Scientist Sees Space Elevator in 15 Years 503
bofh31337 writes "Scientist Bradley C. Edwards, head of the space elevator project at the Institute for Scientific Research, thinks an elevator that climbs 62,000 miles into space could be operating in 15 years. He pegs the cost at $10 billion, a pittance compared with other space endeavors. 'It's not new physics--nothing new has to be discovered, nothing new has to be invented from scratch,' he says. 'If there are delays in budget or delays in whatever, it could stretch, but 15 years is a realistic estimate for when we could have one up.' NASA already has given more than $500,000 to study the idea, and Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more."
no god this can be appening!!! (Score:2, Funny)
15 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine the jerk that presses the "close door" button as you're running.
Re:15 years? (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, just take the stairs. You kids are sooo lazy today...
Re:15 years? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:15 years? (Score:3, Funny)
Or make two, one "up", another "down". I once saw in a factory in Sweden an elevator system like this. It had a lot of one-person wooden cabins that ran non-stop in an endless loop, one side went up, the other down. People joked that, if you missed getting out in the last floor, you'd come down head first as the cabin turned around. Of course, those cabins hung from the cable so that they didn't get inverted at the top, but I never tried to check this.
Re:15 years? (Score:3, Funny)
It's called a patternoster. We had one at a place I worked (UK) and each 'box' held two people. Coming back from lunch one time, I found a queue of 12/13 people waiting to ride up - solution, I stepped into the one that was just disappearing into the ground. Two boxes later, I rise up in front of the still 8/9 people queuing.
I don't know why but it was incredibly funny. I'm probably just childish.
Re:15 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then just go flying off the end and you're on your way to the moon. Or Mars. Screw LEO (Low Earth Orbit).
Re:15 years? (Score:3, Informative)
Power. It takes an incredibly large amount of power to climb 38000 km to geosynchronous orbit.
It's ~500 KW per tonne of elevator to go at 200km/h near to the ground, but weight gradually reduces as you get nearer to geosynchronous orbit, and away from the earth and the power scales down proportionately.
The problem is, you can't carry enough fuel to get to the top (unless you use nuclear, but that's heavy).
Brad Edwards plan involves using ground based lasers to power
Re:15 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
The skyhook would act like throwing a wrench across the positive and negative terminals of a car battery - zap/boom/need new battery and new wrench.
So we're looking at a combination of ceramics and carbon fibres, and a (pretty much) free ride in terms of power.
Re:15 years? (Score:5, Interesting)
Edwards' proposal *is* an up-only design, which I complained about on the message board (getting people out of orbit, while easier than in, is still quite dangerous and uses significant fuel). You can't just fire a little rocket to get out of orbit there (although you could slowly decelerate things with ion drives; wouldn't be too great of a solution for people, though).
There are plenty of ways for elevators to pass each other at high speeds when you're past the bottleneck; there are even more if you ditch the "flat ribbon held with rollers" concept and go to a "mesh" design, which can be climbed with teeth from one side only and has better resiliancy . If you allow down-climbing elevators, and keep your elevator size small to enable fast launches, energy recovered can be transferred to up-climbers, cutting down on the energy expense for the up-climbers (which makes up most of the cost, since power beaming is quite inefficient).
Re:15 years? (Score:4, Interesting)
My thought sugguests that the point which is under the most strain is actually at geo-sync -- the 'balance point'.
Also, a minor point: the hard part really _IS_ getting into orbit. It would be _nice_ to come back using the same system (and if done correctly, as you say, very nice indeed) but, for the most part, once an object lets go of the tether, it will NEVER be allowed to get near it again. EVER! Because you would HAVE to attach to the tether at geo-sync orbit -- or at least geo-sync SPEEDS -- which as I would guess you know, but others may not have considered -- are NOT the same thing. I am not justifying poor design; rather I am stating that if simplicity states that the first design be a flat ribben roller design, so be it. Reduce the risk, make the first one a roller, and for the sake of the Gods above, make #2 allow for return trips!
Not that I would ever want to come back......
#1 thing not to say about a space elevator cable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:#1 thing not to say about a space elevator cabl (Score:5, Funny)
Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)
-shameless gmail request for a military man... kwishot xatx yahoo-
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:2)
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
Some cautions (Score:3, Funny)
This application has little room for error. Obviously.
Wear on carbon nanotube ribbons may be significant.
Carbon nanotube ribbons may be susceptible to significant deterioration from cosmic rays.
Micrometeor impacts may also be a problem.
If the ribbon fails, what do we do with 62,000 miles of ribbon?
Oh wait, we build a Beowulf cluster of Christmas wrapping stores.
