The Space Elevator - Public or Private? 445
AtomicGoat writes "The Space Review reports that a Space Elevator may not get built without help from the U.S. Government, but the notion that 'the DoD can also provide a sense of fiscal discipline when dealing with large, expensive programs' sounds like an Onion story. Right now a small private company (Liftport), not NASA or the Air Force, is in the lead on revolutionary space travel."
Sorry (Score:4, Funny)
Conservation of angular momentum (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Conservation of angular momentum (Score:3, Informative)
But the Earth will speed up on the return trip, so the net effect is no speed up/slow down at all.
Hooptie
Re:Conservation of angular momentum (Score:3, Funny)
What if the continent of Australia goes on a drinking binge...
Yeah, "if" - where's my Fosters?.
"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it needs government support; you can't just put up an X-mile high tower without worrying about security, shared land use, population relocation, etc. These are all things that government does. Without some government muscle, a private space elevator company would be sunk.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:5, Informative)
A space elevator would not so much be "put up" as "lowered down". The energy and materials requirements for lowering a cable from orbit are drastically different from building a tower to the stars.
When you lower a cable, it is relatively easy to anchor it to a floating platform in the middle of the ocean. Therefore, there is no worry about equatorial real estate, local population, eminent domain, or other government-dominated nonsense.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to remember that space elevators are mostly supported from the top, not the bottom. Don't imagine a tower which goes up to the heavens, imagine a rope hanging from a sattelite.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:5, Funny)
Tell that to the victims of the previous attempt at a space elevator [www.wga.hu]. That is what everybody is imagining.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Insightful)
"A ballistic missile can hit a very tiny area, and that is essentially dropped from orbit at high speed, not lowered slowly."
The different between a ballistic missle and a space elevator is huge. It's OK for ballistic missles to reach their target travelling over the speed of sound. That will probably not be OK for the poor fellows (or robots) trying to tie down the Earth-bound part of the tether. Also, a ballistic missle is a relatively discrete package; it is only in one place at a time. A tether needs to exist in many places (i.e. space, upper atmosphere, lower atmosphere) and remain stable in all those environments: much harder to do.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Insightful)
We still have a disagreement regarding scale. Our plumb bob in the tether case is not to be built with string, nor will it have a "hand" which is allowed to move much, nor do we have an overweight "bob" at the end of the tether.
I would suggest a different example to suggest the relative difficulty: hitting a certain tile on the bottom of a swimming pool with a length of sewing thread.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now realize that we're talking about a thousand-mile plumb bob, subject to varying winds at all levels of the atmosphere, and it becomes somewhat more complex than the plumb-bob-and-dime analogy.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:5, Insightful)
To get the initial spools and associated hardware up to GEO, Brad Edwards calculates (if an MPD engine is used for the LEO to GEO transfer) that the launch cost could come downn to about $1 billion for 4 Atlas 5 launches -- about twice the cost of a single shuttle mission.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Informative)
The real problem is that the plans for the assembly lines have probably all vanished: all the custom jigs and other tooling created and built up for the Apollo program. It's one thing to note on blueprint that, say, a Saturn F-1 engine outer housing needs to be sintered to the cooling pipe network in one go, but how on Earth
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Informative)
1) it's not that long, and 2) if it breaks, only the part below the break falss; the part above flies off into space
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Insightful)
To (once again!) answer the objections raised by this scenerio: Unlike Mars, Earth has a nice thick atmosphere. The elevator ribbon has a very low mass per unit length (indeed, this is one of the characteristics that make the elevator physically possible, not just sci-fi). If the cable is severed, only the stuff below the breakpoint would fall to Earth, and execpt for the bottom few hundred miles, would burn up in the atmosphere. The remainder should fall into the sea, and again, because it's so light, any that did somehow hit land would cause any major problems.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it won't. At least, not from any of the likely failure modes. Try this: tie a ball to a string. Hold the loose end to your nose and whirl around so the ball is in a "f
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Build it on a privately-owned island or some such. No regulations, no permits required, etc. I'd imagine that something like this would best be built along the equator anyways, for technical reasons. I don't know for certain, but I'd imagine that the tilt of the earth could cause problems. Maybe a floating platform, or in an equatorial country that would provide uber-security in exchange for the obvious economic benefits.
