Inflatable Tower Could Climb To the Edge of Space 296
MonkeyClicker writes with mention of a proposal that could see an inflatable tower helping to carry people to the edge of space without the need for rocket propulsion. This would function in place of previous space elevator designs which featured a large cable and could be completed much faster, if proponents of the project are to be believed. "To stay upright and withstand winds, full-scale structures would require gyroscopes and active stabilization systems in each module. The team modeled a 15-kilometer tower made up of 100 modules, each one 150 meters tall and 230 meters in diameter, built from inflatable tubes 2 meters across. Quine estimates it would weigh about 800,000 tonnes when pressurized — around twice the weight of the world's largest supertanker."
bounce house (Score:5, Funny)
yep -world's biggest bounce house
for the world's richest, most overgrown kids
-I'm just saying
Yah... (Score:5, Funny)
World of goo (Score:5, Funny)
n/t
Spaced Out (Score:3, Funny)
zeppelin (Score:5, Funny)
They were trying to buld a zeppelin, but the printer did the plans in portrait format.
Could happen to anyone.
Irving Schlock, I presume? (Score:5, Funny)
Babel (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not same as elevator (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:3, Funny)
Al Quaida is already building a giant needle... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:1, Funny)
Well, our fusion reactors will produce helium as waste! Its great, we can actually use that helium for something useful that isnt talking like the Disney squirrels.
That's what... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:5, Funny)
I just don't want to be the one to have to blow it up. I get dizzy after 5 balloons or so...
Re:Irving Schlock, I presume? (Score:3, Funny)
No, its wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man! Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man! Going to space! Try Wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man! [youtube.com]
Re:Babel (Score:4, Funny)
was sagen Sie da?
Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:2, Funny)
No, actually, it runs on hot air. We can have congress fill the whole structure in just 9 months (they don't work a whole year, you know)
Re:Yah... (Score:4, Funny)
I thought making your house fly with helium balloons was something only old people did...
Re:Babel (Score:3, Funny)
No entiendo ni madres
Re:Yah... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm also joining the me-too choir on this one. I had the idea a couple of months ago
I have had the idea before either of you, and actually have started construction [a1balloonrentals.com]
Re:Babel (Score:5, Funny)
Your hovercraft is full of eels ?
Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:3, Funny)
No need to use helium - just use air and then take out all the heavy bits.
Or use a vacuum - that's even lighter than helium and far easier to manufacture by simply removing air from a container.
Re:Yah... (Score:1, Funny)
I thought making your house fly with helium balloons was something only old people did...
In Korea maybe.
Re:From TFS: (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't that what people said about Nikola Tesla?
Re:It seems (Score:2, Funny)
If your tower remains inflated for more than four hours, seek the advise of a structural engineer immediately.
Happy now?
Re:Yah... (Score:5, Funny)
You naysayers will be crying when I build my giant space marshmallow chain.
100 m wide? I don't think so. The trick is to fill them with your lighter-than-air mixture at the local atmospheric density... create, heat, inflate, rigidify, cool. And 100 m is just about right, from the base all the way up.
When it gets too high, then you simply start at your Chambered Heuristic Orbital Clasp Object -- Ladder Attachment Terminal Endpoint, and work your way back down.
The big problem I see is the earthbound anchor, but I believe professor William T. Graham (a pasty-white fellow my less couth colleagues refer to as a 'cracker') is working on a solution to that.
All of humanity shall be as neanderthals around the campfire, envying the colossal testament to my intellectual superiority. Plus, they'll probably have a hankering for S'mores, what with the figurative campfire and all.
Re:Babel (Score:3, Funny)
Pootie? (Score:5, Funny)
Sa da te!
yes (Score:2, Funny)
it's the spacenumber bed.
Re:From TFS: (Score:3, Funny)
No, they said "He's clever with all the inventions, but don't lend him any money. Plus, he looks just like David Bowie."
Re:Yah... (Score:5, Funny)
You're lucky. I smoked a lot of weed and didn't get any ideas like this. The only idea I got was "Man, you think the Steak and Shake is still open?"
Re:bounce house (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yah... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, the idea came naturally to me when I started to respond to the prior poster about the column needing to be very wide as the atmosphere got less dense. And then I got to thinking about how marshmallows get their lightness, and I thought maybe it would be applicable to the problem at hand.
And then I realized I hadn't had dinner yet, and that I'd better call my wife on my way home and ask her to start the charcoal for the grill. And then I started thinking about s'moresr,because it's summer, and I'll be grilling over charcoal tonight, and I just couldn't help myself.
Sometimes the muse takes over and we just sit, trancelike, while the genius flows from our fingertips to the keyboard. I don't think that really was me typing, nor was it my idea... it was like some force greater than man itself took ahold of me -- just used me as a conduit for brilliance. Kind of like Noah's ark, I guess... it is not my place to question why. It is only my place to build it, as directed by what can only be the divine inspiration of He of the Tangled Forkful, the FSM.
But seriously, if you think that was thought up ahead of time, and I'd been waiting to use... don;t you think it'd be a little more polished?
Re:Yah... (Score:5, Funny)
In case my daughter is reading this, you know Daddy's a kidder, right?
Re:Not same as elevator (Score:1, Funny)
What problem is the inflatable tower going to solve?
It's symbolic of the financial penis that's going to get rammed up all our asses after the US government is done with their orgy of spending and has wrecked everything.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spaced Out (Score:3, Funny)
Not necessarily, If memory serves me correctly some guy named Nimrod [wikipedia.org] tried something similar in Babylon [wikipedia.org] and t didn't turn out well [wikipedia.org].
Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:2, Funny)
so you suggest we inflate it with vacuum? ...
Re:Prior Art (Score:2, Funny)
or to translate this technobabble in something easier:
- "oh, like putting too much air in a balloon?"
- "indeed, but in this case the balloon is made of concrete"
Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:zeppelin (Score:2, Funny)
They're certainly taking "vaporware" to a whole new level!
- RG>
Re:It seems (Score:3, Funny)
If your tower remains inflated for more than four hours, seek the advise of a structural engineer immediately.
Happy now?
No, that's just an inflatable tower in my pocket.
Re:Babel (Score:1, Funny)
First shalt thou place thy thumb on the Holy Spacebar. Then shalt thou press three times, no more, no less. Three times shall be the number thou shalt press, and the number of the pressing shall be three. Four times shalt thou not press, neither press thou twice, excepting that thou then proceed to thrice. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third press, be reached, then typest thou thy Holy Code Line of Antioch towards thy endline, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.
Re:Not same as elevator (Score:3, Funny)
cancel that, earth radius is 6 thousand km. so not much gravity difference at 1/10th that. your right it's worthless for space elevator.
Re:Actually, would you believe 100 km? (Score:2, Funny)
I'm just saying.