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
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Sounds Phallic (Score:2)
Dreamspace (Score:5, Interesting)
This didn't go well the last time. Newspaper headline:
NIGHTMARE ON DREAMSPACE: MUMS, DADS, KIDS PLUNGE TO EARTH
HORRIFIED witnesses told last night how they watched helplessly as parents and children plummeted to the ground after a huge bouncy castle was sent rocketing 120ft into the air.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2006/07/24/killed-by-the-bouncy-castle-115875-17435718/ [mirror.co.uk]
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=dreamspace+inflatable [google.com.au]
Yah... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Yah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yah... (Score:4, Funny)
I thought making your house fly with helium balloons was something only old people did...
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You must be thinking of that movie "What's Up [iwatchstuff.com]" where an old guy gets a hot air balloon to lift up his house and rescue people.
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.
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Nice try.
It was actually about smores.
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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?
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I don't think the idea is to make it lighter than air, but just use air to provide some physical structure to it.
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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: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:Yah... (Score:5, Funny)
In case my daughter is reading this, you know Daddy's a kidder, right?
World of goo (Score:5, Funny)
n/t
Spaced Out (Score:3, Funny)
Why dead? (Score:2)
Did idea of vertical take-off and landing aircraft die out because of the development of aerodynamic lift aircraft?
How about propeller aircraft after development of jet engines?
Or lighter than air and other unpowered aircraft after development of powered aircraft?
How about Macs? Does anyone anywhere use them at all since Windows came out?
Is Linux dead?
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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].
Not same as elevator (Score:2, Insightful)
Note that this is would only extend a few tens of kilometers. It's to the edge of space, whereas a full elevator is aimed at getting *out* of Earth's gravity well.
They're solving two different problems and aren't really that comparable.
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Re:Not same as elevator (Score:5, Informative)
15km isn't that far out. You can still use oxygen-burning jets at that altitude if you design them right. The SR-71 went up to 24km. Amature high-altitude ballons can break 30km [natrium42.com] and might get out to 50km if they try hard enough.
If this thing can plausibly get out to 100-200km, they might have something, but 15km isn't very impressive for what it needs to do.
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Actually, it would be kinda fun if you could just take the elevator to get up to the space station.
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Re:Not same as elevator (Score:4, Informative)
Think of it as a railgun or catapult. (Score:4, Informative)
Note that this is would only extend a few tens of kilometers. It's to the edge of space, whereas a full elevator is aimed at getting *out* of Earth's gravity well.
Well if you just use it as a regular elevator and stop at the top, it's a nice tall observation deck where the atmosphere is really thin but not quite "into space".
But if it can support the weight of the elevator and observation platform, it should be able to provide an equal upward force to a lighter payload that is being accelerated. Such a projectile might leave the top of the structure with enough velocity to put the apogee of its trajectory in low-earth-orbit altitudes.
You'd have to provide additional thrust during that hop to bring the PERIGEE above significant atmospheric braking in less than half an orbit. But you've won half the battle by getting above the significant atmosphere on electric power rather than rocket reaction.
Perhaps lean the thing over to get significant downrange velocity - and support its less-vertical run with more compression members of a similar construction while building a broader structure of multiple members to avoid bending between supports. (Octagon truss, anyone?)
And the payload might also be composed of something like a long, thin, "cannon" with a "bullet" that is your final payload. "Fire" it (electromagnetically again) when near apogee. Then the "bullet" is circularized and the "cannon" returns to Earth for reuse with less momentum than when it left the elevator/catapult. Reenter and glide down - or land into another similar elevator structure and be gently lowered for reuse while the energy from the cannon stage's momentum and altitude is recycled into electric power.
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(Octagon truss, anyone?)
Make that "octahedron truss".
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No. LEO orbital velocity is about 5 miles per SECOND, and even then it has to be lateral. The nice part of a space elevator is that it goes all the way up to geosync orbit heights, the point at which you can let go and you're already in orbit. This is 25,000 miles above us. The highest this kind of thing could reach is probably no more than 50 miles, 1/500th the u
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Job losses in the bouncy-castle-manufacture industry due to the credit crunch?
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15 km high superstructure? Pretty good place to start if you are working on a space-elevator-thingy.
Knowledge gained in its creation would be invaluable for future work on the space elevator.
Also, highest place you can put a telescope at without actually launching it into space.
And just imagine the radio coverage from that place.
A lot lower than a communication satellite but also sure as hell taller than the highest radio tower.
Re:Not same as elevator (Score:5, Informative)
15 km high superstructure? Pretty good place to start if you are working on a space-elevator-thingy.
Not really. A space elevator works by having its center of gravity at the distance for geosynchronous orbit (or slightly beyond, once you've hooked to the ground). That's about 22,300 miles. To build it, you start at the geosynchronous orbit and start spooling material simultaneously towards the earth and away, so the center of mass remains geosynchronous.