(tig)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:2)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:2)
Re:Dumb idea? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Private companies don't need governments to take care of their security for them. A space elevator will not be a very tempting target to attack externally. You can only hit the very, very, very bottom, and if you break it, you just lower a replacement for the bottom 0.01% that broke off. The main threat is crazy people somehow sneaking bombs aboard, and governments have proven that they can be just as gloriously incompetent at security screening as anybody else.
shared land use
And if the private company puts it in the middle of the ocean, or on an island that they own?
population relocation
And if there's no population to relocate, like in one of the scenarios above?
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Informative)
First, I don't think you can just sew it back together. AFAIK there's no "fix" for a broken ribbon.
Second, if the ribbon is completely broken, the top will go flying into space. Its not just going to keep hanging there above the platform.
IOW if it breaks, you're back to square one (plus the experience).
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've heard the opposite from quite a number of fairly knowledgeable people when discussing this subject. I've never heard your position before your post, although that doesn't necessarily make it wrong. I admit I don't know enough myself to say for sure; maybe at this point nobody does.
Second, if the ribbon is completely broken, the top will go flying into space. Its not just going to keep hanging there above the platform.
Actually, it is. Even if you posit a fairly high-altitude attack with an airliner or a missile, you will cut off, at most, maybe ten miles of ribbon. That works out to less than 1/2000 of the length. Since the ribbon has an exponential taper, it will end up removing much, much less than 1/2000 of the weight, and the center of gravity of the whole thing will barely move at all.
Remember, a space elevator is neither a tower nor a suspension bridge. It is anchored simply to keep it from moving around under winds, small disturbances, etc. but the elevator itself is in orbit. If the anchor is removed, the elevator will stay. Removing a few miles at the end of the elevator is extremely close to simply removing the anchor, and so the rest of the cable will basically stay where it is. It may begin to move slowly, but it's nothing that couldn't be corrected with some small thrusters.
Re:"May not get built without help from U.S. Gov.. (Score:4, Informative)
"Terrorists are unlikely to be able to break the elevator anywhere higher than 15 km or so; it can then be simply flown back down to the anchor by moving some of the counterweight mass a bit further out and will be back in operation in a couple of days."
Though they're not so much sewing it back together as they are trimming the end and re-anchoring. Good to know its so easy to fix.
Try "Won't be allowed without Gov. approv...." (Score:3, Informative)
Since a few of you are quoting a Wired article, let me remind you all of another article regarding the DOD's stated mission of "Dominating" the space arena and to deny other nations the ability to launch any platforms to space which we would deem to be contrary to our interests. See Wired magazine; "Peace is war" April 2002.
As you might recall from the article, Rumsfeld and others within the DOD have simply stated that space is too important to allow other nations to participate fully without our approva
They haven't built anything... (Score:2, Informative)
Governments will be involved (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a little over twice around the planet, people. Anyone who considers disaster scenarios should think about that. If something goes wrong, there's a possibility that the elevator cable would wrap itself around Earth, hard. Countries under the cable's path probably wouldn't like that. Their governments would make a great deal of noise, just considering the possibility.
Given that the governments are involved to that extent anyway, it's natural to assume that they will also want to oversee construction and whatnot, just to make sure Things Are Done Right. Now, do you want a government with no stake in the elevator watchdogging the process, or one that does have a serious financial stake?
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:2)
Well companies from all over the world at least as they are the ones that need to help with the building materials.
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:5, Informative)
You're right (Score:5, Informative)
Re:location, location, location... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you had been at Kitty Hawk, you would have been yelling that the glider would never fly. And as it passed over your head, you would start claiming that they would never get it down.
Re:location, location, location... (Score:3, Informative)
The space elevator was not created by science fiction writers. It was first theorized by Soviet scientist Yuri Artsutanov. Later there we some NASA papers that expanding on the theory. You can read about it here [spaceelevator.com].
If you are going to debate the con side of this issue please produce facts not emotions.
Re:location, location, location... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, y'know, a small island. Assuming they can find a small island in the middle of the ocean.
If it's so goddamn far from everything else, it's not going to make for a very efficient means of getting stuff from "civilization" to space, now is it?
Wait a minute. You think shipping goods an extra few hundred kilometers via container ship is somehow economically prohibitive? It's obscenely inexpensive and easy to ship goods by sea. It's the getting it to space part that's tricky.