And then there is the cost estimate.
Low.
Re:Some cautions (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, the big thing is that a few million to really take a good look at it and answer these sorts of questions. Compared to the benefits from being able to get stuff to and from orbit for incredibly low costs, and the cool stuff that then becomes possible, that's small change.
Plus, if it doesn't work out, there's a few *other* teather systems that could work as acceptable substitutes, so I doubt the research would be entirely wasted.
Re:Some cautions (Score:2)
You have to have the cable go past geosynchronous orbit to counterbalance and keep the thing taut.
As long as it's not an OTIS (Score:3, Funny)
Where's the tower? (Score:2)
At any rate, at 62 miles, the lawyers are going to be lining up first, for the "helluva whiplash" suits.
Re:Where's the tower? (Score:2)
Re:Where's the tower? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's the tower? (Score:3, Informative)
Um, no it isn't. In a vacuum (where terminal velocity doesn't really make sense anyway) they would go the same speed, but in an atmosphere (which our planet has if you hadn't noticed) terminal velocity very much differs. Or are you suggesting that if you drop a cannonball and newspaper from an airplane they will reach the same speeds. Terminal velocity is the speed at which the atmospheric drag balances the weight of the obje
Re:Where's the tower? (Score:5, Interesting)
If there is a catastrophe to be had here, I'd think, it would be it burning (do nanotubes burn very well?). What sort of electrical storms are there that far up? The electrical potential between sky and ground can be huge, and we're stretching a non-insulator across the two.
Re:Where's the tower? (Score:3, Funny)
We've spent money for worse... (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, a space elevator.. it even SOUNDS cool. Almost as cool as moonbase.
Re:We've spent money for worse... (Score:2, Funny)
No new news (Score:5, Informative)
The current issue of Discover magizine has a much longer and more informative writeup.
In Space... (Score:5, Funny)
And consequently, nobody can hear you scream.
Radiation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Radiation (Score:2)
Re:Radiation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Radiation (Score:3, Funny)
Down's much easier - take the express (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Radiation (Score:3, Insightful)
Relatively slow. Once you get out of the atmosphere, speeds of a thousand miles an hour are not unreasonable.
Re:Radiation (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah but then you get to stretch your arms out and watch your girlfriend catch fire.
I am so old school geek!
Re:Radiation (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Radiation (Score:5, Informative)
"Nothing new" (Score:3, Insightful)
While technically true, carbon nanotubes need to be much stronger and more developed before they can be employed in a space elevator with a good margin for safety.
Arthur C. Clark (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Arthur C. Clark (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Arthur C. Clark (Score:3, Informative)
He wrote "The Fountains of Paradise", another book about a space elevator, in 1978.
As I recall the "shaft" of the elevator was made with a special new material that has the strength of steel at the molecular level. I.e. a strand of it one molecule thick could not be broken and was also super dangerous as it could cut through almost anything.
Interesting concept, but I guess we don't really need that stuff after all...
Re:Arthur C. Clark (Score:2)
Re:Arthur C. Clark (Score:5, Interesting)
The concept of the space elevator first appeared in 1895 when a Russian scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris to consider a tower that reached all the way into space. He imagined placing a "celestial castle" at the end of a spindle-shaped cable, with the "castle" orbiting Earth in a geosynchronous orbit (i.e. the castle would remain over the same spot on Earth's surface). The tower would be built from the ground up to an altitude of 35,800 kilometers (geostationary orbit). Comments from Nikola Tesla are suggestive that he may have also conceived such a tower. His notes were sent behind the Iron Curtain after his death.
http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikip
We're almost there (Score:4, Insightful)
He pegs the cost at $10 billion...NASA already has given more than $500,000 to study the idea, and Congress has earmarked $2.5 million more.
Wow, at this rate, we'll have the money in, oh, 1000 years...
Materials Development part is cheap and critical (Score:3, Interesting)
one pitfall they didn't mention (Score:2, Funny)
OK, then--call me back in 15 years... (Score:2)
Or not... (Score:4, Informative)
Uhhm, even in his book, Edwards admits that the carbon nanotubes needed to make this work just aren't there yet; while we can manufacture nanotubes now, we can't make them as strong (by a factor of around 100) or nearly as long (by a factor of 10,000 or more) as needed. While it may well be that, as soon as someone really puts some effort/research bucks into making stronger/longer nanotubes, they will happen, but it seems like 15 years might still be optimistic.
OTOH, this would be way cool, and maybe in my lifetime to boot...
Maybe they should also... (Score:5, Funny)
But I digress...
