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Space Science

Space Elevator Conference Wraps Up 93

Posted by timothy from the quixotica dept.
slavitos writes "The Space Elevator: 2nd International Conference, organized by the Los Alamos National Lab and the Institute for Scientific Research has just finished its work in New Mexico. To be sure, most people still think it's absolutely ridiculous to even consider building such a thing. However, that's exactly what organizers wanted - an open discussion on the issue, plus some free PR."
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Space Elevator Conference Wraps Up More

Space Elevator Conference Wraps Up

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  • hmmm... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by joshsnow ( 551754 )
    Won't this thing make an astonishingly large target for terrorists, or even for enimies in a wartime situation?

    imagine the propagana and demoralising effects a hit on such a target could produce.

    Ok, so the shuttle seems less practicle, but this isn't the answer.

    I think it's a pipe dream - a nice, exciting pipe dream, but still a pipe dream

    • Re:hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Scarblac ( 122480 ) <slashdot@gerlich.nl> on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @07:45AM (#6973782) Homepage

      Well, it's a ribbon in a very remote location, without large numbers of civilians nearby.

      If you believe it's a terrorist target, then Cape Canaveral must be a bigger target - easier to reach, easier to hit. Is that a good reason to stop sending rockets into space?

    • Every time the space shuttle launches, there is a risk. You're riding an explosion out to the sky. Personally, that would make me feel rather unsafe.

      We have a very brave group of people who are willing to risk their lives going up in it, but that doesn't make it safe. Even the good track record the space program has still had setbacks - see Challenger. See Apollo 1. See the recent space shuttle explosion.

      This is a thin (think slice of paper here), hard to see, easily defendable position in the deep Pacif

    • Re:hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Oddly_Drac ( 625066 )
      "Won't this thing make an astonishingly large target for terrorists, or even for enimies in a wartime situation?"

      Only if you make it big. Currently plans involve a high tensile line and an elevator rather than the multi-tonne segmented 'bomb on a string' ideas that have entertained through science fiction, and it should be okay as long as you stop the Port Authority from writing their own rules.

      "imagine the propagana and demoralising effects a hit on such a target could produce"

      As opposed to, say, a

      • Re:hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @09:09AM (#6974367) Homepage Journal
        Cities have their vulnerabilities and invulnerabilities. Theres lots of people gathered in one place, for example. They have certain vulnerable systems, such as power and especially water.

        On the other hand, cities are extremely robust. Certainly high tech assualts such as bioterrorism could be a great concern, but proven terrorist methods are low tech -- typically delivering a large quantity of explosive in front of a highly populated building. The World Trade Center attack was undoubtedly the most spectacular terrorist "success", but as catastrophic as they were for the structures, if you look at them as an attack on the city, they were remarkably ineffective.As disruptive as they were, NYC basically continued to function even through 9/11, and today it runs more or less the same as it did on 9/10/2001.

        The Space Elevator would be a tempting target for terrorists, since it could be attacked using low tech weapons, if they could be delivered. We shouldn't underestimate their creativity in doing this.

        • Re:hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by borgboy ( 218060 )
          Often, the goal of a terrorist activity is to incite terror - hence the name. Hence the reason 9/11 was such a success for the terrorists. In that sense, NYC - and to a lesser extent the rest of the federated republic of America - does not function the same. The terrorists engendered fear. They attacked the heart of their perceived enemy, and that attack was successful.

          An attack on a remote freight elevator that happens to extend out to geosynchronous orbit would not engender the same psychological effect.

          • Re:hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

            by hey! ( 33014 )
            An attack on a remote freight elevator that happens to extend out to geosynchronous orbit would not engender the same psychological effect.

            This reminds me of consulting with clients anout Internet security. The common attitude is "nobody would want to hack me". I always tell them that every reason they can think of for them not to be a target, somebody out there will interpret the other way.

            Really, if I were a terrorist, I'd be opportunistic. If I had the opportunity to destory a project like this,
            • What you say about say about causing your enemy to dilute his efforts is very insightful, and I agree with it.
              From that standpoint, it makes sense to believe that a terrorist organization will attack a $2B carbon ribbon at the equator.
              But will it cause massive loss of life? Will it change lives? Will it engender fear in the hearts of the infidels? No. That's why I believe that ultimately, in the current global political climate, a space elevator is in a position of mitigated risk from terrorist attack.

