Comments on: A Space Elevator in 7

By: Kodak Playsport HD Camera

Kodak Playsport HD Camera — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:05:29 +0000

No one knew. Still, a feeling in the gut told us that this was the greatest moment in the history of life. We were leaving the planet. Our feet had stirred the dust of an alien world.”

Awesome Stuff!

By: Kodak Playsport

Kodak Playsport — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 06:16:55 +0000

Really interesting information. I read about it some times ago.

By: patchaiappan

patchaiappan — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 11:38:46 +0000

yah from 2 years am knowing about this space elevator system but i have one dought is there any emergency switch provided inside the elevator or not.….….…?

By: 47LD520

47LD520 — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:34:24 +0000

Awesome! Does anyone else feel like watching Space Odyssey 2001 after reading that? :P Though on a different note, I know progression like this is important for the Earth as a whole, but I think there are still many problems back on the planet that still need to be fixed before wasting so much money on such a thing as this. That’s just my opinion though…

By: Kodak PlaySport Review

Kodak PlaySport Review — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:50:11 +0000

Interesting. Is it really feasible? This will be expensive and very hard to do. It will also take a long time to do this thing. this will be done in many years and probably I’m dead that time. :)

By: robert moench

robert moench — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 16:14:26 +0000

The first question that came to mind when I saw something on Discovery, was a pragmatic one. Who would control the location on Earth of a Space Elevator? 2nd Would it not be necessary to at times ‘reel it in’? 3rd There is an ongoing search for ways to protect Space Craft from Solar radiation. Lead has been ruled out as too heavy. Would a S.E. solve that issue?

By: Samantha Atkins

Samantha Atkins — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:37:07 +0000

The Space Elevator is the wrong technology. We are off by an order of magnitude in proper strength materials for this project even in very small amounts much less in the quantities required. Our crawlers are much too slow to date. The project is quite expensive. There are easier ways to cut two orders of magnitude off our launch costs.

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From Keith: The nanotube manufacturing problem is significant and needs to be solved. But unlike so much of biotech research, the nanotube design is understood and simple. The crawlers can go at any speed, it is just a matter of power and friction and other stuff well-understood. There are many estimates of around $10B for the space elevator. The Apollo Project using today’s dollars was $170B.

By: ben lipkowitz

ben lipkowitz — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:10:08 +0000

Using today’s materials, we can already build rotating tethers to take a package from an airplane to orbit. Rotating tethers provide a similar solution as the space elevator without all of the up-front cost and materials science breakthrough requirements. They have also solved the debris collision problem. Why hasn’t a boost tether been built already? This is not a billion-dollar development project. Why don’t space elevator advocates ever mention rotating tethers?

For a detailed description, see http://www.tethers.com/papers/MXERJPC2003Paper.pdf
a movie showing how it works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFKdYscRpVo
the airplane to orbit concept: http://www.tethers.com/papers/HASTOLAIAAPaper.pdf
and be sure to check out the other papers and animations on http://www.tethers.com/

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From Keith: I would prefer to ask for a space elevator, and when we have their attention mention we can use tethers in the meanwhile. Space elevators are more structurally sound. We can create a big base at the top. It is a good idea, I should put some words in there. I didn’t only because I haven’t read enough materials on the topic yet to feel comfortable. Thanks for the tips.

By: Jeremy Ramsden

Jeremy Ramsden — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:18:38 +0000

This is a very interesting post with a lot to think about. A real comment will need time to digest what I’ve read. But an immediate thought is — please don’t suggest that Microsoft should serve as an example to NASA of how to do things! Agreed that the space shuttle and many of the current and planned programs are flawed, but the Apollo moon landings were a great success and truly inspirational. In contrast, Microsoft’s products seem to be perpetually stuck at the beta stage and cause constant irritation whenever used because of their numerous defects and primitive conception. I find it amazing that they have managed to push themselves into such a dominant position — globally, we are experiencing colossal inefficiencies in productivity due to the widespread use of Microsoft products. This is not the kind of “success” we need to drive something like the space elevator.

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From Keith: My point was in how MS stayed at the top of the computer industry for so long, because it got into the PC market, invested in graphical user interfaces, 32-bit computing, reinvented itself for the Internet, invested in developer tools, office productivity, etc. The computer industry graveyard is filled with Microsoft’s erstwhile competitors. The point is that Bill Gates make smart and strategic bets. That their codebases are old and creeky is different. I do agree how people confuse them today so I will consider revisiting this.

By: Indiana Elevators

Indiana Elevators — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:59:49 +0000

We’ve yet to make the jump to space elevators, but i don’t think it’s too far out of the picture :P