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NeedToUseYou -> RE: The Elevator to Space (11/7/2009 9:08:18 PM)
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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
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ORIGINAL: DomKen
If this can be perfected then lifting objects to low earth orbit could cost several orders of magnitude less than it does today.
And who knows what kind of technology might spin loose from the attempt?
I'm wondering how many square miles of windmills we'd need to power such an animal. [;)]
In theory a lot of power could come from the device itself. Obviously power is needed to go up but coming down is pure gravity and power could be generated from the descent. Additional power would of course be available from solar panels at the orbital terminus.
Gravity isn't going to be this things friend in either direction, Ken. It seems like it is going to have to be under power both ways. Probably less juice for a controlled descent, but it certainly can't just drop. I'd also suspect that all the solar juice they could get at the top would be wanted for whatever kind of station would be needed up there.
Maybe by that time, we can just run it on a nice fusion reactor.
I'm not seeing why it would require any more power than an earth bound elevator of equivalent size. Of course it's a longer trip is all.
My understand of the powering mechanism is they are going to shoot lasers at the floor or ceiling(if going down), and some kind of electrical generation will take place from that energy. The Tether wouldn't move, rather the elevator would grip the tether and pull itself up it.
The whole energy thing is not going to be an issue if you had one of these, solar panels in space are more productive than earth based ones, just from the increased intensity and time of exposure. The cost of deploying them now is largely getting them into space, which the space elevator would address.
Also, there is no reason if we can get into earth orbit for free essentially(compartively), that we can't put all kinds of energy generating devices on the moon or around the moon. Those plots of land on the moon would actually be worth something if this thing ever got built.
Anyway, from what I've read the real problem is 100% about developing the material the tether would be made from. So, far nothing but carbon nanotubes would be strong enough, and they at present can't make them that long.
I wish I were ultra rich, I'd dump a billion into figuring out how to build the thing. It would be the most important thing since fire was tamed.
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