        • Re:hmmm... (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          If you break the cable at a low altitude, it just kinda hangs there for a while. Fixable if you're ready for it.

          If you break it at a high altitude, it's gonna fall, but with current designs it will harmlessly disintegrate.

          Either way, it will probably require a military action, rather than a terrorist one, since the elevator will be in the ocean, hundreds of miles from anywhere, and well-guarded by an aircraft carrier group or two if the U.S. has the slightest interest in protecting vital infrastructure.

        • Re:hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by barawn ( 25691 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @01:47PM (#6977430) Homepage
          The Space Elevator would be a tempting target for terrorists, since it could be attacked using low tech weapons, if they could be delivered. We shouldn't underestimate their creativity in doing this.

          Why? Why would they want to strike it? Would it cause a big commotion? No. Would virtually anyone even know it happened? No.

          And here's the big reason why terrorists would NEVER bother going after the space elevator:

          Would it even bring it down? No.

          Terrorists would likely strike the elevator far below GEO - remember the elevator is almost 100,000 km long, and they'd be striking it within the bottom few km. This would do nothing. The operators would be like "Oh, jeez, those stupid terrorists tried to do something again, the elevator's drifting. OK, spool out another km of cable." The ONLY place that striking it would do ANYTHING is if you struck it near GEO, and if terrorists develop the technology to do an orbital strike at GEO, I've got a feeling they'll target other things besides the space elevator.

          The second main reason that attacking the Elevator would be useless is that even if they broke the first cable, this wouldn't even be that impressive. The marginal cost for deploying a second cable is trivial (the Conference notes said $2B, but I think they'd win out far more than that due to economies of scale - plus they doubled several things like power distribution which wouldn't be necessary for a 'backup cable'. The ribbon itself was estimated at $400M).

          You could imagine it on the news. "Elevator cable #21 was damaged beyond repair today by an explosive package concealed within a launch satellite. Consortium members have already stated that a replacement cable has been moved into position and unspooling has already begun. Full operation is expected to resume in a few weeks."

          I mean, seriously. Saying the Space Elevator is a tempting target for terrorists is like saying the International Space Station is a tempting target for terrorists. Sure, it might be. But it's not like it would EVER happen.

          • Terrorists would likely strike the elevator far below GEO - remember the elevator is almost 100,000 km long, and they'd be striking it within the bottom few km. This would do nothing. The operators would be like "Oh, jeez, those stupid terrorists tried to do something again, the elevator's drifting. OK, spool out another km of cable."

            Remember however that the line is under very high tension, many thousands of tons equivalent. If it breaks and drifts it's not so easy to catch, hold on to, and reel bac


            • Remember however that the line is under very high tension, many thousands of tons equivalent. If it breaks and drifts it's not so easy to catch, hold on to, and reel back in.

              You reel down from orbit, not from the ground. You don't need to grab it. It'd bounce, and oscillate a bit when it broke.

              Not really, though - the tension is not coming because it's attached to anything - it's coming from the cable's existence. Cables normally spring upwards and bounce because the tension on them goes from "huge" to

        • Re:hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Jeremi ( 14640 )
          The Space Elevator would be a tempting target for terrorists, since it could be attacked using low tech weapons, if they could be delivered. We shouldn't underestimate their creativity in doing this.

          True, destroying the Space Elevator would be a big demoralizer, and thus a big draw for the terrorists. Destroying elevator #6 of 27 wouldn't be such a big deal, though. That's why one of the first projects given to Space Elevator #1 should be the lifting up into orbit of Space Elevator #2, and so on.

    • Re:hmmm... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Apparently in your opinion it's our potential targets that cause terrorism, and not our actions toward other nations.
      Ok so why don't we then stop any work that is of worldwide importance or significance:
      • We shouldn't have build the fiber optic cable through Atlantic ocean.
      • We should stop space program because every launch is a potential terrorist target.
      • Shouldn't built World Trade Centers or toll buildings all-together.

      Yeah I am sure if we stop all the major projects the terrorism will cease to be!

      W

    • You're right (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We got attacked by 19 guys with boxcutters and one idiot with a shoebomb, therefore we should quail in terror and keep our heads down. Don't build any tall buildings, don't fly unless absolutely necessary, and don't even think about building infrastructure that could open up the solar system to the entire human race. Somebody with scissors might try to cut it loose.
    • Geez, aren't you ashamed? I mean, we're talking about the biggest, richest country on earth, that's got the most powerful technology and army.

