Is a space elevator (or launch loop or sky hook) possible by 2012 with a POD no earlier than 1980?
Space Elevator?
- Thread starter Whanztastic
- Start date
No.
Not without some revolutionary breakthrough in material sciences and nanotechnology. Even then, it would have to be before 1980, because it might just take more than 32 years just to build the thing, to say nothing of developing the technology. Well, to build the thing right, at any rate. If I were building a space elevator, I'd design it to last for thousands of years, not just the meager 50-100 years that large dams are designed... what? The engineers thought we'd be extinct in 100 years so there was no point in building the stupid dam to last?
Not without some revolutionary breakthrough in material sciences and nanotechnology. Even then, it would have to be before 1980, because it might just take more than 32 years just to build the thing, to say nothing of developing the technology. Well, to build the thing right, at any rate. If I were building a space elevator, I'd design it to last for thousands of years, not just the meager 50-100 years that large dams are designed... what? The engineers thought we'd be extinct in 100 years so there was no point in building the stupid dam to last?
Yeah that is what I thought. Oh well. 
Well is a mass driver possible then? Or a moon base?
Well is a mass driver possible then? Or a moon base?NothingNow
Banned
Give me the TARP funds, NASA's engineers, Zombie Gerald Bull, and the right Contractors, you can have one by 2020.Yeah that is what I thought. Oh well.
Edit: Admittedly, you'll still have to use a Booster Motor to launch Cargo into orbit, but it'll save money over the previous method, and improve turn arround. Plus, with the right systems, you've got the Biggest, baddest Super weapon ever devised.
EDIT:And I'll have Enough money left over to Build a few O'Neill Cylinders. Who the Fuck needs a Moonbase when you've got some of those and a few Near Earth Asteroids and Comets?
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Would designing something to last 1000 years cost more than ten times a 100-yr lifespan? If so, then only design for 100 years.
For the Space Elevator, I'd design it for 40-50 years, and include part of the launch costs a fee to pay for the next elevator/surface-orbit transport system. Once it gets around the 30-yr mark, I'd start plotting out the material to build a second elevator. Use the existing elevator as the ground anchor, and send down the cable that way.
That'd be a creepy sight too, when it is under construction. You'd have this long ribbon, just hanging over the ground, and stretching up to the sky.
Rebuilding something more often than you have to is not a good idea. Look at stadiums, being torn down only thirty years after it was built, when they could last for at least a century (not counting the King Dome here, since it couldn't last that long). Must just be some cultural thing, but I believe in doing things right the first time, and making things to last. Look at electronics too. I had this DVD player from Panisonic for only four years, and it don't work no more. Why? Did they deliberately design them this way to keep people buying them? If so, I can tell you one thing, I ain't buying from them again.
With something like a Space Elevator, we really don't need that to collapse because of slipshod engineering.
Depends on what you mean by a Sky Hook.
You could have a LEO space station with rotating tether, theoretically rotating fast enough that when at the bottom it was stationary WRT the ground. Then a rocket only has to get high enough to mate with the tether, and it gets pulled up into orbit.
More realistically, the mating happens at about half orbital speed, which still allows single stage rockets.
Then, as the tether goes round the other way, you can release payloads there, and you've achieve escape velocity.
A 100km tether to do that is feasible.
A 36000km (?) tether to/past geostationary orbit isn't.
Of course, even the 'easy' one would be VERY expensive, and would require that we need to move thousands of tons of payload up and down. But it should be doable, with a PoD of the moon landing, say.
OOPS. PoD of 1980. Umm.. no. Too much money invested in dead-end shuttles, too little time for a super-huge space project to develop.
That looks awesome. A Space Ramp, while maybe not as cool-sounding as a Space Elevator, would be more practical, cheaper, and have about the same affect as the SE while using practical engineering and methods and materials already available today.
Am I the only person here who's read Dr. Edward's book?!?!
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Elevato...r_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285288223&sr=8-1
Been a while since I read it, but IIRC he said $10 billion and ten years in 2003. That's within a hair of meeting the OP goal with a POD of someone reading the book and deciding to do it. All we need to assume is a NASA scientist who did a study on the topic and was smart enough to apply a 50% margin (IIRC) to his budget for a R&D prototype more or less knows what he's talking about.
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Elevato...r_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285288223&sr=8-1
Been a while since I read it, but IIRC he said $10 billion and ten years in 2003. That's within a hair of meeting the OP goal with a POD of someone reading the book and deciding to do it. All we need to assume is a NASA scientist who did a study on the topic and was smart enough to apply a 50% margin (IIRC) to his budget for a R&D prototype more or less knows what he's talking about.
Cook
Banned
Dammit.
Sorry, I forgot all about Robert Zubrin’s proposed Hypersonic Skyhook.
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/355Bogar.pdf
That’s buildable using Carbon Fibre and can be extended to increase lift load or reduce intercept speeds. Start small and build on it.
And it would work in conjunction with a sub-orbital space plane, or marry it with the sky-ramp first stage suborbital space-plane.
That I think would be your cheapest and simplest option.
Sorry, I forgot all about Robert Zubrin’s proposed Hypersonic Skyhook.
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/355Bogar.pdf
That’s buildable using Carbon Fibre and can be extended to increase lift load or reduce intercept speeds. Start small and build on it.
And it would work in conjunction with a sub-orbital space plane, or marry it with the sky-ramp first stage suborbital space-plane.
That I think would be your cheapest and simplest option.
Pretty much what everybody else said, a classic space elevator with the PoD and target dates specified is not possible.
A Space Fountain would be feasible, given the political and financial will. It doesn't require any unobtainium to be build. ^o^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain
A Space Fountain would be feasible, given the political and financial will. It doesn't require any unobtainium to be build. ^o^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain
loughery111
Banned
The problem being that, when the thing fails, it's going to be BAD. Like, extinction event bad. So you want to have it so ridiculously engineered that you can be as absolutely sure as humanly possible that it will last the time limit. At which point it will be promptly dismantled and rebuilt from scratch. Anything less invites the thing to snap and wrap the equator... bye-bye, most of humanity.
Anyway, nope. Materials science just isn't there. Space fountain maybe, but even then I wouldn't want to do that without at least 100% redundancy on power and access to most of the First World's grid in an emergency.
The fun part is that the lower the Space elevator snaps, the better it is for Earth. The part above the break is actually being held by the anchor in space.
For the lower parts, you might have smaller demolition charges to break the cable into smaller pieces that will burn up.
For the Space fountain, have a few nuclear reactors around. Most of the power goes into the fountain, and the excess provides the grid. For the upper end, you'd need additional solar panels (or more nukes) to make sure it stayed powered.
For the lower parts, you might have smaller demolition charges to break the cable into smaller pieces that will burn up.
For the Space fountain, have a few nuclear reactors around. Most of the power goes into the fountain, and the excess provides the grid. For the upper end, you'd need additional solar panels (or more nukes) to make sure it stayed powered.