Posted on 09/01/2005 7:31:44 PM PDT by KevinDavis
The $400,000 NASA- Centennial Challenge-backed space elevator competition Elevator 2010, organised by the Spaceward Foundation, has gained a sponsor and nine teams are expected to compete for this year’s climber and tether events, writes Rob Coppinger.
Supported with the NASA money and its new sponsor, Californian mechanical design company Gizmonics, the Spaceward Foundation’s two competitions will begin three weeks later than expected on 21 October, because it needs more time to organise the infrastructure to test the technologies (Flight International, 5-12 April).
The elevator would operate using a payload carrying vehicle, called a climber, that moves slowly up a 36,000km (22,360 miles)-long tether to reach orbit.
One competition requires a climber to move up a tether faster than 200ft/min (1m/s) with as heavy a payload as possible, while being powered by a light beam from the ground. The second competition involves stretching candidate tether material.
(Excerpt) Read more at flightinternational.com ...
I don't see how anybody is goingto be able build a space elevator, since there would be so much hand wringing about what happened if it came crashing back to earth. You'd probably have to have it on an island in the middle of nowhere or a really desperate african country.
Space elevator operator..
Just one of many potential new occupations in the not too distant future.
How about building it in Chappaqua?
Or would it meet stiff resistance from Bubba? like he's ever home anyway. ;-)
Imagine how much real estate you would need to create one with a reasonable grade?
I'd rather be "monorail conductor guy"
It has to be built on the equator.
Please pingy pingy
You could turn a poor African country into a rich African country in a short time, if it had the world's only space elevator and got to tax it.
Unfortunately,it probably wouldn't make it a rich african country.
Just a country run by a newly rich african dictator. Who still cries for aid from the US.
Such a resource rich continent, ruined by thugs who only want their own power and riches.
There's an added benefit too. The longer the teather, the more Earth's magnetic field will generate a current on the teather. Its good because that's exactly where the electricity will come from to power the elevator as well as nearby countries. I'd heard Nasa did an experiment with teathers once and it burned up the wire they lowered from the shuttle - very long wire, too much current. But a wire is one thing, and a serious cable is another.
If you are talking about the TSS, it failed and had to be cut loose because a bolt was too long and bound the cable in such a way, it could not be retracted.
Unfortunately, the Earth has a few things that can cause instability in such a system. The two main ones are, it is not a perfect sphere and has gravity wells which cause in track motion, and the Moon does not orbit on the equatorial plane which will cause crosstrack motion.
"If you are talking about the TSS, it failed and had to be cut loose because a bolt was too long and bound the cable in such a way, it could not be retracted."
I'm operating on feeble memory here, but you seem to know what you are talking about - thanks for the info.
Doesn't sound like a bastion of democracy in the bunch.
Always nice to have an expert in these things present.
Several of the plans I have seen are looking at a mid-ocean tether.
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