      And somehow this country that seems to be so proud of it greatness is going to let a little group of underarmed, undertrained and underfunded morons to influence what they build and what they research?

    • Re:hmmm... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Mr. Foogle ( 253554 )
      "a large target in wartime"

      Flip it around. It's a means to get cargo to space (and maybe the only one) that can't readily be used as a weapon.

      The base is fixed geographically. The cargo going up is dead slow, visible, and easy to track.

      This is a good thing in wartime. Combatants can agree it's not a threat, and leave it alone.

      • If you think this can't be used as a weapon, you need to read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
        by Robert Heinlein. What comes up just might come back down, and we could "throw rocks"
        really well from geosynchronous orbit.

    • Won't this thing make an astonishingly large target for terrorists, or even for enimies in a wartime situation?

      Enemies (not enimies) of who, exactly? I assume you mean enemies of the United States. Did I miss something? Is this an American space elevator? As for the terrorists, I think all the Bush rhetoric CNN et al spout is getting to you.

      imagine the propagana and demoralising effects a hit on such a target could produce.

      I can't imagine what propaganda (not propagana) any terrorist/enemy could use

    • You can't destroy it from the ground- if you cut it at ground level it gradually drifts up away from the Earth; and then it's fairly straight forward to repair and reposition it.

      To take it out in a big way you would have to load a bomb onto a elevator car and take it up to quite high altitude, taking maybe a few days or a week, before detonating it. Needless to say, with sensible security practices at the embarkation point this is unlikely to be a problem.

    • No, it will make an astonishingly hard target for terrorists. It will be in the middle of the ocean with a no-fly zone for at least 100 miles in every direction and i'm sure will be permanently guarded by the military. Not to mention the fact the the end of the cable that's atcually in the atmosphere will be 1M wide, paper thin, and probably invisible to radar (a missle would have a hard time finding it).
      • thats great... then hurricane Nemo comes along and wipes the whole thing out since its in the middle of the ocean.

        considering the nature of this think by the way, wouldn't it make sense for the bottome to rest on the equator at the very place where the earth can give it the most centrifigal force? if so , i cant think of any particular hurricane free zone in that area...
        • The pacific ocean near the equator is fairly calm, and is most likely where it would be anchored. Oil rigs are built to survive some of the harshest ocean conditions imaginable, and the cable base station would be a similar structure. Plus, there are ways to avoid a disaster. Just off the top of my head I came up with one, i'm sure there are others.

          You put enough weight on the cable to equal the tension that's holding the low end down, then detach the end. Then the weight climbs up above the storm, rol
          • i suppose thats possible... especially if you could harness all the static electricity that is created from the entire length of the cable... you could partially power the ion engines with that mabye?

            neat ideas you have... :-)
    • Won't this thing make an astonishingly large target for terrorists, or even for enimies in a wartime situation?
      But we could throw things at them from very high up.
      • "But we could throw things at them from very high up."

        Dude, you should have so been modded up for that comment.

        The thing that worries me at the moment is that the space race is gearing up again, and despite treaties to the effect that are supposed to destroy the idea of space territoriality, I can see a big problem coming up.

        Orbital flechettes are a fairly low tech method of wiping out countries. None of that real technical jiggery-pokery, just a big rock, an accurate orbital vector and a decent rock
      • good point. combining the length of the thing and its flexibility, whoever has control of the counterweight owns the world's biggest slingshot. not terribly advanced, but with some calculations, you could deliver anything, anywhere.
    • It's possible that it might make an appealing target for terrorists. But come-ON, I want my space elevator! Every innovation I have ever seen has always been greeting with various forms of "you cant do that because XYZ" from the experts. Two things I am sure of : A continued program of space exploration is important and necessary. Rockets are not a good solution. Besides which, a space elevator has such propeller-head appeal, woot!

  • Benefits? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by identity0 ( 77976 )
    I can't help but think that, if we ever start building this thing, people are going to be like, "There are starving children that need food, and we're spending how much on a frickin' elevator to space?!?!" or "With that much money, we could buy 10 aircraft carriers!".