3001 The Final Odyssey (Score:2, Informative)
Not for passengers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not for passengers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not for passengers (Score:5, Informative)
I think the idea for this is using the elevators to lift the mass up to an appropriate altitude and letting it go. Part of the mass is a booster rocket to get the mass into the appropriate orbit. It'd take a whole hell of a lot less rocket fuel to do this than to launch it directly from Earth's surface. Taking the mass to an altitude above geosynch and letting it go would give it a huge boost for getting out of Earth's gravity well. As far as efficiency, they are planning on driving these things with lasers powered by solar cells. I forget the exact details, but they imply that the propulsion systems are one of the easier components to develop for the project.
IIRC, the main rebuttal for this is that the cable will be much wider than the minimum required for the target maximum liftable mass, and that there will be "repair lifters" that go up on occasion to patch holes in the ribbon cable. For the larger, trackable space junk masses, the cable will be tied down to a mobile oil rig platform to allow for evasive maneuvers.
Above geosynch orbit altitude, masses "moving" (quoted because it depends on your reference frame) at the speed at which the weighted end would be moving tend to want to leave orbit. Put simply, things trying to maintain synchronous orbit (staying over one spot) below geosynch altitude want to fall (not moving fast enough), things at geosynch altitude stay where they are (speed is just right), and things above goesynch altitude want to leave orbit (moving too fast). For example, the moon's orbital speed is 1.03km/s (about 2200 mph, or about Mach 3), performing one revolution every ~28 days. The speed of something maintaining a geosynch orbit at 60k miles would be insanely fast, revolving once a day (at that altitude, it would be moving at ~7.5km/s). That would put a lot of stress (not sure how to calculate that) on the ribbon, which is part of the reason it needs to be so strong. The centripetal force would keep the cable taut. The weighted end would be quite massive, enough that the relatively small mass of the lifter and its cargo wouldn't cause enough of a change in mass to the elevator system as a whole.
Also, if the cable were to be in danger of getting dragged down, they'd probably just let it go, and the weighted end would rip the ribbon out into orbit and away. I don't think they are too worried about it getting dragged down, based on the designs I've read about.
The article in the recent Discover goes into more depth than the article attached to this thread... it even goes so far as to claim that many of the scientists that attend these conferences end up signing on to help the Space Elevator along towards being realized.
Re:Not for passengers (Score:3, Informative)
Which is exactly the plan. A counterweight at the far end can be adjusted to position the center of mass exactly in geosynchronous orbit.
Two birds with one stone (Score:2, Funny)
Refuting some silly comments (Score:5, Insightful)
And if the ribbon breaks, things generally aren't so bad. The portion of the elevator (including the counter weight) that's further from the earth will tend to move away from the earth. (If you spin in a circle with a rock in your hand, then let go of the rock, the rock goes away from you, not crashing in towards your head.) The nearer part will tend to fall, but it will tend to fall slowly and is relatively unlikely to cause damage. (At least, according to High lift systems, who came and gave a talk last year.) The elevator, since it's so huge, tends to not be terribly heavy. The system proposed by high lift systems
I believe Brad Edwards was involved in High Lift Systems, so I imagine the basic idea is the same.
If geo is ~20K miles, why does the elevator need to be so long? Does this mean that they're now thinking about a lighter counter weight? They used to talk about capturing an asteroid.
Getting a counterweight? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Getting a counterweight? (Score:3, Interesting)
A longer cable is actually useful, as it can be used to throw things out of Earth's orbit, such as to get to other planets.
Re:Getting a counterweight? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Getting a counterweight? (Score:5, Interesting)
These are the kind of problems that a bunch of money can solve. Instead of spending billions on a missile defense system that has never worked, maybe we should do something usefull.
-B
Elevator? Hmmph (Score:4, Funny)
Just you parents make sure your kids aren't wearing loose jeans on the escalator!
What about coriolis force? (Score:3, Interesting)
Since velocity=(radius)(angular speed) then there has to be a tangential acceleration as the elevator starts going up.
Obviously tension on the cable can be used if you do not go up too fast or send up too much mass at one time.
Of course the talk as always about using this to go up, but would it be possible to use this as a really big sling shot to launch space craft around the solar system.
$10 billion or 10 trillion? (Score:5, Insightful)
no new physics? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, we've been able to increase the size of the nanotubes we've been able to grow an order of magnitude every few years. We're up to centimeters now for one, single tube, and the process is likely scalable (as in, bigger furnace, longer tubes).
To get an idea of how hard this would be:
62000 miles is about 1*10^14 micrometers,
There are about 3.2*10^7 seconds in a year,
nanotubes grow at around 300 micrometers a second,
so it would take 10,000 years to grow that elevator out of continuous tubes (unless we're way, way off on the speed).