15km isn't a drop in the bucket by that measure. At 15km above a fixed point on earth, you're nowhere close to orbital velocity, whereas if you can climb up to 22,300 miles, you're at orbital velocity. And if you climb higher and time it right, you get a slingshot start to go other places.
I'm not saying that a 15km tower couldn't have valid uses, but it's not going to unlock planetary travel for us.
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I didn't mean it as way to build the elevator from the ground up.
You could use it as a testbed for materials, procedures and techniques involved in building the actual space elevator.
Just the safety and security procedures developed would streamline the job immensely.
Building an F-15 is not the same as strapping a jet engine onto a Sopwith Camel but many of the principles get carried over.
Particularly regarding how to actually use one for its intended purposes.
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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.
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)
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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]
Babel (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Babel (Score:4, Funny)
was sagen Sie da?
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No entiendo ni madres
Re:Babel (Score:5, Funny)
Your hovercraft is full of eels ?
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Pootie? (Score:5, Funny)
Sa da te!
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Unfortunately, that one language was Brainfuck.
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Re:Babel (Score:4, Insightful)
There was still the war of tabs vs. three spaces. Lest we forget those who fell in righteous indentation!
Wait... three !?
Where will all the helium come from? (Score:5, Informative)
Their 15km version would need ten years of the entire world's helium production to fill it.
The 200km version would use up over half the world's estimated helium reserves.
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Re:Where will all the helium come from? (Score:5, Interesting)
Jupiter would probably be easier. 8-12% Helium by volume [wikipedia.org] in the upper atmosphere, and the rest is Hydrogen.
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Oooh, ooh, I have a magical fantasy plan that would have us create balloons so as to SINK in Jupiter's gravitational well!
Yeah, good thinking, buddy.
/deliberately obtuse
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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.
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so you suggest we inflate it with vacuum? ...
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Heh, just using air would seem to make a lot more sense.
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...
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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)
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Physics (Score:2)
No, I haven't done the math behind this. But given that the force of gravity decreases by the inverse square law, using something like the infltable tower might make the space elevator much more feasible to create.
You mention helium, but why not simply use compressed air, especially at the higher levels?
In any event, this is the sort of out-of-the-box thinking needed to make space travel feasible!
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But given that the force of gravity decreases by the inverse square law, using something like the infltable tower might make the space elevator much more feasible to create
Take into account the Earth has a radius around 6360km. Even if you go up 100km, that's just 1.57% farther, meaning a 2.47% reduction in gravity.
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Their 15km version would need ten years of the entire world's helium production to fill it.
I don't understand this article at all. The headline is about a tower to "the edge of space" but the article is about something completely unrelated.
I don't get it. It's almost as if the editors at the New Scientist posted a completely unrelated text under a headline for a totally different article.
As you say, their tower is 15 km high. Where is the article about a tower to the edge of space? It's not there.
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200 km version: Half of world's total helium reserves
World effect when it bursts: Priceless
Al Quaida is already building a giant needle... (Score:2, Funny)
Bad article. (Score:5, Interesting)
This could have some use for escaping earth's gravity. Among all the theorized technologies one of the most promising has always been just launching stuff into space via rail gun style. If you have a long tube with nothing but vacuum inside it you can drastically increase the efficiency of such a device. The problem is the end of the device has to exit into something near vacuum or it would be like slamming into a solid wall made of atmosphere.
If a tower like this could be built such that it contained a vacuum corridor inside it then we could perhaps finally pursue this idea with already existing technologies.
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There's no reason to keep the end open. You wouldn't even need to put a door on it. You could just seal the end with the equivalent of air tight paper machete. The air pressure at such a height would be so small that it wouldn't take much of anything to keep it vacuum sealed.
That's what... (Score:2, Funny)
Prior Art (Score:5, Interesting)
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Buckminster Fuller (my hero ;-) already came up with this, altho' he intended to use concrete. Basically, if the structure is large enough, making the inside of the structure a few degrees warmer than the outside air will cause it to float. Bucky described a sphere about 1 mile in diameter to be airborne, and somewhat smaller cones to be sea cities.
Later . . . Jim
Yeah, that'll go over like a lead balloon [youtube.com].
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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"
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Um, no. Hot air balloons don't expand when you heat them up, otherwise the density of the air would remain at the external density and it wouldn't float. Notice how the hot breath you use when blowing up a balloon doesn't make it float.
Hot air balloons work because they DON'T expand. They let air out the bottom as the density drops.
You've got how it works ass-backwards. You heat the air to put LESS air into the balloon, not more.
Complete the analysis (Score:2)
Why would you want to deflate a superstructure (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be far easier to lift a superstructure via deflation? Make a big carbon-nanotube globe and just vacuum it. Then you don't have to worry about harvesting impossible amounts of helium. To control rate of ascension/descension, you would just let air in through an airlock-type-valve for controlled flow to avoid implosion, and naturally just have some specialized pump to lower the air pressure inside to make it rise.