    Seriously, to many people, a "space elevator" is going to sound like the "escalator to nowhere" from the Simpsons - a fairly frivolous-sounding projet, and not as inspiring as rockets. Okay, so it'll make space exploration cheaper - what be

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lafiel ( 667810 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @07:52AM (#6973803) Homepage

      It's the same way with the current space program. We're always putting world hunger second :P

      Anyhow, the benefits are obvious. If taking stuff to space doesn't require the shuttle (an outdated extremely costly concept that is extremely error prone), not to mention cheaper, then eventually ordinary people will get into space as well.

      But the same question applies. What's the current space program have to do for ordinary people? Can you answer that? Good, now imagine all those satellites were far cheaper. Yeah, global communication does kick ass doesn't it?

      Cheaper space exploration will benefit us as science takes advantage. It's just a matter of time.

      • t's the same way with the current space program. We're always putting world hunger second :P

        Second? Gawd, I hope it's not *that* high on our list. I can think of a lot of things I want done first with *my* money. The rest of the world can take care of its own food needs.
        • I so hope that attitude comes back to haunt you. You know, one day, when everything has gone wrong and you have no food. You're complaining about how hungry you are and then I arrive...
          "Mr Mackenzie?"
          <weak from lack of food> "yes..?"
          "Mr Andrew Mackenzie?"
          "yes..."
          <I present a laminated printout of the above post>
          "Ha. Ha, ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Would you like some cake? Well you can't have any. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."
          I'm looking forward to it.
          • If that day comes, you can bet your ass I won't be bitching that the French, British, German, et al aren't doing anything to help me. Perhaps I'll bitch about my *own* country not providing help, but not *others*. I fucking hate how the world expects the good 'ole U.S.A. to be there to solve their problems. Suck it up, and deal with them yourselves. We're sick of helping and then being insulted or attacked by you. Or at least *I* am...

            • Re:Benefits? (Score:2, Insightful)

              by pyrrho ( 167252 )
              like which problem did the world whine for us to fix, exactly?

              you know that thing about us giving more foriegn aid than anyone else... it's not true. But that anger... the anger... it comes from somewhere, I'm just not convinced it comes from a knowledge of world affairs.
      • World hunger is actually more of a problem of transportation and politics at the current time then it is a problem of food production and cost. Using the money given by large nations and contributors at the current time, the food overproduced due to farming subsidies in the developed nations (mumbles inaudibly) we could feed all those starving. However, due to trade sanctions (More inaudible disgruntled mumbling that sounds surprisingly like cursing), local corruption (Iraq was a good example of plenty of
      • Zero-g, cheap access to solar energy, cheap access to lunar resources... lower costs of manufactured products, and lots of new jobs in orbital facilities.

        The infrastructure can also be used to build powersats relatively cheaply. Would the Third World benefit from being able to buy power cheaper than they can get it in the form of oil from the Arabs? Would we? The other obvious point is that the sun isn't running out of juice anytime soon, which is something we can't say about oil.

        That's just the beginning

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by crschmidt ( 659859 )
      The benefits are the same as have always been in the space program, only with a much lower startup cost.

      Many of the benefits of space do not come from advances in rocket engines or anything like that, they come from spinoffs of the space program.

      Tools designed to examine telescope photos for any variety of things have been converted for use in medical uses: the MRI is a simple example of this.

      Hand tools were first developed for the Apollo space missions.

      Pretty much anything involving miniaturization has
      • Hand tools were first developed for the Apollo space missions.
        That's just not true.
        My grandfather made things out of wood, and he sometimes held pieces of wood together using little tapered cylinders of iron or steel called "nails" and "screws".
        It was very difficult to cause these cylinders to enter the wood simply by pressing on them, so he used hand tools called "hammers" and "screw drivers".
        All of this occured long before Apollo.

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by david.given ( 6740 ) <dg@cowlark.com> on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @08:10AM (#6973889) Homepage Journal
      Seriously, to many people, a "space elevator" is going to sound like the "escalator to nowhere" from the Simpsons - a fairly frivolous-sounding projet, and not as inspiring as rockets. Okay, so it'll make space exploration cheaper - what benefits does it have for ordinary people?

      Well, once you have cheap access to space, a whole bunch of things suddenly become much more profitable.

      Example: most near-Earth asteroids contain very high quantities of heavy metals. There are all sorts of things you can do with iridium, platinum or gold alloys. How would you like a car that ran off ordinary petrol but used a fuel cell instead of an IC engine? Quieter, lighter, cheaper, more reliable --- provided you can get the palladium catalysts required to make it work.