They're entirely serious when they say, "Oh, we won't have to worry about the part that doesn't fly off into orbit, because we'll put it in the middle of the ocean." Right. That doesn't create its own problems, no, not at all.
Of course it creates its own problems. Namely, that we'd need to restrict air and sea traffic in a certain area, we'd need to find a suitable island for the project, and we'd need to create a special shipping lane for spacebound cargo. You seem to view these problems as showstoppers; I don't really see anything prohibitively challenging about the examples you cite.
When will you people get it through your heads that space elevators won't work?
Probably never. Then again, odds are I'm too dense to see the nuanced wisdom in your above statements, and my responses are all hideously naive.
Re:location, location, location... (Score:3, Insightful)
One minor point because I am too tired to answer the rest. Out in the middle of the see is by far the best place to put something if you want 'stuff from civilization' to get there. There is absolutely no cheaper and quicker way to ship large quantities of stuff other then by ship. For industrial applications, some place with sea access is absolutely t
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:2)
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:2)
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:5, Funny)
"President Bush...what an unexpected surprise!"
"We can dispense with the pleasantries, commander. I am here to get you back on schedule"
"My lord, my men are working as fast as they can. Dick Cheney asks the impossible of us""
"Perhaps you can tell that to him personally when he arives"
Cue the imperial march
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:3, Insightful)
Govt: it'll take 10x as long, 10x the cost, and a terrific chance that it will suck due to lowest-bidder syndrome.
Business: it'll take 2x as long, 3x the cost, and a terrific chance that it will suck due to the inexorable greed of someone in the chain.
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:3, Informative)
Otherwise, if it were shorter or longer, the cable would wrap around the earth, dragging the satellite down. Not a very effective elevator.
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:5, Informative)
geosynchronous orbit is at 22,300 miles. The reason that the cable needs to extend out past geosynchronous orbit is that the center of gravity has to be at 22,300 miles so the cable doesn't fall. That means making the cable the same length on both sides, tying off a large rock above 22,300 miles, or whatever. The point is that the cable has to have its center of gravity at 22,300 miles.
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:2)
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:2)
Re:Governments will be involved (Score:4, Funny)
In the long run (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In the long run (Score:3, Insightful)
fiscal discipline (Score:5, Insightful)
but the DoD folks are utter geniuses of financial management when compared withother federal agencies such as the FAA
or NASA.
Re:fiscal discipline (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:fiscal discipline (Score:2)
Re:fiscal discipline (Score:4, Interesting)
The DoD may be better than some in the government, but they still have a long way to go before they become a bastion of thriftyness. Let private companies do the space elevator, at least they will have an incentive to save money.
Re:fiscal discipline (Score:3, Interesting)
Those audit trails applied to hammers as well, apparently.
I spent half a day with a contractor for nuclear sub and carrier parts and he relayed the cost of the audit trail for a bearing that they built. It was ast
Liftport might be able to develop the tech (Score:2, Insightful)
Regardless (Score:2, Insightful)
The space elevator must belong to the people! (Score:2, Interesting)
We are tired of the metanacs controlling our lives!
We must control the entrance into our world!
Give us back what is rightfully ours!
(Red/Green/Blue Mars are cool)
or... (Score:2, Interesting)
Someday perhaps, but DOD, cost effective? Please... Giving something this to the government would probably ruin any efficiency in it, and a private company financing this...could happen, but most likely not
I think it's a great idea, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Queue, the correction hordes...
International Waters (Score:3, Informative)
What it might be like ... (Score:5, Funny)
Public: the elevator attendant (a Civil Servant) only grudgingly speaks to you. The individual, dressed in a simple brown uniform, is in upper middle age, and won't release your spacecraft from the elevator without a 29B/6 form that's been stamped.
A few more bits (Score:5, Funny)
Government When you call to find out why you got released at 50 miles altitude rather than geosync from the Halliburton(tm) Space Elevator, your call has a bunch of mysterious clicks in the background before being cut off entirely. After you die horribly in the crash, it's announced that you were a terrorist who crashed the elevator deliberatly. The president goes on to bomb Syria, even though you'd never even been there.
Re:hmm... (Score:2)
*Ding Ding* (Score:5, Funny)
2,756,234th Floor, Troposphere; Hardware, Automotive, and Lawn & Garden
Please watch your step as you exit and Thank You very much for shopping at Wal-Mart.
