Space Elevator Prototype Climbs MIT Building

Jackie O writes "According to an employee blog on the Liftport Group website, their prototype robot for the Space Elevator has just successfully climbed a 260-foot building (in a driving snowstorm, no less) at MIT. Now all they have to get it to do is climb over 60 thousand miles into space, carrying things. Good luck there." Update: 11/17 05:17 GMT by T : Liftport has posted some photos from the ascent, too. Thanks!

stop laughing - prototype - ...

[Saeger]

Arthur C. Clark -- the guy who invented the idea of the geosync satellite -- said of the space elevator not too long ago, that "Itll be built 10 years after everybody stops laughing and I think they have stopped laughing." Here's to hoping that exponential progress [kurzweilai.net] in molecular nanotech makes his estimate a not-so-idealistic one.

I can't help but think about all the political hurdles that'll delay the space elevator more than any technical setbacks. And then I get to thinking about how slow and unromantic a space elevator ascent would be compared to the exciting phallic-rocket launch. Still, the space elevator is about the only way to eventually get launch costs below a dollar per pound; chemical rockets are too energy-wasteful to ever reach that point.

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Re:Space elevator practicalities

[RollingThunder]

I tend to think more of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series - since the space elevator is key in them, whereas I can't remember a single elevator in the Ringworld books.

In the Mars series, these points are largely addressed. Wind shear and resonance are handled by thrusters placed every so often along the cable, managed by a supercomputer. Adspace isn't needed - the thing pays for itself because it's a transport mechanism. Mars has no birds. ;)

In addition, he also brings up the issue of terrorism (those same locations that have thrusters also have anti-missile defenses), and the massive destruction the entire thing causes when it comes down, after they break off the counterweight asteroid it's using.

Re:Umm..

[Wabin]

Well, the robot is actually going to be doing a chunk of the building of the elevator. Once the first strand is up, the robot's first job will be to bring more and more strands up until the whole shebang can support some real weight. I would say the real showstopper is probably getting the carbon nanotubes long enough and strong enough. They wil certainly have plenty of time to get the robot tuned before that is ready.

Re:When?

[wildsurf]

It's a good idea in theory, but there's the small problem of someone has to go to the top of the building/object to anchor the ribbon in the first place.

Hot-air balloons (manned or unmanned) should do the trick for the next generation or two of the technology. After that, intermediate (~1000km) lengths could be tested by tethering two satellites together and letting tidal forces pull the ribbon taut.

Then comes the real Space Elevator, and after that, once we get cocky, we can try lowering an Elevator from the Earth to the Sun, for cheap power... Geothermal, eat your heart out.

That wouldn't work.

[i41Overlord]

I've seen strengths of 65-120 GPa listed for the minimum required strength for a space elevator cable. Spider silk is around 1.3 Gpa, so it's not even close to being as strong as what's needed.

Spider silk is about as strong as Nylon, both of which are many times as strong as steel for the same weight.

Re:I don't see this as very eventful or important.

[foniksonik]

SO they are at the 'Kitty Hawk' stage of development. I mean, the Wright Brothers didn't really achieve too much and at the time no one thought too much of it seeing as how all they did was to fly for a few seconds really...

Re:Maybe not a good idea?

[Loko Draucarn]

only problem is, you'd have to pull 600/19 times as far.

and Hawking help you if the rope slips in your hands.

Anchour Points

[tooth]

I'm just wondering why there is only ever one anchour point? Wouldn't 3-4 make more sense? Once out of the atmoshere they could be joined.. Or even one primary cable with several backups, incase on is severed or damaged and needs repair. It would make re-attaching it a lot eaiser, i'd think?

Some Trivia about 'Clarke Point'

[MarkedMan]

In 1980 (79?) I did a Co-op block at Comsat, the US part of Intelsat, responsible for the first telecommunications satelites. Because these were first described by Arthur Clarke in a science fiction story, he was given the 'first' share of stock in the company and began a long and friendly relationship with the people there. Fast forward to my tenure, where I was working with the 'resident genius' in my department (I don't know what his actual title was, but essentially he had no formal assignments other than to come up with amazing things) using some god-awful quasi-language based on fortran (it was supposed to be really good at matrix calculations and I was writing a program to calculate solar cell array degradation over the life of a satelite. It was my first introduction to dealing with something billed as 'amazing' that almost, but not quite, did what you needed it to do. But I digress from this digression...). I would frequently see him pouring over calculations and eventually asked him what he was doing. "Calculating the tensile strength needed to make a space cable." Then followed a lengthy discussion of what we now call a space elevator. I asked if Comsat was planning to build one. It turns out Arthur Clarke had asked him to do the calculations for a book he was currently writing. I assume his genesis of the idea led to it being called the Clarke point.

I never actually read the book, as, although I always find Clarke's ideas interesting, his writing just grates on my nerves.

FWIW