      Example: it would be possible to start mass producing things in microgravity. Defect-free crystal growth would lead to much cheaper electronics among other things. If you can get the cost of access cheap enough, even mundane things like steel refining will change: vacuum foam steel girders would be cheaper, lighter and stronger than conventional rolled girders.

      Example: Outside geostationary orbit is a great place to be if you want to do something hazardous. Want to build a really messy experimental nuclear power reactor? Now you can do it and it won't be in anyone's back yard.

      Example: there's more you can do with a space elevator than get to orbit. They provide an ideal anchoring point for telecommunications systems, among other things: put a communications complex 500km up and you've got LEO-quality satellite communications while still able to use fixed position dishes. Plus it's repairable. Cheaper satellite TV, anyone?

      Example: low gee hospitals .

      Example: Tourism!

      These are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head --- I'm sure that given a few minutes thought I could come up with some more. The great thing about a space elevator is not that it's directly profitable, but that it's an enabler. It makes a whole bunch of other things become profitable, and opens up the possibility for a whole variety of other industries, currently unthought of, that would be even more profitable. It provides new wealth to the economy, which produces long-term gains in the same way that feeding starving children (although an admirable goal in itself) or building aircraft carriers just don't do. It's the old teach-a-starving-man-to-fish argument: invest, don't spend.

      • Example: Outside geostationary orbit is a great place to be if you want to do something hazardous. Want to build a really messy experimental nuclear power reactor?
        Well thats great. So because the UK has signed the Kyoto Protocol [nrdc.org] you want to mess us space instead. It daft wasting all this money make space accessible when there are still large are of this planet left to be polluted.

      • Re: Starving People (Score:4, Interesting)

        by A55M0NKEY ( 554964 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @04:23PM (#6978939) Homepage Journal
        • Q: Why are there starving people on Earth?
        • A: Because they live in the F*CKING DESERT!!
        • Q: Why do they live in the desert?
        • A: Because they can't afford to live anywhere else.
        • Q: Why can't they afford to live someplace better?
        • A: Because richer people than them buy the better land, tougher well nourished people with better weapons are already living there.
        • Q: Why did they ever settle there?
        • A: They were born there. Generations ago men with spears drove them to the most dogforsaken areas of the Earth.
        • Q: Why?
        • A: Limited resources and space.
        • Q: Why are resources and space limited.
        • A: Because life including humans reproduces exponentially until all resources are consumed. When the rate of predation/starvation = the rate of reproduction, the numbers stablilize.
        • Q: Why don't people, who are smarter than other life forms limit their birth rates?
        • A: Go ahead limit your reproduction and leave the world to those eviler than thou, but I'll kill any number of people, and risk my own death to reproduce. Imagine that * 6 billion.
        • Q: Inevitable starvation, wars, and degradation of humanity sound distasteful to me. Where can we get more resources before the world gets tougher, and the meaning of 'fittest' changes from who can breed the fastest to who can survive the most tribulations? I just wanna screw and party.
        • A: Ingenious inventions can stretch existing resources, but more space can only be had by leaving Earth.
        • Q: Maybe we can build a space elevator
        • A: Maybe.
        • Q: Then when someone's life is in the dumps on Earth they don't have to accept a nasty fate like starvation or slavery or daily noogies. They can go settle in outer space.
        • A: They could.
        • Q: But it might be tough to live in space.
        • A: Of course it would.
        • Q: There might be things like starvation asphyxiation, irradiation, dehydration etc to contend with. Only the hardiest would survive.
        • A: Yes.
        • Q: Earth would be a better place. People on Earth would still screw, party and make babies. Some of them would not be able to find resources enough on Earth.
        • A: It depends on which chair they sit in.
        • Q: Chair?
        • A: 90% of life is sitting in the right chair. The right chair being the one which lets you accrue the most resources.
        • Q: And the best of us sit in the best chairs right? It must take talent to get a good seat. Let the riff raff go live on the moon or something. I get it.
        • A: Not really, the game of musical chairs is set up so that the incumbent sitter can almost always keep their seat from a standing person. Otherwise we'd spend all our time fighting to keep our seats. The more desperate the unseated get to sit down, the more unlikely people will be to move from the seats they are in. People will start to inherit seats from their parents. A bunch of rotting goulds sitters and those who wish they were them.
        • Q: So you don't need to be particularly fit or smart or hardworking to survive if you've got a good seat?
        • A: Right. And the dearer seats get, the harder it will get to move between seats. Everyone will stay put, or end up on the floor with no resources acrueing to them.
        • Q: Sounds like a rigid class society, like feudalism or something.
        • A: They can always live on the moon. Plenty of seats there..
        • Q: I'd take a chair on the moon over the floor I guess. Still it must be the least careful, or the blunderers that end up on the floor.
        • A: Or the unlucky. Sometimes careful is a virtue, sometimes it is a liability. Depends on your situation. You never really know if you were lucky anyway. Maybe losing the state lottery meant you didn't get shot by a robber the next day.
        • Q: So the seatless go to Outer space and fight nature for a seat instead of each other. What happens when outer space stops being so hostile, once