In other news ... (Score:2)
In other news, physicists report that a space elevator may not get built without help from the universe itself
Risks and Rewards (Score:5, Insightful)
The safety issue could really kill it though. If it starts to wrap around the earth, watch out. There has to be a way to "cut the cord" at this and and hope it flies out into space. Of course, a release mechanism like that is a liability in and of itself. So that's a very tough, maybe the toughest, hurdle.
Re:Risks and Rewards (Score:2)
Re:Risks and Rewards (Score:4, Funny)
" Hope "?!? Not a big believer in physics, are we?
I sure hope you don't aren't flung into space today by the centripetal acceleration of the Earth's rotation today. Good luck with that.
Post exaggerates (Score:2, Interesting)
While a project as risky and expensive as a space elevator would seem to be solely in the realm of government, private investors could play a role. Already one company, LiftPort, is trying to commercially develop a space elevator.
*TRYING*
For a commercial startup to get the mass amounts of funding needed for a venture like this seems VERY unlikely to me. With the current cynicism sur
DoD Fiscal Discipline?!? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:DoD Fiscal Discipline?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Step 1: tethered balloon (Score:5, Interesting)
If this system has potential, why not use this as the initial lift phase of a space elevator? Unspool out the first piece of carbon nanotube cable and leave the initial lift balloon tethered to its end. Hoist another spool, and splice it onto the end; inflate another balloon and send it up farther. Keep adding lengths until you reach the LEO altitude of your inflatable space station, then send it up along the tether. You'll end up with a string, supported at multiple points by small balloon and on it's end by a really big balloon.
That space station would help to support the weight of the tether, and could either serve as a launching point for the cable which would go out to GEO, or as a device to catch a cable lowered down from GEO.
The inflatable space station people claim tremendous efficiencies in lift because of the passive nature of the lifting force of balloons (negative buoyancy) vs. rockets (thrust). Why not use this approach to leverage the space elevator cable?
By the way, I'm thinking that all of this, once complete, would merely serve as the scaffold to support the climbers, splicers, etc., with which the final Space Elevator cables would be built, connecting ground to GEO.
We're from the government and we are here to help (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see that Nasa has "helped" space development much-especially the last 25 years. I can easily believe the world would be _further_ into space development without the various destructive government policies the last few decades that have turned the United States from an industrial powerhouse into a major debtor nation.
What the DoD ought to be more worried about is making the US into a technologically effective nation again(the US has a trade deficit even in high tech goods now).
Now, whoever creates a space elevator is going to instantly become a major, global power--and the DoD has reason to be concerned about such issues--but there are a lot of other pressing issues the DoD is also ignoring(i.e. the US borders just aren't very secure).
Unless the US government seriously gets its act together, I doubt very much it will have much of a constructive role in space development-this isnt' the government of Franklin and Jefferson any more-and is more like what they warned us against.
Re:We're from the government and we are here to he (Score:3, Insightful)
Breakage (Score:2, Interesting)
Role of Government (Score:2)
they could sponsor some prize awards for some basic pilot projects here.
I've seen some folks claim that there is the potential to make a Roton or something similar work on the level of capital private corporations have-it just may be happen in the US government gets out of the way-or is distracted by other things.
publicly financed, profits to private interests (Score:2, Insightful)
Aint America great!?
More space elevator references (Score:2)
http://www.gizmonicsinc.com/elevator/
http://w
I would love to see something truly this revolutionary in my lifetime.
DoD Fiscal Planning Process (Score:5, Informative)
Question the companies legitimacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Question the companies legitimacy (Score:3, Insightful)
> and other things they say in describing the strenght of the ribbon; "3-5 times as strong as needed", what about correct english as in 3 to 5 times stronger than needed.
I think your suggested correction is the incorrect phrase. Do you say "twice stronger than needed" or "twice as strong as needed". The "3 to 5 times as strong as" phrase translates directly into a mathematical value, e.g. between 300 and 500% of the strength needed. "3 to 5 t
For everyone who thinks they know... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's see, can I summarize it? (Score:5, Insightful)
2) The government shouldn't have a space program. (Maybe the government shouldn't have too many programs at all.) This will be an outrageously expensive boondoggle, and we should just let private industry handle it.
3) Dude, when is private industry going to get around to doing that?
4) When it's good and ready.