I'm not sure about 15 years, but I think we'll get it done sometime in the next 100 with some sort of welding technique, and in the long run, it's going to cost a lot more than anyone now thinks.
Supply Elevator (Score:3, Insightful)
The moon base is looking better and better, closer to 'reality' everyday...or every year, I should perhaps say.
The nuclear rocket would be great for getting the inital big heavy stuff up into space; primary building materials, the initial spools and anchors, people..etc..
I would think the space elevator would be good (at first) to reserve for hefting non-living things like food, water, and my personal favorite - oxygen, up to the anchor station and transfering them to the moon-base's anchor.
From the earth's anchor-station you basically just give the big 'ol bag of air a nice gentle push (maybe use a 'simple' solar sail, and who cares if it takes a month to make the journey over to the moon anchor (I think it would probably take less); becuase you'll have already sent 1000 ('cheap') other bags of supplies already in transit; a nice, floating convoy of happy consumables/breathables migrating on over to the moon (and back for recycling). Nice perpetual supply chain.
Heck, you could just have a 'snorkle' tube, dipped into the atmosphere, drinking up oxygen and water to fill the supply balloons. Dedicated supply elevators. When they get to the moon, empty them out and send 'em back.
To get the people to the moon base we would use the more-funner nuclear rocket ship (at first).
Now what if the ribbon breaks? you just have to ask, don't you? of course you have to ask; if you didn't you'd be ignorant (which is supposed to be bliss, but were that true there would be more happy people).
Well, if the ribbon breaks, that sucks. Basically you just make sure you have contingency, two elevators/ribbons and a good insurance agent. That way you can keep the lifeline going while we change-out the nanotube-paper-towel-roll on the other elevator.
As for the 62,000 miles of ribbon falling to the earth - the worst place for a break would be right at the anchor. This would mean the entire ribbon would begin falling to earth. This problem could be handled via several means. one way we could do it would be to have some sort of explosive bolt system that would blow the cable into small segments that could burn up in the atmosphere...hopefully (maybe they would be light enough, with enough drag to simply flutter down (let's just not worry about the unfavorable aspects of nanotube particles in the atmosphere for now - we, uh, have a glue that keeps them from turning into horrible carbon dust..yeah).
the other, more conservative method would be to have a quick retract device at the ocean-based-mobile-ground-station (ocean, ground, mobile, station...some oxymorons there) This would spool down the elevator ribbon at a speed that would keep it from 'tipping'. resulting in a straight to the ocean floor descent (imagine a kite's-tail - only vertical).
Perhaps the ribbon could even have parachute points at intervals along it's ascent. Long and short of it - if I can start dreaming up ways to handle this I think a couple physicists could figure something up that would work.
TERRORISTS!!! WHAT ABOUT THEM!? Sure, they crashed a civilian plane into the pentagon. But they didn't crash it into an airforce base, now did they? Why? S.A.Ms.
It sounds wild, but to me the space elevator just seems so elegant; almost natural. I mean, carbon; come on. We all Love carbon right? -(my friend mike for some reason hates carbon, but he's a chemist and that's another story)
I always think of the analogy of space as a tall cliff. You need to get to the top. Do you..
A) catapult yourself up there, try to land on your feet without breaking things and then base-jump back down?
or
B) throw a grappling hook, climb up, and climb down?
can you think of a better non-explosive way to get to space?
So who's still laughing? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's probably the nanotube/nanotech pessimists who are ignorant of the law of accelerating returns. [kurzweilai.net]
--
The Panama Space Canal (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's take a look:
Guatamala
Honduras
Congo
Gabon
Dem. Rep. Congo
Uganda
Kenya
Somalia
Indonesia
Are you fucking kidding me??????
Yes, I can see this one happening in the very near future. Just the places to plant a multi billion dollar space elevator, right? The only country I'd even consider building this thing would be in Singapore, depending on how much equatorial leeway we have to play with. I mean the science is one thing; Great yeah, we have the money and the technology, lets build this mama! But actually breaking ground on this thing is a political nightmare of epic proportions. Stability of the local governement is just as big, if not a bigger issue than "can we build it/how much?"
The fact that the builder is going to want to make money off it once it's built is another huge issue, severely limiting the number of sites. Unless you want to ship all your ultra high-tech parts halfway around the world to, say, Somolia?
Price to build isn't the only thing the government is looking at here and Bradley is a fool if he thinks that's all that's stopping this from moving forward.
Re:The Panama Space Canal (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the plan isn't to build it in any country. The proposal is to use a floating platform converted from an oil drilling rig. There's a lot more suitable ocean than land, and an ocean platform could be best situated for good weather, and even moved a bit to dodge larger bits of debris. A platform out in the middle of the open ocean would also be less accessible to terrorists.
