Space Elevator Not Gonna Happen

Most designs seem to have a stationary "beanstalk" this does away with the need to expend fuel at the top.

Have you run the numbers? can your design lift enough fuel to maintain itself?

If you look at the equilibrium equations, you will note the solution , r, d istance from Earth center, is independent of the satellite mass, m. That's how all the communication satellites, large and small, end up at the same d istance, if they're geostationary that is. This application is complicated because r is the distance for the mass center of gravity, and that changes as the load is elevated. The effect is reduced by making the elevator space anchor mass very much more than the load mass, so the center of gravity do esn't move around much. Therefore the only thing orders of magnitude greate r than anything else, is the space anchor mass relative to the tether and l oad mass.

Jasen Betts wrote in news:q32bk4$s2o$ snipped-for-privacy@gonzo.alcatraz:

We can barely build free standing radio towers down here at the sub kilometer level. And those have guy wires on them.

So no stalk. It would weigh far too much anyway.

It needs to be temporal.

It is like fishing a wall. In this case, however, two lines get dropped. The hoist tether for the payload attachment and the guide strand it will ride on during the hoist event. The guide strand gets anchored to Earth. During the hoist, once the hoist escapes atmospheric influence, the Earth guide strand attachment can be released and retrieved back to the platform.

At some point, the rising payload and tether will continue rising even after the winch has stopped pulling. So there will have to be a capture device at the platform.

Ask yourself... your weight on Mt. Everest and your weight standing on a chunk of ice in the Arctic Sea?

But that is due to wind loading of the towers.

(snip erroneous drivel)

so far no confvincing argument

uh, you mean for installing cables inside an finished wall? I've never seen that done using skyhooks.

What the f*ck? by the illogic above the guide strand "would weigh far too much anyway."

Tidal forces will continue to stretch the system, it's also going to gain lots of angular velocity by conservation of momentum. it's going to be a serious hazard to other satellites.

this argument is given as evidence of what?

Ask yourself how does this thing stay in orbit, (and in what orbit)

I think it is funny that you think no one has worked out the orbital mechan ics yet. I would have expected this to be the very first thing done.

If you are so convinced the orbital mechanics won't work, why not prove it or find someone who has already proven it. Do you think no one has looked at it?

I recall watching a show about a company (or two) that worked on the idea. Yeah, the material science isn't there yet, but they did all the prelimina ry work and seemed to show that it was feasible if the carbon nanotube thin g could be made to work. By "feasible" they mean there are no glaring defe cts in the science. Sure, there is a lot more work to be done, but nothing that would be a clear road block.

Just like math and many other fields, work will progress until someone prov es it can't be done and what the reasons are. A bunch of hand waving isn't good science.

Rick C.

distance from Earth center, is independent of the satellite mass, m. That' s how all the communication satellites, large and small, end up at the same distance, if they're geostationary that is. This application is complicate d because r is the distance for the mass center of gravity, and that change s as the load is elevated. The effect is reduced by making the elevator spa ce anchor mass very much more than the load mass, so the center of gravity doesn't move around much. Therefore the only thing orders of magnitude grea ter than anything else, is the space anchor mass relative to the tether and load mass.

Or you put a movable counter-weight at the other end of the cable (which is going to stick out further into space - it doesn't have to as long as the cable down to the earth surface, but making it longer reduces the total mas s of the elevator.

Your design is like nothing I've hard of before. maybe there's a reason for that. I can think of several.

yes, I think noone who has looked has found it useful.

That whip sweeping through the clarke belt seems like a deal breaker to me

It's good enoug for somethign so obviously flawed.

"My" design??? Care to actually say something rather than just being vague?

More vague nothing.

More nothing. Care to elucidate?

Except you haven't really said anything. I'll give your statements all the consideration they deserve.

Rick C.

--- Tesla referral code -

Jasen Betts wrote in news:q32jmd$7t1$4 @gonzo.alcatraz:

Damn, boy. I think you have far too little of a conceptual mind to even have this discussion.

LIKE fishing a wall, you stupid f*ck!

One DROPS a line down the wall, and then attaches the payload to that line and pulls it up.

In this case, there are no walls, and the line drop is that of TWO strands.

God damn you are thick!