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @08:13AM (#6973909)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Sorry people are being born in the hundreds of thousands a day, its simply not possible to move people of this planet fast enough to slow down population growth.
        • How about if you move a million of them off of the planet per day? Oh, so clearly it _is_ possible then. Perhaps you meant "it's not easy"?

    • "There are starving children that need food, and we're spending how much on a frickin' elevator to space?!?!"

      You're already spending ten times as much on the shuttles, and those things are orders of magnitude less useful than a space elevator.

      "With that much money, we could buy 10 aircraft carriers!".

      Well, actually I think there are quite enough aircraft carriers on Earth. Anyways, a space elevator's military potential is orders of magnitude greater than an aircraft carrier, especially if the lasers us

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bodan ( 619290 ) <bogdanb@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @08:24AM (#6973980)
      "There are starving children that need food, and we're spending how much on a frickin' elevator to space?!?!"
      You're already spending ten times as much on the shuttles, and those things are orders of magnitude less useful than a space elevator.
      "With that much money, we could buy 10 aircraft carriers!".
      Well, actually I think there are quite enough aircraft carriers on Earth. Anyways, a space elevator's military potential is orders of magnitude greater than an aircraft carrier, especially if the lasers used for climbing can be used to defend it - that shouldn't be too difficult.
      [...] a "space elevator" is going to sound like [...] a fairly frivolous-sounding projet, and not as inspiring as rockets. Okay, so it'll make space exploration cheaper - what benefits does it have for ordinary people?
      OK, so it's a thousand times more efficient than a rocket, big deal! Look hot PRETTY and INSPIRING the rockets are!!!! Come on, it's going to be infinitely more inspiring after it sends it's first thousand people in space, or when any highschool can send science projects in space, or launch sattelites - this thing should make Iridium-like systems a hundred times cheaper than today. Oh, and "ordinary people" will be able to actually use it. Personally. What benefits does NASA have for _you_, right now? And as for how great a target it is: it is ribbon around a meter wide, 100000km long. But, the atmosphere - the part accesible by plane, I mean - less than 30km. So it's area is 300000 square meters, much lower than any building's. If terrorists can hit it - what with all the security around it, big giant lasers that can hit a 1m square dish on the climber 100000 _km_ in space - they can hit anything, anywhere, and the elevator is the least of your problems. And anyway, breaking it inside the atmosphere (actually, anywhere lower than geostationary orbit) will sent most of it in space, not on earth. And the piece below geostationary orbit, if it fell, will create less debris than an exploding shuttle. It's less than a milimeter thick, for God's sake.

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Oddly_Drac ( 625066 )
      "what benefits does it have for ordinary people"



      That instant gratification problem is indicative of short-term thinking...one of the reasons why we're heading for a cataclysm. You should know that they've been pouring funding into hot fusion for decades, and the benefits have been less than tangible. The same with quite a few advanced propulsion methods.

      It never comes down to the thing you actually want, though. In surmounting the technical hurdles you come across stuff that is actually quite cool

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by samjam ( 256347 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @08:44AM (#6974116) Homepage Journal
      Who's we?

      How much of your money do you give to starving people as food instead of buying a nice car, nice house, nice clothes?

      As you are free to use your own property as you see fit, so are people with more property, and that includes talking about building a space elevator.

      Sam
      • And it wont exactly bust the bank compared the the trillions spent on social security handouts to the unemployed each year (see my journal for yet another moan). Come to think of it, we havent had any shuttle launches this year, thats saved, what, $2bn?
      • We've also been sending tons of food to starving people for decades, and it hasn't helped at all. They're still starving.

