over 20 years ago - so what exactly did google x bring to the discussion?

ChuckMcM 13y ago
You miss the point, imagine you're in a company that makes billions buying electrons for nanocents and selling them for millicents. Now most of the people in the company are not part of the money making apparatus, so what do they do? They think up new things. But that is hard, it is actually much easier to prove impossible thing is impossible. To its credit you get self driving cars out of this sort of strategy, and you also get less PR worthy work :-)
ertdfgcb 13y ago
Probably engineering know how and money.
alooPotato 13y ago
This comment is a bit annoying. Had they set out to build an elevator, looked at the problem from a different angle, came up with a different solution that had a chance at working we would all be praising them for going after a problem so many people had failed at before. The fact that they came to the same conclusion (infeasibility) we now question their intentions/motivations and whether it was a good idea or not. We either applaud attempts or we don't - but we can't choose based on the outcome of those attempts.
- Zikes 13y ago
  There's no evidence they put any serious effort into actually trying to build a space elevator. The article doesn't discuss any alternate cable materials they explored/considered, nor does it even mention any of the many other aspects of designing a functioning space elevator. If they were even remotely serious, they'd be continuing work and research on everything else relating to building a functioning space elevator and waiting for materials science to catch up, or better yet directly contributing to the advancement of the materials. Edit: I'm not criticising Google for looking at space elevators. Hell I do applaud that, and I think it'd be a great direction for them to explore. What I'm upset about is Fast Company's journalistic standards about covering it. Google X mentions they looked at space elevators and Fast Company would have you believe they threw millions of dollars and man-hours at it and actually tried to design one. Journalists apparently have no idea how to cover scientific topics. If someone reports they've found a chemical that's shown to target and destroy a specific strain of cancer cells in a petri dish under laboratory conditions then Fast Company would be reporting that they've cured cancer.

sgustard 13y ago

Exactly my thoughts. That nanotubes are the best option, but are still far from feasible from an engineering standpoint, has been publicly well known for some time. But if you're Google you can generate press just from your water cooler talk. For actual design work on space elevators check out http://liftport.com http://liftport.com.

christemmer 13y ago
Would graphene be a good alternative, especially if it becomes more mature a lot sooner in the mainstream market?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- cdash 13y ago
  This is just from what I have read on the internet, I am not by any means an expert. As far as I know, graphene is just as good or a little bit better than currently producible carbon nanotubes. There are a few other materials out there such as colossal carbon tubes and something being called carbyne ( linear acetylenic carbon). Carbyne as far as I know is supposed to have better properties than any of the others but is only a predicted material from computer simulations and some small traces of it supposedly found in interstellar dust. So far, there has been no real success in creating it in a lab.

cadalac 13y ago

This is what I would try to reach space: I would make a rope ladder system with poles extending at intervals to hold hydrogen balloons. I would space the balloons in a way that they won't affect other balloons or the ladder if they explode.

Zikes 13y ago
Contrary to what Red Bull would have you believe, balloons aren't a very effective means of reaching space. A balloon got Felix Baumgartner about 24 miles up, but the cable would have to go out beyond 22,000 miles.
- tinco 13y ago
  Well you can't just fly 22,000km of cable into space with a rocket, and then drop it down. Using balloons to cover the first few km could save a bunch. Also, there's a rather large difference between a multi-billion dollar internationally supported scientific operation, and a few million dollar marketing stunt. If you can make a few hundred meters long carbon nano tube (which we can't right now), what's stopping you from making a balloon with a circumference of a few km, and how much cable could you lift up how high with that? Since gravity decreases quadratically, the first miles are the ones that count.
  - nickff 13y ago
    Gravity does decrease quadratically, but the origin is the center of the earth, not the cable's anchor. The earth's diameter is over 12000 km, so gravity would not decrease significantly over the 10s of kilometers the balloons supported.
    - tinco 13y ago
      Argh you are right at 160km it's only dropped about 10%. It's a tough world out there :(
    - JabavuAdams 13y ago
      Well, to be fair to an otherwise impractical idea, getting up above the dense part of the atmosphere helps. If you're trying to get to space quickly, then much of the air-resistance losses are in the first 10 km. Look up "rockoons" for more info on replacing a rocket's first stage with a balloon platform.

samstave 13y ago

Just out of curiosity; how would you get the cable up there.... I assume the following: 1. Launch a relatively thin line, with high strength to orbit. 2. Spool it out to earth; attach another, thicker cable to the line and reel it up to orbit .... N. Step 2 repeated until you have the cable thickness and strength needed. N+1. Attach a cable climbing robot to that cable to haul up additional lines. N+2. Attach a larger cable-robot to the multiple cables to climb into orbit and haul a real load.

lovemenot 13y ago

I believe that's the point. X is no different to your water-cooler chats. Rather than degrade the former, this comparison is meant to upgrade the latter. There is a class of problems that don't sit nicely in a single domain and can benefit from collaboration. When we engage in spit-balling we are (un)consciously looking to extend the scope of our solution search. From experience such discussions almost never go anywhere beccause that space is really vast and intractable. I imagine a new service here: Google Watercooler, providing tools to extend X into your spitball sessions and vice versa. Like TedX: call it XX.