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space elevator by 2050?

allenk09 said:
It would probably be more cost efficient to just develop a spacecraft that can make routine trips to space. We have the technology, it's just being put off by losers in government around the world.
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Chemical rockets will never be a cost effective way to lift lots of stuff out of Earth's gravity well.
 
They can't do it in 40 years. It'll probably take longer than that to just build it. We probably need another 50 - 100 years just to get the right technology for it. One of the thing necessary is a anchor in space, I don't think we're to the point where we can tow a asteroid or other rock into the right orbit.
 
The first company/country to build a space elevator will effectively own space.
 
obligatory xkcd:

space_elevators.png

"If you think space elevators are good, but just too boring and practical, check out the 'space fountain'."
 
allenk09 said:
It would probably be more cost efficient to just develop a spacecraft that can make routine trips to space. We have the technology, it's just being put off by losers in government around the world.
Click to expand...

Not really. It's high cost/high payoff situation. We'll never be able to get a launch vehicle that can put things into orbit for must less than $1000/lb. A space elevator could do it for as little as $10/lb.
 
allenk09 said:
It would probably be more cost efficient to just develop a spacecraft that can make routine trips to space. We have the technology, it's just being put off by losers in government around the world.
Click to expand...

Fucking this times a bajillion hnnnnnnnnnnnnnggg!!! If Reaction Engines ltd. could just get a little bit more funding form the europe and maybe a little bit of international support, we'd have a fully functional space plane by now. No need to invest hundreds of billions in a dead end technology.

It would also have helped if that cow Margaret Thacher didn't cancel the hotol program.
 
This has been cover widely in the mobile suit gundam 00, they even have episode about the elevator being destroyed and falling on the surface, etc.. pretty decent scifi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mobile_Suit_Gundam_00_technology

Anyway, to my surprise, I interview 2 years ago at a private hedgefund and one of the billionaire guy that lives on his private island off cos cob in CT, wanted to build a space elevator also.. and during the interview i was like yeah I saw that in gundam 00 already.

It was funny because they didn't know what they want to do with it, they just have money to burn and maybe because they wanna be the first. but whatever the reason is, apparently a lot of people have this idea now
 
Will it says "Otis" when you step in?
What if the elevator get's stuck?
Will there be an emergency phone?
Will you have to listen to elevator music for a whole week?
What is someone farts?

A 30-passenger car would travel along the cable from Earth's surface up to an altitude of 60,000 mile skyward at about 124 mph in a little more than a week.,
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allenk09 said:
It would probably be more cost efficient to just develop a spacecraft that can make routine trips to space. We have the technology, it's just being put off by losers in government around the world.
Click to expand...

actually the space elevator as silly as it sounds, is something we need.
 
So the "anchor" would be at geo-stationary distance which means the centrifugal and gravitational forces cancel each other out? What's the problem then with the cable strength?
 
I just think it needs to go faster than 200km/h. 1 week just for the trip? maybe that's just the starting point and it will be ramped up after the bugs are worked out. and it needs to be bi-directional to be practical so technically it would have to be at least 2.

Dman8777 said:
So the "anchor" would be at geo-stationary distance which means the centrifugal and gravitational forces cancel each other out? What's the problem then with the cable strength?
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it will have to hold up it own weight. geostationary just means the anchor will be a satellite in geosynchronous orbit.
 
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Alot of the energy required to take something up in a space elevator will be recaptured on the way down. Cant get cheaper than that with any solid propellent yet.
 
DrPizza said:
The first company/country to build a space elevator will effectively own space.
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For the 30 seconds other nations allow them to own the elevator. That thing might work in some fictional Star Trek utopia where it's all one planet working together for the good of all mankind. But in this space-time continuum? Not bloody likely, even if the tech is invented to make it work nobody has the tech to protect it. A space elevator is just a giant soft target screaming "come and get me!!"
 
Maybe by 2150. A space elevator would be the biggest undertaking in the history of mankind. We're not accomplishing that in 40 years.
 
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