5) Dude, private industry wouldn't even build the interstate highway system - a fulcrum of America's economy. What makes you think it will build a space elevator?
6) Communist.
wireless (Score:3, Funny)
And for those of us missing the big picture... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And for those of us missing the big picture... (Score:3, Informative)
Because of conservation of angular momentum, payloads going up the elevator will pull it down.
When an elevator ascends the ribbon, it must be accelerated eastward because the Earth's rotation represents a larger eastward velocity the higher you go. The required eastward force on the ascending elevator would have to be provided by a corresponding westward force on the ribbon, possibly requiring rockets at intervals alo
how about promised business? (Score:5, Insightful)
The government likes to send things into space
The government isn't likely to develop a new technology to send things into space cost-effectively
There is a company that wants to develop a new technology to send things into space
How about the government just promise to use those guys if they prove to be cost effective? I mean a lot of the problem with public funding has to do with people funding things that do not work, or go over budget, in effect, allowing subsidies to make companies take on some of the worse fiscal aspects of public funding.
Why not just reward people who do the right thing, once it's proven they can do it?
And yes, right of ways, air corridors and related ideas are all things the government can help with. But, let's agree to do it as indirectly as possible, lest
1) the project be tainted by political ideas
2) the project become less efficient
These people want to turn a profit, let's lend em the money to do it, and promise them clients, that's what new businesses need. Let's not promise to bail them if they fail, and perhaps, they'll only try once they're sure.
Funny that. (Score:3, Interesting)
can be made then
a: it will cost.
b: It will make the historical thing about the panama
canal look seriously easy. Go become a good historian (hint: don't invest).
c: It won't happen real soon.
But, we can do some of this technology slowly.
Perhaps not on the same scale , but Arthur himself
understands that atomic bond limits make it unlikely that we can do it as far as we'd like to see.
He likes to dream. That's why we love him. Heck. He did get it right a few blinks of a chickens
nose ago, and couldn't patent it.
Never underestimate how much we love Sir Arthur.
If there was any justice in the world he wouldn't
be an ill man in a wheelchair. He'd be a passenger
on spaceshipone. He deserves it. Please Mr. Rutan,
you know he wouldn't care if he got back to the
ground breathing...
I for one would *love* Arthur to be our first hacker in space. But I'd love to suggest that he
has to take the ashes of his New York nemesis
up with him. Even though Ike hated flying.
Hey, Arthur. Consider it your revenge.
Do slashdotters understand this old timers joke or
not?
Clarke not the first (Score:3, Informative)
As early as 1895, a Russian scientist named Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested a fanciful "Celestial Castle" in geosynchronous Earth orbit attached to a tower on the ground, not unlike Paris's Eiffel tower. Another Russian, a Leningrad engineer by the name of Yuri Artsutanov, wrote some of the first modern ideas about space elevators in 1960. Published as a non-technical story in Pravda, his story never caught the attention of the West. Science magazine ran a sho
Liftport in the lead? (Score:3, Interesting)
LS
Re:Sight seeing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sight seeing (Score:5, Funny)
And then watch it go sideways.
Re:Sight seeing (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sight seeing (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sight seeing (Score:2)
-nB
Dispelling the FUD (Score:5, Informative)
The "elevator" falling down is less dangerous than a sheet of newspaper falling down. It's that thin. It's not going to hurt anyone. They said it will likely break up and shred into small pieces as it falls. If it breaks anywhere within the atmosphere (due to weather, terrorism, plane crash, etc) only a few miles fall down and they simply lower some more down and reattach it. The few miles you lose in the atmosphere is a pittance.
It will be in international waters, off of South America (I want to say Peru?). So the buyoff of any government for land, airspace, etc is not required.
There are a LOT of hurdles left. Not only can the nanotube fibers not be made in sufficient length and quantity, but they have not even looked at what happens to a model of a few-meter wide ribbon in the atmosphere. We also don't have a lift vehicle capable of getting the big spool and counterweight they need up just past geosync orbit.
Re:Dispelling the FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
One advantage of this is that if some of the cable does fall, there's nothing but water for it to land on for several thousand miles. It gives them a large safety factor because there's time either to get it under control or to cut the end before anything will come loose and impact on land.
Re:Dispelling the FUD (Score:3, Funny)
I think there's an island full of Dinosaurs in that area that wouldn't like this idea. . .
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)