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Space Elevator


Bearcats

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over/under 20 seconds before it falls over :D:P

If it fell over like a tree, it would actually wrap itself around the planet. I think I heard that this thing is supposed to stretch almost to the moon.

--Roger "Time?" Clemente.

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The space elevator has been in the drawing board for a few years now. I don't know how far they are, but it does seem interesting. But I have to wonder what might happen if it does break. You have to worry about climate, strength of structure and possibly terroist attacks.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/te...r_020327-1.html

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The space elevator has been in the drawing board for a few years now. I don't know how far they are, but it does seem interesting. But I have to wonder what might happen if it does break. You have to worry about climate, strength of structure and possibly terroist attacks.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/te...r_020327-1.html

Hey quadival, do you frequent SDC too?

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The space elevator has been in the drawing board for a few years now. I don't know how far they are, but it does seem interesting. But I have to wonder what might happen if it does break. You have to worry about climate, strength of structure and possibly terroist attacks.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/te...r_020327-1.html

Based on the explaination in this article of how it stays in place - tethered by gravity at one end and kept under tension by the outward centripidal force at the other - if it broke, everything below the break would fall back to Earth. Anything above the break would fly off into space like the string of a helium balloon.

Breaking it would be difficult. Sounds as though the tether would be made in a similar fashion as the steel cables that support bridges. Only they will be made from carbon nanotube, which have got to be thousands of times stronger.

Interesting concept. I wonder how realistic it is.

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I read an article the other day about a scientific team who was testing some cabling for a potential space elevator, and they got one several miles high with great stability and strength.

Its an interesting idea, that I'm positive will take place in our lifetimes.

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Going to college gets you closer to the real world, kind of like climbing a tree gets you closer to the moon.

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obviously you can't have scaffolding that reaches the moon...

The cable doesn't go to the moon... just far enough out that the object lifted into space won't come crashing back down to Earth when released from the elevator. The elevator would only stretch just under 22,000 miles, the moon is well over 200,000 miles away.

But I think its sad how we can beam 20ton payloads into orbit with a laser, but we can't make cars that go further than a few hundred miles without being recharged. We have the technology to make fossil fueled vehicles ancient history, but not the desire nor initiative. Let's fix problems on Earth first before we meddle in space.

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