As stated very previously, the kickstarter.com campaign is not meant to even begin to build the project. Please be an INFORMED skeptic/cynic. Please.
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Need opinions and guidance building a space elevator.
- Thread starter mcglyph
- Start date
As stated very previously, the kickstarter.com campaign is not meant to even begin to build the project. Please be an INFORMED skeptic/cynic. Please.
I don't think most people said it's impossible or will never happen. It's more than it's not CURRENTLY possible with the technology available, so we're currently in a cart-before-horse situation. The materials need to come around first (and some establishment of need).
It has nothing to do with "this will never be possible nor never will be necessary."
The establishment of need. Is. Very. Clear. If you don't agree, this is your choice. If it was possible for us to do the from earth elevator today, there isn't any good reason for not doing just that just as fast as humanly possible. None. The benefits will be immense when this is a reality. World changing in fact. The Lunar elevator will have spectacular benefits as well.
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I didn't know that Kevlar is strong enough for a lunar or Mars elevator tether. Learned something new from this thread.
However, a lunar elevator still seems pretty infeasible within 10 years.
One of the designs calls for "an M5 ribbon 30 mm wide and 0.023 mm thick, would be able to support 2000 kg on the lunar surface (2005). It would also be able to hold 100 cargo vehicles, each with a mass of 580 kg, evenly spaced along the length of the elevator."
The NASA paper which is the basis for the project says the mass of this structure would be 6100 metric tons to low Earth orbit. The largest payload ever put to LEO was the Saturn V 2nd and 3rd stages (which reached LEO with the 2nd stage empty), and that was 120 metric tons. So, just getting this much mass into orbit would be a historic achievement. 6100 tons is about twice the cargo capacity of all 135 space shuttle missions combined.
I had fun looking up all that historic info and checking out the NASA research on this. Thanks for the thread, OP.
I didn't know that Kevlar is strong enough for a lunar or Mars elevator tether. Learned something new from this thread.
However, a lunar elevator still seems pretty infeasible within 10 years.
One of the designs calls for "an M5 ribbon 30 mm wide and 0.023 mm thick, would be able to support 2000 kg on the lunar surface (2005). It would also be able to hold 100 cargo vehicles, each with a mass of 580 kg, evenly spaced along the length of the elevator."
The NASA paper which is the basis for the project says the mass of this structure would be 6100 metric tons to low Earth orbit. The largest payload ever put to LEO was the Saturn V 2nd and 3rd stages (which reached LEO with the 2nd stage empty), and that was 120 metric tons. So, just getting this much mass into orbit would be a historic achievement. 6100 tons is about twice the cargo capacity of all 135 space shuttle missions combined.
I had fun looking up all that historic info and checking out the NASA research on this. Thanks for the thread, OP.
From what I hear, though Google is rumored to be working on something, they don't go to the, "normal", space elevator meetings, gatherings, etc. Interesting article. Just Google being Google. Yay Google.
Dude, if you took any enjoyment in this I can't tell you how awesome it makes me feel. Honestly. Thank you for checking it out, being INFORMED. I'm glad you had fun. You can also go to liftport.com to find out more.
Angus said:
Exactly what I was thinking. I honestly just see no use for getting excited about this yet. Great idea, I think it has some real practical uses if and when it makes monetary sense to do it.... But that time is definitely not right now and IMO there's a very good reason for scientists to really concentrate on making discoveries and using research/resources to solve much more immediate problems.
Just my 0.02
This is one of the big pursuits, and the day the carbon nanotube tech is up to it, the world will be racing to make the FROM EARTH ELEVATOR happen. And if we are going to get to that day, then this is the first step, talking about it, disseminating information, getting comfortable with the idea, and actively pursuing the LUNAR Elevator to pave the way for the from earth. The time is right now. What other time is there? Following this logic we wouldn't even be as close as we are. The community has been fired up about this since 1980. It's taken this long to get to where we are within 10 years to completion. This will change the world, change it, in so many ways. Think about not having to worry about an energy problem anymore. A massive solar array deployed transferring pure clean solar power back to earth. That is just one possible amazing result of developing the FROM EARTH ELEVATOR.
Yeah, exactly. It's not currently possible, and it's a long-term project. However that is a big change from the "its a scam", "This is a joke", "never going to happen" posts that seem to keep cropping up. To be honest I'm really surprised about how much negativity people are displaying. As far as I'm aware many of the the guys at liftport and other similar groups have pretty much dedicated their lives to this dream, and to see people shooting them down like this is pretty disappointing, I expected better of the generally open minded crew here on TBOT.
The need is there already in my opinion. We don't "Need" to go to space, but seeing as we are doing stuff up there and reaping the benefits, planning for the future and doing things in a big way seems like a good idea to me.
As far as the materials, what better way to spur the development of new technologies than through developing them for a specific need like this. Saying "Here is the material we need, lets work towards it" seems like a better way of doing it than "Lets just see what happens and hope somebody happens to develop the right material". Obviously these are two extremes, but you get the gist.