$500,000? At NASA? (Score:4, Informative)
That's not all that much money at NASA, it's the equivalent of 2 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs), plus a little bit of equipment to work with.
Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
only $14k from each slashdotter should do it. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Kick Ass (Score:5, Informative)
There would need to be. At any reasonable speed, you're looking at a 24 to 48 hour trip.
Yikes (Score:4, Funny)
That's a _shitload_ of crappy muzak, there! Better bring a fully-loaded iPod.
And hope there's no crazy guy singing 'Roxanne' while you're in there.
Re:Kick Ass (Score:2)
There would need to be. At any reasonable speed, you're looking at a 24 to 48 hour trip.
you can live without food or a movie for 24 hours? damn man, what's your secret.
there would need to be basic food, bathroom, and entertainment (to prevent people from going crazy) services.
would be similar to a plane flight.
Re:Kick Ass (Score:3, Interesting)
One would think watching Earth grow smaller beneath you would be entertainment enough. Those who have seen it before can bring books. Or maybe read the instruction booklets on how to avoid explosive decompression...
Rule number one: "Don't open the window" means "Don't open the window!".
Rule number two: "Warning! Danger!" means "Warning! Danger!".
Rule number three: If you really can't be bothered to obey the "Spacesuits mandatory" signs, then go ahead and win a Darwin award.
Re:A space elevator will not happen in 15 years... (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe you should take him on at longbets.org.
He has to justify his $500,000. (Score:2)
Edwards: "Nope, it'll never work."
NASA: "No more cheques for you, then."
Edwards: "B'oh."
Re:A space elevator will not happen in 15 years... (Score:4, Informative)
Better RTFA, and maybe do a little research. We are actually within a factor of two of having materials strong enough; anything after that becomes essentially an engineering problem.
Re:A space elevator will not happen in 15 years... (Score:3, Informative)
We're nowhere even remotely close to > 100GPa; we're so far off, it's painful.
The best we can currently do on any sort of measurable scale is synthesize diamond via CVD at a rate of millimeters per hour. CNTs, should they somehow prove to have better strength than the experiments thusfar have shown (at best 60GPa), would have to scale up without losing that strength (quite difficult, if not impossible)
Re:A space elevator will not happen in 15 years... (Score:3, Insightful)
Clearly, you didn't RTFA, nor have you heard of all the related advances that are being made. Why is it that people who think they do know better often understand the least?
Re:wow (Score:3, Informative)
I mean, the thing is, chemical rockets will only take you so far. So it's money well spent, for what the potential benefits would be.
Re:wow (Score:5, Informative)
Then there's the "fiber" problem. Nanotube fibers are at best held together by Van der Waals force. Edwards proposes some sort of unexplained "nanotube epoxy" that is somehow supposed to be able to withstand these incredible tensile strengths which the tubes themselves, even in theory, can barely withstand. I don't buy it one bit. The best fibers made so far, held together by the same forces, achieve the sort of tensile strength you get from Kevlar. Longer tubes will help, but you'd need a *huge* improvement.
The epoxy concept is bunk. There is a concept which might work, however: pressure induced interlinking of carbon nanotubes [arxiv.org]. Basically, you swap out some of the stronger sp2 bonds for the weaker sp3 bonds, but it interlinks the tubes.
I have other problems with Edwards' design, too, but he has done an awful lot of well-reasoned calculations. I contributed a lot to the article on Wikipedia, so if you want to read more about space elevators, that's the place [wikipedia.org].
Re:How Far? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How Far? (Score:2)
Re:How Far? (Score:3, Interesting)
Best of all, go out to the end of it, let go.... you get a free trip out of orbit. Be sure to bring plen
Re:How Far? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How Far? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How Far? (Score:2)
C//
Re:How Far? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How Far? (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, it's just another NASA rocket scientist [sic] trying to figure out that unit-conversion software thingie.
Re:How is this build? (Score:2)
In fact, in my mind reeling it out like a rope ladder from a high window is the smartest and easiest thing to do, the only catch would be watching the weather. But they plan to build this in a weather-friendly area anyway, so while it seems bizarre I suspect it's tot
Re:Working elevators on Earth (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'd volunteer to be an elevator attendant (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, he's an optimist... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A little more humility is in order (Score:5, Informative)
When, exactly, did the production of steel on a scale that one could build a bridge out of the stuff begin? Iron, too, for that matter? Certainly not thousands of years ago.
Furthermore, it was mostly the math that needed improvement, not the materials.