    • Want more war like Iraq? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bluGill ( 862 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @09:09AM (#6974368)

      I'll bet you didn't like the war in Iraq (going on a limb here, you might have). Would you approve of the US/UN going to war and knocking out several other "innocent" goverments? (for some definition of innocent?) Most starvation is caused by goverments not allowing the food, of which there is more than enough, to get to the people who need it. Generally they have a political gain of some sort to doing so. (you might not see it as a gain, but they do)

      As for a space elevator. Well I think private eneterprize should do it, which means get NASA out of the way and loosten up the laws preventing private companies from going to space. (Okay, it isn't exactly illegal, but it is nearly impossible to get the permits) At least in the US this is a problem.

      • As an AC stated before starvation is not caused by goverments not allowing the food to get to the people who need it. All the food of the developed world is not enough to feed all the starving people.

        Actually, starvation is caused by modern medicine. The child, who died in an illness 50 years ago, is cured by modern medicine now. However, the environment can't support the increased population in most third world countries. It sounds crude but we should not give medicine to the third world countries and nat
    • Two words: Weather Sats. We take weather forecasting for granted, these days, but it's thanks to space exploration we are able to see hurricanes (sp?) forming etc. Some ordinary people on the Eastcoast in America are certainly grateful for the data they get from sats, today. Space explorations saves hundreds of lives each year. Tracking of forest fires, tropical storms, drought, floods...

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Omkar ( 618823 )
      Yeah, but show me where you can trade space exploration for food, straight up. We've got plenty - we just need to distribute it more evenly.
      Remember, we can't solve everything. That's why we need to explore despite the other things we have to take care of.

    • There are huge amounts of heavy metals in space that could be mined using a Space elevator. There is good chance that large amount of aluminum, iron, uranium and other such useful metals will exist in huge quantities (many billion of tonnes) on close to earth asteroids.

      Assuming the technology required to mine such materials existed after the construction of such an elevator.. it would quickly pay for itself..

      Simon.

    • Re:Benefits? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jdbear ( 607709 )
      Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how fantastic this would be for the world?
      We could lift things (or people) into orbit without spending huge amounts of money on
      risky attempts at rocketry, making space exploration a much more easily obtainable goal.
      Imagine a fifth grade science project that's taken into orbit for $1000.00. Not $40,000.00 per
      pound, but much, much cheaper. Micro-satellites could be sent up in bunches, and deployed with
      decaying orbits. Truely disposable, because they are so cheap

  • It would be very useful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @10:22AM (#6974996) Homepage
    The top of the elevator cable goes much faster than escape velocity, so, if you put a payload there and let go, it can reach out as far as places like Jupiter, or Mars or the Moon for that matter. Very useful. That means that access to these places suddenly becomes much easier (the rocket needed to go there suddenly becomes much much smaller- and coming back isn't so bad anyway, because you can aerobrake in the Earths atmosphere like Apollo did.)

    • Re:It would be very useful (Score:4, Insightful)

      by barawn ( 25691 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @01:37PM (#6977331) Homepage
      Actually, the rockets needed to go to Mars become nonexistent - you can aerobrake for Mars entry as well. You'd also be crazy not to build a similar elevator at Mars as well, though this would be a major feat of remote engineering (but probably worth it, as the cable is much shorter, and all of the incidental costs would be nil - no expensive anchor platform needed, no climbers, etc). Then you'd have free transit back and forth from Mars - literally free - you climb to a certain point on the elevator, wait until the launch window approaches, then let go, and lo and behold, several months later, you aerobrake through Earth's (or Mars's) atmosphere, and dock with the Earth's (or Mars's) space elevator.

      Yah, of course, you'd still have chemical rockets for course correction - it'd be silly otherwise. But those rockets would be so small that they wouldn't even be considered rockets, and the only REAL reason for them is contingency.

      It may even be far more interesting than that. The whole reason you need to aerobrake at entry points is because of a velocity difference between a transfer orbit and a normal Earth orbit - that is, you're moving faster than a normal Earth orbit. However, so is the elevator. With very clever timing, you might not even need to aerobrake at all, which makes it even easier. You just time your approach so that you and the elevator are at the same point, and that you're at the height on the elevator such that your velocity is the same as the elevator's, and you just grab hold. No stress, no problems.
      • Aerobraking at Mars is a somewhat tricky proposition. If you don't brake enough you die.

        With very clever timing, you might not even need to aerobrake at all, which makes it even easier. You just time your approach so that you and the elevator are at the same point, and that you're at the height on the elevator such that your velocity is the same as the elevator's, and you just grab hold. No stress, no problems.

