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wouldn't you love to get stuck in this elevator?
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So you get to the top floor, then what? Do the doors open and you float around or just look at the view and come back down.
I didn't know there was that much Kenny G music available.10,000 miles of elevator music!
didn't know there was that much Kenny G music available.
Then the terrible would happen: It begins to repeat, over and over and over. The only solace can be had in that as it monotonously cycles you are unable to distinguish one song from the next because they all sound the same..
Off subject:
I went to an Obama thing in Hawaii and while we were waiting for him to get there they kept playing Kenny G and it would repeat over and over...and Obama ended up being 2 hours late. The music stopped for a little and started again..and everyone started booing.
/boring pointless story
The 'getting off' point is geostationary orbit (22,000 miles ) so as to have a fixed anchor point you counter-balance it beyond 22,000 miles- typically a captured asteroid.
If you cut it at ground level, it would drift away. If you cut it higher, the cable would collapse to the ground, landing in a line west of the anchor point (you wouldn't want to be in the way - making Gabon or Equador a suitable site for this. Infact, the northern end of the Galapagos would be a brilliant site for it.
Yeah -a space elevator would be massively massively expensive - the most expensive civil engineering project of all time.
HOWEVER
It then makes access to space essentialy negligable cost. We could realistically begin programs such as the capture and mining of asteroids - potentially massive benefit to industry on Earth.
We launch about 50 rockets per year. That's getting on for something like 2.5 billion a year. Adjusted to modern cash, we've spent something like a hundred billion dollars getting into space over the history of the space program. Estimates range from $6 to $40B to build a space elevator - (or approx 1/3rd to 3 times the NASA annual budget ) - it would pay for itself quite quickly. We're not QUITE there financially or engineering science requirement wise yet....but nearly.
It is an elevator, and not joy-rides for rich people that will open up space to the general public. In the grand scheme of things - exceptionally cool though they are - vehicles like Space Ship Two will only ever be a gimmick.
Doug
If you cut it at ground level, it would drift away. If you cut it higher, the cable would collapse to the ground, landing in a line west of the anchor point (you wouldn't want to be in the way - making Gabon or Equador a suitable site for this. Infact, the northern end of the Galapagos would be a brilliant site for it.
Yeah -a space elevator would be massively massively expensive - the most expensive civil engineering project of all time.
HOWEVER
It then makes access to space essentialy negligable cost. We could realistically begin programs such as the capture and mining of asteroids - potentially massive benefit to industry on Earth.
We launch about 50 rockets per year. That's getting on for something like 2.5 billion a year. Adjusted to modern cash, we've spent something like a hundred billion dollars getting into space over the history of the space program. Estimates range from $6 to $40B to build a space elevator - (or approx 1/3rd to 3 times the NASA annual budget ) - it would pay for itself quite quickly. We're not QUITE there financially or engineering science requirement wise yet....but nearly.
It is an elevator, and not joy-rides for rich people that will open up space to the general public. In the grand scheme of things - exceptionally cool though they are - vehicles like Space Ship Two will only ever be a gimmick.
Doug
And what of the centrifugal forces that come into play, with the Earth rotating at 1,000 MPH??
How deep would they have to anchor it??
How deep would they have to anchor it??
Probaby to the iron core of earth
I do not think it would be possible, imagine that cable at earth rotating speed, the wind itself would destroy it in no time by burning it. It would need some sort of magnetic field I believe.
But if the big corporations are on it they know more than I do.
Unless the "wind" is moving at 1,000 MPH, East to West, there will be the friction of the atmosphere on it.
Isn't that cannabis?
You'd def be able to get pretty high that my friend...@Mark: Funny.. I never thought when I posted that it may have actually happened somewhere lol
No, there wont. The bottom of the elevator is static on the ground. The top of the elevator is essentially hovering, 22,000 miles above. Think of it as a very very tall, very very thin building. Yes - there will be wind, but not 1000 mph - you must have the concept very wrong in your mind to come to that conclusion.
Doug
It's an elevator, not a rocket, so it doesn't need any particular minimum speed.
Not really; this sort of thing isn't like an elevator in a building, where you have people riding up and down in elevator cars. It's primarily used for getting stuff off the planet. Return trips are likely to be done in a more conventional way.
About the wind thing, what Doug said. The atmosphere of the Earth more or less rotates along with the Earth itself, or else everybody would have gotten blown off the planet ages ago.
--Eric
It could climb at 1mph for 20,000 hours and that would be fine.
More likely, it would accelerate slowly at first for the first 30 miles or so, and then more rapidly once thru the worst of the atmospheric density. That way, you don't have to try and make the thing aerodynamic. A 2 to 3 day climb would be normal. Think in terms of a train running vertically. Without the air to get in the way, speeds of 500+ mph would be in easy reach. A heatshield might be installed on the bottom as insurance against some sort of drop-failure. It wouldn't require spacecraft-like shielding as you never reach the crazy 7.5km/sec orbital velocity of low earth orbit.
On the way down, it would be no different to the Space Shuttle, Soyuz or Shenzou (the three working manned spacecraft right now ) - you have a pressurised vessel that operates at roughly sea-level pressure while in space, so when you come up you open the door and step out (not quite THAT simple, but not far off)
The challenge on the way back down might be slowing down. Infact - you could even run it like a funicular railway if the engineers were really really clever - perhaps metaphorically via magnetism and electricity- if not physically via cables.
From Red Dwarf series:
HOSTESS: (on video) Welcome to Xpress Lifts, descent to floor sixteen.
You will be going down two thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven
floors and, for a small extra charge, you can enjoy the in-lift movie
"Gone With the Wind." If you look to your right and to your left, you
will notice there are no exits. In the highly unlikely event of the
lift having to make a crash-landing, death is certain. Under your
seats you will find a cassette for recording your last-minute
testament, and from above your head a bag will drop containing
sedatives and cyanide capsules.