Going up? Scientist sees elevator reaching 62,000 miles into space

[Kadie]

Going up? Scientist sees elevator reaching 62,000 miles into space

CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer
Friday, June 25, 2004


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(06-25) 18:29 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

President Bush wants to return to the moon and put a man on Mars. But scientist Bradley C. Edwards has an idea that's really out of this world: an elevator that climbs 62,000 miles into space.

Edwards thinks an initial version could be operating in 15 years, a year earlier than Bush's 2020 timetable for a return to the moon. He pegs the cost at $10 billion, a pittance compared with other space endeavors.

"It's not new physics -- nothing new has to be discovered, nothing new has to be invented from scratch," he says. "If there are delays in budget or delays in whatever, it could stretch, but 15 years is a realistic estimate for when we could have one up."

Edwards is not just some guy with an idea. He's head of the space elevator project at the Institute for Scientific Research in Fairmont, W.Va. NASA already has given it more than $500,000 to study the idea, and Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more.


more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/06/25/national1534EDT0627.DTL&type=science

[boobooday]

1. But WHY?

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[leftistagitator]

3. To get out of the Earth's atmosphere without spending a fortune.

There's lots of great stuff in space, minable asteroids, terraformable planets, enviroments we haven't experienced, answers to questions about the fundamental nature of our reality, and wonders we haven't even thought of yet. I keep hearing my fellow liberals call for the creation of a utopia before we explore space. I don't understand this, should our anscestors have staying in the oceans until there was peace? Should they have staying in the trees until there was equality? Should we just not do anything until everything is perfect? I don't think we have that long to wait. We don't spend alot of money on space exploration, and the technologies we develope necessarily make life better on Earth. In order to work in space we must build recycling enviroments, these same technologies can be applied to recycling waste used back home. We need high efficiency equipment, which can be applied at home. Have you heard of areogel, a super insolater NASA developed which can heat a house based off of the heat produced by one candle? Do you not see the applications of technology like this? Not to mention the fact that right now any one catastrophe could mean the end of humanity, a situation I am not comfortable living with. And lastly, we must do it because it's there. We live in a tiny speck of existence, and there is so much we don't know about the universe around us. Is there just no intellectual curiosity left in this cold world of ours?

[oostevo]

2. Hmm ...

You know how annoyed we get at jerks who press the 'close' button when we're almost at the elevator? Imagine some astronaut doing that ...


By the way, I wonder if there'll be an 'in an emergency, use stairs' sign.

[Endangered Specie]

7. Given how long that ride is... everyone would end up...

having to fart sooner or later in the lift.

[Lenape85]

4. PORK

I don't know which is worse, SDI or this project.

[DrWeird]

5. SDI

This, at least, is scientifically feasible.

[phantom power]

6. a space elevator would give us the solar system

This might be the one thing that saves us.

[Solon]

8. My question is...

where is the counter weight going to come from? I mean, assuming its not the size of a standard elevator, then the counterweight in geo-synchronise orbit would have to weigh several tons at least, possibly several hundred tons. BTW: for those who don't know, this is like putting a ball on a string, you need the weight to keep tension, otherwise the whole thing could collapse due to Earth's Gravity.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

9. Depends on how you build it.

The classic version as seen in the RGB Mars books uses a captured asteroid as the counterweight. That's one way, but it'd require overengineering the cable.

The Edwards model - which is the one that I've seen the most ink on recently - uses the spool of cable and all the empty fuel tanks, support equipment etc. needed to get it up to GEO as the initial counterweight. This would work for short term, and could be used to anchor a more complex counterweight as traffic on the elevator increases - use ISS modules, old Shuttle tanks, etc to add mass and provide workspace.

[phantom power]

10. the cable spooler is the first counterweight.

There's a pretty good faq at this link, which includes a fairly detailed explaination of how they plan to deploy it. The satellite that spools out the CNT composite ribbon is the initial counterweight. Once you have the first ribbon deployed, it is then cheap and easy to ship additional counterweight up, as needed.

Also, the cable itself extends *past* the geosync orbit, by quite a bit. So the cable itself provides some of the counterweight.
http://www.liftport.com/faq.php