They were talking about making the base 50 kilometers high. If it is a solid structure, it would be the only part of the elevator inside the atmosphere. Would wind affect the base? Like the wind affects pyramids and mountains. A little erosion noticeable after 1000 years. Would they even feel a vibration up in the cable?
Wow, I wish I hadn't missed this conversation.
Man, there's been some incredible process in this field since I heard about it 9 months ago! 20 cm CNTs!!! Thats incredible!! I thought they were still measured in microns! I heard that they theoretically only needed to have 2-3 cm lengths in order to be able to put the tubes in some kind of glue and still have the strength. Although continous strands are ideal. And we may indeed get them.
And just recently I read about tapered ones that can be built pretty far away from the equator. Thats great! That alleviates most of the political problems with building it near the galapagos. So where exactly do we want it then? I guess a rather poetic place would be cape canaveral, although it might be possible to put it anywhere in the contiguous 48. I guess you get bonus points in the atmosphere if you do it at a higher altitude.
Does anybody know why they want a 50km base tower? That seems unnecessary to me. You might as well just build it on the ground.
I don't see any kind of weather as a problem since you are going to want a pretty high tension even at the base. (I never did understand those pictures of it being moored at some kind of flimsy movable oil rig looking thing. I figure the base itself is going to be one serious piece of civil engineering.) And the atmosphere is only like 62 miles thick if you go by the "astronaut" definition. So its not a significant length of the cable. Does anybody know about the answer to the question of it shorting out the atmosphere?
Regarding satellites and space debris, people talk about oscillating it to avoid the big stuff, but that implies some active rocketry, which means big tanks somewhere along it. I think having 3 or 4 seperate strands would be useful for redundancy (although they would vary in distance as they get farther from earth I guess). But Rightwhale has a point that most stuff is just going to make little spots when it hits.
Also, how do cars pass each other going up and down? Changeover stations? The best way would to have an up path and a down path, if possible.
One last thing, I think it would probably be good to only send people out on the elevator beyond the geosynchronous point in very important situations. You don't want to have a space station with thousands of people on it that will go sailing off to the heliopause if somebody snaps the cable high up on it. Restrict elevator usage beyond that point to non-manned use for slingshots. Also you want to rig all the cars with your classic capsular lifeboats. Hm, and maybe also some explosive charges along the length so that you can get all of the pieces to fall in a small area if it snaps, instead of wrapping around like red mars (although it would be more like newspaper falling in our case) Also, you want to have an explosive set just above the geosynchronous station, or whatever, so that if somebody breaks it right before the station, it won't go sailing to the heliopause with the anchor.
If we can erect a building so tall that it reaches the edge of space, we hardly need an "elevator" to go much higher. A catapult on the roof would suffice for getting a payload into orbit.