Space Elevator in 15 years?

[FrostyBoy]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&u=/ap/20040625/ap_on_sc/space_elevator_3&printer=1

and more info on the elevator itself: http://www.space.com/businesstechnol..._020327-1.html


Why so long though? Can't we just do it now so I don't have to be dead by the time space travel gets really exciting?

[General Ludd]

Space travel is never going to be really exciting. It takes a long time to do anything and there's no where worth while to go.

[Dis]

yep, there's a good article about it in the recent Discover magazine (I read it religiously )

The problem is the technology isn't quite there for the carbon nanotubes. They aren't strong enough yet.

[FrostyBoy]

I read that scientists can create super strong nano-tubes that would work for the space elevator, just that it costs 100's of millions of dollars just to create a few meters of it.

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Space travel is never going to be really exciting. It takes a long time to do anything and there's no where worth while to go.

I know, but I like to be ignorant sometimes

[Dis]

the one in the article says they will make it mobile. It will have a mobile platform in the waters off Ecuador. This will allow it to dodge satellites and space junk.

But I had my doubts. There is so much space junk. I would think even a very small object (which NASA does not keep track of objects less than 1 inch) would damage this. But perhaps it won't be damaged.

I think it takes like 7 to 10 days to reach the top (not the top really- but geosynchronous orbit I believe) . I'd be scared ****less the whole time

[Eli]

I think the elevator idea is just too crazy for policy makers to accept. That, of course, sucks.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Space travel is never going to be really exciting. It takes a long time to do anything and there's no where worth while to go.

Two words: Free fall.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

It's my ambition to be the first person to fart in the space elevator, giving fellow travellers a 62,000 mile jorney in the company of my foul emissions.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
It's my ambition to be the first person to fart in the space elevator, giving fellow travellers a 62,000 mile jorney in the company of my foul emissions.

And you're just the man for the job.

[KrazyHorse]

The idea of a space elevator in 15 years is laughable. Perhaps 50 years. My guess hovers somewhere around 75 or so.

[DanS]

I dislike intensely those scientists who say they can do what they can't. It makes the science politically unsupportable because it's doomed for failure and disappointment. He's just grubbing money for his project from the taxpayers short-term by telling lies.

[Odin]

This guy's been reading Red Mars to much.

[Adagio]

Damn... they talking about building an elevator to space... why don't they build an elevator in this house instead


I doubt we'll see it in 15 years... at least double this time...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

i bet an entrepreneur will go out there and collect all the space junk and sell it on earth for lots of money.