Why won't space elevators short-circuit the ionosphere?

[benburch]

When we finally build a tether to geosynchronous orbit for access to space, how do they plan to keep the 250,000v potential between Earth and the Ionosphere from following it to ground?

[Skittles]

1. ben, what do you ponder when you look at the stars?

:D

[benburch]

5. How many of them there are!

400 billion stars in out galaxy... Trillions of galaxies (that we can see). And I wonder how many other critters are out there right now posting a message essentially just like this one.

[baby_mouse]

2. welll...do rained-on wet mountains with tops above cloud cover

short circuit thunderstorms?

Interesting question...

Have you discovered a new power source, ben?

[benburch]

6. Actually they do.

Mountaintops (when higher than surrounding terrain) draw lots of lightning.

Benjamin Franklin actually made motors that used part of the earth/sky charge potential.

[drm604]

12. Benjamin Franklin

Do you have a cite for that? It sounds interesting.

[benburch]

13. Here you go!

http://www.todaysengineer.org/2002/Aug/heritage.asp

[Hello_Kitty]

3. Rubber mats?

:shrug:

[ixion]

4. maybe by using a non-conductive composite material

for construction. That would do it, no? :shrug:

[benburch]

7. As the cars shuttle up and down they would acquire a static charge.

And transport that...

[soothsayer]

8. Not if they're covered in Bounce!

[Occulus]

9. I wonder if that charge buildup could be used to power amenities on the

elevator. Something like- oh- a 'wet bar to space' or some such.

[Salviati]

10. From what I understand...

The resistance of the cable is enough to make any current pretty small, plus the coupling between the ionosphere and the cable is pretty low, so it can't very efficently get current flowing in the ribbon anyway.

Here's a couple of sites that I've found:

http://www.isr.us/SEScienceFAQs.asp

http://www.liftport.com/

[NNadir]

11. Giant floating resistors of course. n/t

[Solon]

14. You can build one without it being "properly" grounded...

Also, one of the problems with building a space elevator is how you would power the elevator "cars", unfortunately, the proper material, nano-fibres, which have only recently been invented, are not conductive, and stringing copper wires or ceramic superconductors would make it too heavy that it would collapse, so maybe using the Ionsphere as a power source wouldn't be a bad idea. BTW, optimally, it would be built well beyond geosynchronous orbit, more like twice that, to give enough momentum to release space craft out into the Outer Solar System with no added energy needed.

[Orsino]

15. Because the ionosphere will greet us as liberators.

I think that the ionosphere is in its last throes, if you will.