Prof. Brendan Quine (Score:3, Informative)
Since it's not in the summary, Brendan Quine is an associate professor [yorku.ca] at in Space Engineering at York University in Toronto, Ontario (Canada). He is responsible for the Argus micro-spectrometer [yorku.ca] on the CanX-2 [utias-sfl.net] nanosatellite, currently operating on orbit. The satellite was developed by the University of Toronto's Space Flight Laboratory [utias-sfl.net].
Aikon-
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Since it's not in the summary, Brendan Quine is an associate professor [yorku.ca] at in Space Engineering at York University in Toronto, Ontario (Canada). He is responsible for the Argus micro-spectrometer [yorku.ca] on the CanX-2 [utias-sfl.net] nanosatellite, currently operating on orbit. The satellite was developed by the University of Toronto's Space Flight Laboratory [utias-sfl.net].
Aikon-
I'd have expected Mr Quine to be an android who builds androids, actually.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Someone check my math (Score:2)
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It's not the altitude, it's the velocity (Score:2)
It's not the altitude that is critical, it's the velocity. Let's say I were to teleport upward 100 miles, but with no other change in my velocity (also let us assume I am wearing a space suit). What happens? I fall down - because I have no where near the velocity to stay in orbit. Even if we keep the same angular velocity with respect to the earth's core I have now, I still fall down - I just miss hitting my house.
OK, I happen to have an unobtainium mine in my basement, so I build a tower a thousand kilomet
Sorry about this chief.... (Score:2)
Sounds dangerous, reminds me of the joke about the inflatable kid who went to an inflatable school.
One day he had a tantrum, and took a compass and
punctured his inflatable teacher, then his inflatable headmaster. On the way out he punctured the infaltable school. When he got home he punctured his inflatable parents, and then himself
The next day in the headmasters office.
"I am very disappointed in you, you know what you have done, you have let your me down, the school down, your parents down and most importa
Make it a fountain instead of an elevator! (Score:2)
I Remember: A Spider Lands on a Turn Table... (Score:3, Interesting)
I RTFA; but some of the details seemed a little fuzzy, like the density of the outside with respect to the inside of the tube, load bearing. Maybe a 3D Real Time Model could be fashioned in something like Blender3D. [blender.org] If the math proves out, cool. But if not, then maybe the model could be applied to some other similar engineering solution. That in itself would be a worthy engineering accomplishment.
heavier-than-air propulsion w/o rockets possible (Score:3, Interesting)
A 20km-tall inflatable structure is indeed admirable, and a realistic step in the right direction towards building real super-structures like a space elevator, a floating Buckyball, etc.
An novel approach for non-rocket launch, which may be more possible with the current state of technology than a space elevator (in that it requires less quantity of unobtanium), is a launch loop. It uses reactive centrifugal force to hold itself aloft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop [wikipedia.org]
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http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/mg20227117.000/mg20227117.000-3_600.jpg [newscientist.com]
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I want pictures
They have posted a picture of their 7 meter demo model. Now only 19993 meters to go!
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"800,000 tonnes when pressurized" .... fill it with a lighter gas....
um
Well, 800,000 tonnes He == ~430,000 tonnes H. Which, combusted with the appropriate amount of O2 releases:
~ 430,000,000,000 mol x 286kJ/mol
= about 34 TW hours.
I'm not sure how anybody would ever be convinced accumulating that much elemental hydrogen in a single place could ever be safe.
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That is rather the GP's point.
The only gas lighter than helium is hydrogen.
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Isn't that what people said about Nikola Tesla?
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No, they said "He's clever with all the inventions, but don't lend him any money. Plus, he looks just like David Bowie."
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Don't harsh my sci-fi utopia buzz, man.
I'm all about the inflatable towers to outer space. But not until we've got bullet trains from Chicago to Memphis so I can go listen to some R&B and eat BBQ and be home by morning. First the bullet trains, then the inflatable towers to outer space.
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If your tower remains inflated for more than four hours, seek the advise of a structural engineer immediately.
Happy now?
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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:Extra points ... (Score:4, Informative)
Balloon can only reach an elevation where it matches the buoyancy of the air. The article doesn't say, but I presume that the structure will be heavier than air. For that to work, you need something holding you up from the bottom, or a space elevator.
yes (Score:2, Funny)
it's the spacenumber bed.
Actually, would you believe 100 km? (Score:5, Informative)
There have been unofficial studies done of 100 km tall towers using "aerospace grade" materials. Balloon-tanks of extremely high-pressure gas made out of boron would be amazingly light but have staggering compressive strength. (You'd use lots of small ones to avoid ultra-high pressure in super-long columns.) There have also been studies of towers made form carbon fiber, aluminum, and steel. These have an exponential profile, and a "fractal truss" structure. Though huge, they'd me mostly empty space, to the point that most of the tower would be hard to see from the ground. The tubular beams would have teardrop-shaped fairings to minimize wind loads. The towers as a whole would be staggeringly heavy, but still *theoretically* possible to build, and *theoretically* affordable by superpowers like the United States. Will they ever happen in real life? No way. But engineers and physicists love thinking about this stuff and doing the calcs.