Space Lift
Is it time to try this?
In simple terms, the space elevator is a ribbon with one end attached to the Earth’s surface and the other end in space beyond geosynchronous orbit (35,800 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity at the lower end, and outward centripetal acceleration at the farther end, keep the ribbon under tension and stationary over a single position on Earth. This ribbon, once deployed, can be ascended by mechanical means to Earth orbit. If a climber proceeds to the far end of the ribbon and releases, it would have sufficient energy to escape from Earth’s gravity and travel to the Moon, Mars, Venus and the asteroids.
From www.highliftsystems.com.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 5th, 2003 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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DonPanic Says:
Stupid ! That doesn’t work.
anjali .v.desai Says:
i m electronics engineer and i use to think about this concept long before but found it only poss theoritically due to its large set up cost.if these elevators are made going in space wouldnt it face large atmospheric friction and how far it would be possible for it to overcome gravitational field of earth and if one end of ribbon is on earth surface where would other be?if we can make ropeless elevators it would be more viable
r touzet Says:
This is an idea I have thought of for a long time and this
is theoritically feasible.
the main difficulty lies in the descent of the nano carbon cable to earth which will be affected by Coriolis forces and tend not to fall in a straight way toward the equator located base.
The friction problems are not really an issue as the elevator can move slowly through the atmosphere layers and then accelerate in the empty space.
Other interesting caracteristics are really low energy consumption if you balance the up coming lift to space by the same weight in a combined down coming wagon. and the possibility of an artificial gravity in the station that will be bound to the cable (you would need an altitude of 50 000 Kms above the equator to get the approximate gravity of the moon)
dave Says:
im only a 6th form student doing physics but ive come across this idea and am fairly keen on it, but i thought why can’t you achieve the lift with electromagnets, like the maglev trains, but upwards instead of across? that would remove the problem of securing it somewhere
vaughan Says:
im 15 from ireland and have just finished my first year of my gcse course. the idea of the electromagnet idea is good but if you secure a cable of sort to the earths surface elevated by helium rings and balanced by more cables at four other points you could travel through the inside of the rings on a veryical maglev train to a platform high enough for the earths gravational pull to have little effect on your vessel making space flight cheeper.
Daniel Says:
The elevator idea is a secondary problem, surely?
What would be more useful would be to use the ribbon to conduct electricity gathered from a massive space-based solar panel power station…
Damian Says:
I was thinking about this myself for more than a year now. I was looking around for a physicist to ask him if this would be possible since my knowledge of physics is quite limited. (I’m a microbiology student).
Then I typed space lift into google and came upo this. So it seems I was far from the only one thinking about this. But can anyone give decisive answer? Would this be possible to build?
Matthew Baldwin Says:
I am not a scientist of any merit nor study. there is allot of info on the Nasa web site on this subject. and there are a bunch of groups around the world working hard at developing this stratagie to the stars.
check out. http://www.liftport.com/
another thing you guys might be interested in. unfortunately it wont work ..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7238800781365222249&hl=en
Matt.b
Watashi Says:
Construction:
The construction is orders of magnitude more complicated than any human undertaking to date. We might get smart enough to make the materials neccessary. Probably wisest to build in orbit and lower the cable, which is quite expensive if you lift the materials from earth.
Operational:
Materials ascending the cable must either be balanced with materials descending the cable from space, or mass must be expelled from the orbital station to maintain orbital velocity (which is robbed by the ascending materials).
Safety:
Should problems ever arise with the cap station such that it’s orbit decays or the cable detaches and re’enters, imagine a giant length of cable descending toward earth wraping itself around the equator several times at super sonic speeds.
Ouch.