        Yeah right, no stress, unfortunately, if you don't catch the tether you go off into space and

        • Aerobraking at Mars is a somewhat tricky proposition. If you don't brake enough you die.

          Well, the "if you don't do it right, you die" comment is true for ANY space operation. If you don't calculate the release time correctly, you miss Mars completely. Zip! Off you go!

          This is why computers need to handle this sort of thing, and not rely on engineers entering in data in the correct units. It's a simple calculational problem, but the penalty for making a mistake is huge.

          With enough time, and enough debuggi
          • Well, the "if you don't do it right, you die" comment is true for ANY space operation.

            Um, yeah granted, but the aerobraking window at Mars is particularly narrow- the 'atmosphere' of Mars is very tenuous. Let's put it this way: Buzz Aldrin doesn't like it at all.

            Financing shouldn't be hard, though again, a government agency would likely be the one to do it.

            Mommy state will help you out? Maybe, if there's votes in it.

            But the point is that there's very little relative velocity between you and the elevat

            • Um, yeah granted, but the aerobraking window at Mars is particularly narrow- the 'atmosphere' of Mars is very tenuous. Let's put it this way: Buzz Aldrin doesn't like it at all.

              Hence the reason that a computer should be the one to do it. Computers don't have to like it. They just have to do it. :) Yes, it's difficult, and the margin is small, but you can do it, and I believe they have in fact done it already.

              Mommy state will help you out? Maybe, if there's votes in it.

              Nah, this is simple economics. If
  • Yes, but what about end of the word catastrophe possibilities? What about the possible asteroid that is to impact the planet in approximately twelve years? Are we just going to screw over space exploration and technological advances and risk the end of humanity?

  • It sounds like the conference was a success. Critics were given some podium time, and Arthur C. Clarke updated his now famous prediction to a bolder "10 years after everybody stops laughing". (He originally said "50 years after everyone stops laughing".)

    At LiftWatch [tiki-web.com] we're putting up reports by people who attended, as they become available. Blaise Gassend, one of the speakers, posted some good notes on the first two days of the conference.

  • Conference Preaches Double Standard (Score:5, Funny)

    by JohnPM ( 163131 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @11:23AM (#6975644) Homepage
    While the space elevator visionaries gathered in Santa Fe I feel it falls to me to point out a glaring hypocricy in the way that that conference was organised.

    Despite the cost saving benifits of the elevator approach to accessing space, they are still advocating the ongoing use of shuttles as can be seen at the bottom of their about page [www.isr.us].
  • Just because it is a huge target doesn't make it accessible to terrorists, or any other kind of enemy.

    The WTC was accessible in part because it was in the middle of a city. If this thing was built in the middle of Nellis Air Force Base (for example), just getting within sight of it would be a challenge.
    • Distan, the thing is really, really tall. (Think "goes into space".) The challenge is getting OUT of sight of it without leaving the hemisphere...
    • All the plans I've seen for space elevators involve planting the anchor tower in the oceans - that way you don't have to worry about local populations kicking up a stink about the massive tower and support buildings across the road and, should there be an accident, most of the debirs will end up in the sea or burn up on the way down.

      And in that sort of positioning, you can also give the tower and lower reaches some serious firepower to keep unauthorised boats and planes away from it.

  • It just makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by deathcloset ( 626704 ) on Tuesday September 16, 2003 @09:04PM (#6981489) Journal
    The space elevator makes so much sense it's amazing we even made a space shuttle at all.

    The way I look at it is this. We have been shooting humans into space atop monolithic, ubelievably dangerous explosive devices. A rocket is an explosive device.

    If space were a cliff and we wanted to get on top, the current way we are doing it is by laying a board over a fulcrum, sitting a guy on one end and dropping a volkswagen on the other. Boing! he flys through the air and rolls to a stop atop the cliff. How does he get down? he jumps and hopes to land on a soft spot. Lots, LOTS can go wrong, and death is almosts as likely as success.

    The space elevator is the equivalent of (rather than launching someone up) throwing a rope and hook up the cliff face, securing it, and then weaving a rope ladder.

    Higher success, cheaper (no volkswagen involved), and safer (though less exciting and dramatice albeit).
    • If you could just cover the little matter of "We don't have the technology to do it yet" then that would be an excellent and pretty complete summary of the situation...

      J.

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