I think that time is now, and I think the sooner the better. When I say that time is now I mean I'd like to see people start looking at it in a serious way, as a long-term project. Like I mentioned earlier I'd anticipate a timeframe of a good 50 odd years before we've got much chance of nearing a completed elevator, even that is probably on the optimistic side, however if we don't even start thinking about it for 50 years, its going to be another 50 before anything gets done.
I get the feeling that the world is getting to a point where we'll not even attempt these large engineering projects anymore, because people will shoot down the ideas as a waste of money, or effort, that we don't need them now or that they're not necessary. If people were like this a hundred years ago, things like the Hoover Dam and the Empire State Building would have never happened, because they're not needed or too expensive. We're getting to a point where we never do things until they're absolutely necessary, which means generally once they're finished its too late. I can hardly complain, it's basically how I live my personal life, but I feel like society on a whole, to a certain extent, should think more about the long term and less about whats best for the individual right this moment.
As for pointless research, far too much of that goes on already. I saw a huge study done recently on pop music, where thousands and thousands of tracks were analysed and modern pop music proved to be "Less complex" from a technical standpoint and thus inferior. They could have paid me 20 bucks to tell them that, and I'd have also pointed out that the merit of music has little to do with its complexity.
An F-16 fighter jet costs about $30 million. Never mind development costs.
The space shuttle program cost about $200 billion.
I'd guess your $10-12 million guess is at least a couple orders of magnitude off...
Thing is... no one is saying it's impossible.
We're saying:
It isn't currently feasible.
It won't be feasible in ten years.
Anyone who believes this is even possible within ten years is seriously, seriously deluded.
in other words you really don't know, but good stuff might happen. I'll buy that. It MIGHT happen. I was told by this thread that there are tons of immediate improvements to my quality of life provided by a space elevator. untrue.
I have read this thread. multiple times. trying to figure out what I missed. when I missed this laundry list of improvements. fact is, it's not in there. the fact is your giant wall of text says one things "you can, you know, like, do stuff.. in 0 gravity man"
There is a difference between saying:
"This idea is a scam" and "This particular group promulgating this idea is a scam".
"This idea is a joke" and "This particular version of the idea is a joke"
"This idea is never going to happen" and "This idea is never going to happen with these guys running it"
I think the posts you're seeing are more the latter than the former.
It's not negativity - it's reality.
Its like when I tell my fiance she's acting like a B**** and she takes it as me saying she is a B*****
totally different meanings but taken as meaning the same thing
Some people clearly are quite serious.
Seems like a novel step up from the nigerian prince scam in my books.
You are talking to informed skeptics. People here who have strong physics and/or engineering educations. It doesn't matter is this guy worked for NASA or not, a lot of people work for NASA. A lot of smart people have 'smart' ideas which are nothing more than a fantasy which never come to fruition. Don't be an ill-informed sap. Don't just take their word for it, dont' just read their media. Take time to read into the REAL science of it.
Don't go about insulting people who disagree with you, as pleasantly as you may be doing it, by calling them ill informed while trumpeting that you aren't a scientist or engineer.
Liftport have been around for almost a decade already. You think they'll manage a lunar one within another decade? Science doesn't move that quickly.
Also, abour the claims of working for NASA, what did he do when working for them? I couldn't seem to find anything.
CNTs are plenty strong, particularly for their aspect ratio, from hundreds of nm to several μm in length. The problem with CNTs is, the structural perfection, which gives them the amazing strength properties, also limits them, because they are a nightmare to bind together in a structurally stable way, if you try and chemically bind something to them, you lose the structural integrity. They have to be used in composites and lose a huge amount of the strength for which they have been popularised.
Also, conductivity depends on the size and chirality of the CNTs. Control over the chirality, as far as I'm aware, is still a major issue. Though they can get past this by using multiwalled CNTs and having a statistical increase in the chance of having a conducting tube, but again, you start to lose the benificial properties once you have it imbedded as part of a composite.
Considering these types of molecules were first described in the 60s and first produced the 80s, yet there still isn't a huge market of applications beyond primary research. Most of which is factored around small science, I don't see there being some form of major breakthrough in the next decade which suddenly makes them the structural be all and end all that they get reported to be.
In the ground, pushing daisies! I'll be long dead before they build this thing - if ever!
I'll also add that LiftPort aren't the only people working on this and that there are other, larger groups which seem to have more realistic timeframes (and aren't trying to pool money this way).
I'd also speculate that, if they were being realistic, they would had much more industrial interest, more academic collaboration and more funding, either privately or from government funding.
Mcglyph, going by the kickstarter page, if you've paid them $1000 then you've paid more than anyone else. So it's understandable why you are being so passionate.
I'd also speculate that, if they were being realistic, they would had much more industrial interest, more academic collaboration and more funding, either privately or from government funding.
Mcglyph, going by the kickstarter page, if you've paid them $1000 then you've paid more than anyone else. So it's understandable why you are being so passionate.
