Space Elevator

[fender]

Just like the X-Prize there is one going for the space elevator now.

http://www.elevator2010.org/site/index.html

[Asmodean]

Cool project. If the gets to be reality, I'm definately going to feel like I'm living in the future.

Asmodean

[Net Warrior]

post; good find, thanks

[#endgame]

I recall someone finding articles suggesting genejacks wouldn't be that far off in the future either. I'll be really worried when I wake up one morning and see xenofungus where the lawn is meant to be.

[fender]

I'll be really worried when I wake up one morning and see xenofungus where the lawn is meant to be.

You should see my lawn. Xenofungus would be an improvement. While it is green it's not grass!

[Commy]

I remember the Discover magazine article on the Space Elevator...If Bush were President 20 years from now, I bet he'd make it his legacy...

[#endgame]

Originally posted by fender


You should see my lawn. Xenofungus would be an improvement. While it is green it's not grass!

Plus the mindworms would keep door-to-door salesmen out.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by #endgame


Plus the mindworms would keep door-to-door salesmen out.

Any way to work on the telemarketers ?? Using call display to screen seems so unsatisfying. I was thinking that even a headache sent to them would be nice

[Lazerus]

If one mind can shield the many from psi horror then im sure one mind can also be trained to open up another to even deeper depths of terror

[Commy]

Use the psychic terror of mindworms, transmit it over the phone lines, and pray the company doesn't get another telemarketer...

[johndmuller]

That web site referenced in the initial post seems to run counter to some of the previous notions on the subject. In particular, I noticed that they minimized the possibility of damage to earthside in the event of a broken cable reentry. Albeit it is sci-fi, but when the Mars cable was broken in one Kim Robinson's Mars books, the effects of the cable wrapping around the planet several times was pretty dramatic. Also, it sounded like they were planning to launch the cable straight up all at once, IIRC, as in unreeling it from a rocket; its hard to imagine how they could actually do that.

Sad to say, the whole thing sounded a little too not ready for prime time to me; although they seemed to be saying that the US government / NASA was prepared to ante up serious money.

That said, the Washington Post, in a sort-of kids-educational series in the Sunday comics, happens to be running a story about how some people were seriously lobbying Congress to get money to explore the north and south poles so that they could go inside through the humongous holes in the crust they expected to find there, leading to a set of concentric inner Earths, a la Jules Verne or something like that. To top it off, one of the chief lobbyists went on to later become Vice President. No wonder the job gets no respect.

[Whitering]

Oh oh, this corporation will take over the world now! Think you are safe in the heartland of America? Think again.

The cable referred to in previous Sci-Fi works was not made of the same material as here. I don't doubt that there would be slightly more damage than they are suggesting but it wouldn't be on the same magnitude of say a nuclear blast. You might slice one or two people in half though.

(Can now make orbital inseritions anywhere on the planet). Yikes, that's how I invariably win all my games that happen to run that long.

[Commy]

In a recent Discover magazine article, a good substance has already been tested and proved worthy of use as "guide wires" for the elevator...also, they are thinking of using lasers to help somehow push vehicles into space, not rockets, no cables needed...

[Flubber]

Its fun to speculate but I to me concepts like this are still in the far off science fiction

[binTravkin]

Albeit it is sci-fi, but when the Mars cable was broken in one Kim Robinson's Mars books, the effects of the cable wrapping around the planet several times was pretty dramatic.

Well, I must say I was once good at chemistry (during Secondary School years) and there was plenty of talks going on about those nanotubes.
When I went to the University to prepare for international chemistry contest we were even doing calculations and drawing those tubes - there are special software for that, you know.

And the point is that:

A C-C (Carbon) bond(am I using the right word) is one of the most enduring molecular bonds known that is what makes nanotubes so strong.
But that's only if we talk about physical strenght.
When it comes to chemical strenght, it is a piece of cake to cut those two C atoms apart - even flame can do it.
So they're using other elements as well in these tubes, like C-Si-C-Si strings (Silicium), to make them more chemically strong.
The point is - it is almost impossible to physically disintegrate a nanotube (especially in it's direction), but it is pretty easy to disintegrate it chemically.

What keeps them from being used more frequently now is this chemical inconsistency. In laboratory you can keep the tube in a steril environment, but just throw it out on street and I bet it will disintegrate pretty fast.

The task is to make them stable enough to not disintegrate in the atmosphere. In case they will fall down to Earth, Im pretty sure there will be some means to make them at least split in little bits. One of the possible solutions is filling the interior of the tube with a good conductor and then firing a powerful electric current into it, so it breaks at least some C-C bonds. As soon as some will be broken, an effect of avalanche will appear, as the broken bonds will be start of reaction with the atmosphere, namely oxygen.