Going Up?

jmiyaku writes "The National Post is reporting that NASA has given a Seattle company a $570,000 grant to continue its investigation into constructing a space elevator. Coupled with some production-grade technology from a Japanese car company (carbon nanotube composites), this elevator could be a reality within 15 years..." The Highlift website has some more information.

Guess who can't wait for this!!!

[toupsie]

If you build it, they [muzak.com] will come...

Going up?

[bokketies]

I sure hope it can get you down as well.

Sheesh..

[mrgrey]

Think of how many times your ears would pop...

Location, location, location

[Sandlund]

Finally, something to put on the World Trade Center site.

Re:Good idea for nuclear waste?

[zebadee]

Also a good idea for getting rid of those annoying polititions/celebs etc.

I think the sun was used for this in a Simpsons episode somewhere?!

beam me up

[crea5e]

"Scotty one to beam up."

"I'm doing the best I can captain but the elevator is stuck on floor 3."

Re:Cool

[RobinH]

or clean our planet from the garbage buildup

Illinois, Ohio, and Toronto have found that the best place to stash garbage is in Michigan! They only charge $10 to $20 a ton to dump there (but up to $65 a ton elsewhere). You can't honestly tell me that transporting all the garbage to the middle of the Pacific ocean and launching it into space is actually cheaper than that.

Yearly, out of state garbage dumped in Michigan alone totals almost 10 million tons. This elevator will only lift 250 tons per year. I don't think that launching garbage or nuclear waste into space is very feasible.

Re:wow...

[thnmnt]

Consider then that Pfizer [pfizer.com] spends $4.7 billion dollars a year getting earthbound objects to 'elevate' into space. Why not just give them licensing rights for a Viagra [viagra-nascar.com] elevator, stick Bob Dole [bobdole.org] on it for the maiden voyage and have the whole thing sorted in a year?

My favourite part of the FAQ

[GothChip]

How will the elevator be funded?
The elevator can be funded privately, publicly, or with a combination of the two.

In other words "We don't know".

Re:Good idea for nuclear waste?

[aengblom]

It's not feasible to send waste into the sun - take a look through a few astronomy texts and you'll see why...You'd require massive amounts of fuel to get it there.

Oh, no. There are some waste products that should only be desposed of in this way--whatever the cost. For example: Richard Simmons [richardsimmons.com]

they need to get their costs right

[pangu]

From their website,

For the initial space elevator these recurring costs combined with repaying the initial capital investment would give us total launch costs of $100/kg ($230/lb or 1/10 to 1/100 of conventional systems)

So it's $100/kg, which works out to $230/lb. I see... looks like the same math that caused a recent failed mars mission.

Just asking for trouble...

[Tickenest]

Man, can you imagine how much time and money would be wasted the first time you get a jackass who pushes all the floor buttons on this puppy right as he's getting off?

Re:Good idea for nuclear waste?

[cybercuzco]

Were you aware that the sun is a Giant ball of radiation? Were you further aware that that electromagnetic RADAITON is bathing the earth every single day? Dangerous solar RADIATION is known to cause CANCER in human beings. Why would we want to add to that radiation by slinging nuclear waste into the sun? The sun is also an unstable environment, if that nuclear waste went critical it could explode with the force of thousands of hiroshimas, possible damaging the sun and causing more harmful RADIATION to be spread to earth.

In case you couldnt tell, i was being sarcastic ;-)

Re:Guess who can't wait for this!!!

[AngryPuppy]

Yeah, and you can bet some damn kid will push all the buttons on the way up, too.

Re:Impact on the environment (and the ground)

[Tablizer]

The biggest problem is figuring out how to move cargo fast enough. I'd be leery of having induction motors mess with the cable itself, and if its a nanotube bundle they won't conduct in the right direction anyways. Winches are much too slow. Sheathing the cable with metal would only be practical for a very thin layer, which ends up being too thin to support the required currents without boiling off (I think). It's an interesting design problem.

I got a solution: Use rocket engines. In fact, skip the cable and just use the rocket engines alone! I am sure scientists can find a way to keep them pointed stable enough for flight.

Wait a minute......