Space Elevator | 100,000 KM | VISION
 

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After the development of carbon nanotubes in the 1990s, engineer David Smitherman of NASA/Marshall's Advanced Projects Office realized that the high strength of these materials might make the concept of an orbital skyhook feasible, and put together a workshop at the Marshall Space Flight Center, inviting many scientists and engineers to discuss concepts and compile plans for an elevator to turning the concept into a reality. The publication he edited compiling information from the workshop, "Space Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium", provides an introduction to the state of the technology at the time, and summarizes the findings.

Another American scientist, Bradley C. Edwards, suggested creating a 100,000 km long paper-thin ribbon using nanotube fibers, suggesting that this structure would stand a greater chance of surviving impacts by meteoroids. Supported by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, the work of Edwards was expanded to cover the deployment scenario, climber design, power delivery system, orbital debris avoidance, anchor system, surviving atomic oxygen, avoiding lightning and hurricanes by locating the anchor in the western equatorial Pacific, construction costs, construction schedule, and environmental hazards. The largest holdup to Edwards' proposed design is the technological limits of the tether material. His calculations call for a fiber composed of epoxy-bonded carbon nanotubes with a minimal tensile strength of 130 GPa (including a safety factor of 2); however, tests in 2000 of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), which should be notably stronger than an epoxy-bonded rope, indicated the strongest measured as 52 GPa. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes have been measured with tensile strengths up to 63 GPa.

In order to speed development of space elevators, proponents are planning several competitions, similar to the Ansari X Prize, for relevant technologies. Among them are Elevator:2010 which will organize annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems, the Robolympics Space Elevator Ribbon Climbing competition, as well as NASA's Centennial Challenges program which, in March 2005, announced a partnership with the Spaceward Foundation (the operator of Elevator:2010), raising the total value of prizes to US$400,000.

In 2005, "the LiftPort Group of space elevator companies has announced that it will be building a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant in Millville, New Jersey, to supply various glass, plastic and metal companies with these strong materials. Although LiftPort hopes to eventually use carbon nanotubes in the construction of a 100,000 km (62,000 mile) space elevator, this move will allow it to make money in the short term and conduct research and development into new production methods. "The group also announced that they had obtained permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to use airspace to conduct preliminary tests of its high altitude robotic lifters. The experiment was successful.

On February 13, 2006 the LiftPort Group announced that, earlier the same month, they had tested a mile of "space-elevator tether" made of carbon-fiber composite strings and fiberglass tape measuring 5 cm wide and 1 mm (approx. 6 sheets of paper) thick, lifted with balloons.

On August 24, 2006 the Japanese National Museum of Emerging Science and Technology in Tokyo has started to show the animation movie 'Space Elevator', based on ATA Space Elevator Project, also directed and edited by project leader, Dr. Serkan Anilir. This movie shows a possible image about the cities of future, placing the space elevator tower as a new infrastructure into the city planning, and aims to contribute children education. Currently, the movie is shown in all science museums in Japan.

The x-Tech Projects company has also been founded to pursue the prospect of a commercial Space Elevator.

In 2007, Elevator:2010 held the 2007 Space Elevator games which featured US$500,000 awards for each of the two competitions, (US$1,000,000 total) as well as an additional US$4,000,000 to be awarded over the next five years for space elevator related technologies. No teams won the competition, but a team from MIT entered the first 2-gram, 100% carbon nanotube entry into the competition.

i saw this on the discovery channel (i think). seemed very feasible. but what about space dust? How does this "orbital debris avoidance" thing-a-ma-jig work?

No way this is getting built this Millenium. Heck, we have yet to build that "Ring-Around-The-World" from 3001: The Final Odyssey.

I am sure the corona mass ejections from the Sun would prevent the subsistence of such a structure....

The latest conceptual designs use a woven tether of carbon nanotubes anchored to the ground or to a large off-shore port. In theory, a tether of this material will be capable of remaining tot without breaking despite the enormous tension it would have to endure. The vehicle that would climb the tether would accelerate quite slowly, but could safely leave the atmosphere in a few days time using a relatively small amount of power. Several companies have begun research and testing on various approaches to the idea.
See:
http://www.liftport.com/
and the $2 Million contest:
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01...tor-challenge/

Of course, the thing would have to be defended by air and by sea/ground like fort knox. Talk about an easy target.

Anyway, the Liftport group has at least reached the one-mile proof of concept. 100,000 miles to go.

Two grams. Isn't that roughly the total amount of U 235 that Ernest Lawrence had managed to come up with in 1942?

Glommed onto the elevator from A. Clarke writing about it in the 70's, even though the idea had been kicking around for a while before.
Since this is the same guy that proposed geo-sync satellites in the 1940s my guess is that it will be done someday.

I believe in the basic technology to build a space elevator, but there also needs to be a practical way to provide adequate and safe protection to and from other moving objects within a safe distance around it for the entire length of the nanotube ribbon. Perhaps by the time a safe space elevator can be created, other more practicle, advanced and improved propulsion systems for traveling to space may be possible. This could be another novel idea that never gets built.

'Space elevator' would take humans into orbit

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/WO...r/art.nasa.jpg

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe...tor/index.html

Just imagine how many space shuttle flights would take to build this elevator.

IF (emphisis on IF) this were to be built now, Imagine what it would do? no more races for the WTB, or people around the world would ridiculously try to beat it, probably restulting in the loss of lives, crashes of economies, assination of important leaders, collapse of governments, nuclear cold wars and eventual appocolypse. ok maybe not, but itd almost be a sad moment in the history of architecture, except for the people out there who are all like "oh wow! its shinyyyyy! build it now! tear down lower manhatten and build it there!". and further more, what purpose would it serve?

Also, Dubia would probably nuke itself with shame,haha.

Where do they get 100,000,000 meters from? The point of having a counterweight is to put it just beyond geosycnchronous so you don't have to have an elevator twice that length. The ribbon would be more like 45,000,000 meters.

wow...wouldn't this throw Earth's orbit off balance?

and what would it go up to?

This isn't so much visionary as one might think. Once America is able to create economically feasible nanocarbon commercially for architectural applications NASA will build it.

And to answer your questions wildcat, no it won't throw Earth out of orbit. Compared to the planet this elevator is infinitesimally small.
It would also climb up to a transfer station that you would then take off from and head off to the moon/mars/ISS/uranus :P

^
Note "Economically feasible". A project like this WILL run into the Trillions of dollars, perhaps Tens of Trillions.

Nope, The biggest figure put out there has been in the low tens of billions at most.

Just on a cursory look it would seem angular momentum would tear this suck apart

With Carbon Nanotubes? Uhh....I don't think so.

Not really an issue when you have a planet that weighs what 6000000000000000000000000 kg.

Cost is not an issue here. Any company that puts up a space elevator will control access to orbit and reap massive profits. They will control all the real estate in the Solar System. The only real questions are how long it will take to develop a strong enough cable, and how we'll go about setting up the counter-mass asteroid/station at the other end.

JDRCRASH is very likely wrong. I would bet serious money we will have a space elevator long before the end of the current century.

BTW, the best spot for a space elevator would be on the equator. Chimborazo, Ecuador is probably the leading contender for best location. If an elevator were built there, you can bet your bottom dollar a new major city would soon follow.

^Chimborazo: perhaps populated by aliens coming down to earth? :D

In all seriousness, this would be fantastic.