Skyhooks? Wake the f*ck up. They get dropped from the space platform attached to a single bob.

Jasen Betts wrote in news:q32jmd$7t1$4 @gonzo.alcatraz:

illogic?

Fuck you, Betts. You might as well go over and drive the goddamned krw retarded f*ck bandwagon. If you continue to make retarded cracks instead of proper debate on the physics you will get called on your childish horseshit.

Speak English, BOY!

Hazard to other satellites? You mean the lower orbit devices roaming the space between the platform and Earth? That was always a known issue.

snipped-for-privacy@ieee.org wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

It is real simple, guys.

One spends energy in space seting up for a lift.

The lift platform in space contains a very large, massive gyroscope wheel. The lift event loads the axis of that gyro and pulls against that. The platform (read gyro frame) precesses from the force. Less energy is need for staion position fixing during the event. After the event, the gyro gets spooled up again by the hub motor (electric) or by way of say ion propulsion, since the long time factor is not an issue.

Anyway, the concept is to use gyro force on the platform to fix position and spool it back up later using renewable energy as opposed to rockets or jets to force station positioning during a hoist.

So picture a huge say hundred foot diameter gyro held tilted against the perpendicular line. With that gyro's axis attached to the lifting platform's frame, less movement will occur as the lift event takes place. We could even use an overtly large gyro that holds all three axis. The key is that the energy put into the gyros can assist in the lift such that not as much on-demand energy is not needed during the lift events. Some of that energy can be placed and stored in the gyro between lifts.

If you're gonna do that, just put a pulley at the top and drive the loop from the ground.

Anchor is not necessary; it could work untethered (and not geosynchronous) and would generally be sigmoid in shape (because the higher velocity of the low-orbital bit, it has to have a lateral slant from low-end to high-end).

The Integral Trees, by Larry Niven, has a really odd vision of how to implement an elevator (as a kind of precursor to making a Dyson sphere).

Maybe, maybe not; a variant of the rocks-and-string bolas could arrange good contact of the munition to the target. Thermite, anyone?

Mike wrote in news:q33l69$4q3$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Too heavy.

Ground attachment happens at session time.

A ground driven loop is cheaper from a space platform/fuel need perspective. The problem is the long term hard attachment.

That is why I said it is temporal. Only deployed at the time of use, then stowed again.

But you are right. Drop two lines. Line one is the guide strand, and line two is both strands of the hoist tether loop. After ground attachment, the loop gets driven from earth. It still does not negate the need for station fixing of the platform during the lift, it merely shifts where the hoist energy comes from. Good idea.

Windage will be a pain. Back in the early '70s I used to fly a "Puffer Kite", and I used a spool of fishing string. On 2000 ft of string, I'd bet it did not loft more than 700 ft due to the sag caused by the wind and the weight of the string. But the wind was a part of the 'upper tie point' in that scenario.

This would be more like a slightly taut bass guitar string.

Not for the space elevator that everybody else understands by the term, inc luding Wikipedia.

Not a feature of any space elevator I've heard about.

Gyroscopic forces don't come into it.

Don't bother.

You might be able to. The rest of world doesn't seem to want to bother.

The classical space elevator starts as two spool of very strong string in g eosynchronous orbit.

You feed one length of string down from orbit towards earth, and another - equal - length of string up, away for earth.

Getting it started might be tricky, but once you've fed out a few miles, th e top string is moving at higher than orbital speed above the geosynchronou s orbit, and pulls outward, and the bottom string is moving at sub-orbital speed in a lower orbit and pulls downward.

Keep on feeding out string in both directions and the bottom end eventually gets down to the surface of the earth.

The tension in the string at geosynchronous orbital height is higher than c an be sustained by any commercially available cable - carbon nanotubes are the only likely candidate material - but there's not a gyroscope anywhere i n the prescription.

snipped-for-privacy@ieee.org wrote in news:eec6f368-2346-46ae-8746-bf8354e19ea6 @googlegroups.com:

Ever work with or study a gyroscope and its mechanical effects in physics class?

snipped-for-privacy@ieee.org wrote in news:eec6f368-2346-46ae-8746-bf8354e19ea6 @googlegroups.com:

They do if the entire platform is built around a giant gyroscope.