Space Elevator Plans Being Made in Japan, US

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

I really think shuttle launches are stupid. Vast amounts of fuel is expended to move a relatively small amount of cargo into space. A space elevator sounds much more economical.

newser.com/story/140239/japanese-firm-plans-space-elevator.html

Obayashi Corp. likes building tall towers—it's days from completing a 2,080-foot skyscraper in Tokyo— and now it's working on the granddaddy of them all: A "space elevator" that could carry people 22,370 miles into the air. On Monday, the company announced that it was working on a plan for the lift, which it believes it can produce by 2050, the Yomiuri Shimbun reports. "Humans have long adored high towers," the project's lead says. "Rather than building it from Earth, we will construct it from space."

The company would run carbon nanotube cables from a spaceport on the ground to a counterweight suspended almost 60,000 miles in the air, with a terminal station suspended between them. An elevator would ride to the station at about 124mph, meaning it would take just over a week to reach the station. Still, the AFP cautions that the project is still only conceptual; the company doesn't yet know where it would be built, how much it would cost, or who would fund it.

http://infinitybound.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/space_elevator.jpg

[Locke9-05]

The idea sounds cool, but what happens when the counterweight breaks? I guess it's really no more dangerous (probably less so) than a rocket full of fuel, but I still get giddy thinking about plummeting to my death in an orbital elevator.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

I really don't know why the Japanese are thinking about putting people on the elevator. It's not like they would have anywhere to go, except perhaps to enjoy the view. Then there is the problem of the increasingly thin atmosphere the higher up one goes. Tracy Morgan passed out just being in the Rocky Mountains. I guess you could pressurize the elevator.

In any case, I was thinking about the elevator for scientific purposes, like building and maintaining a space station with space ships. Just kick the space shuttle to the side and send all the pieces up the elevator piece by piece and assemble it up there. I see a space elevator as something that moves freight up one piece at a time. The counter weight is more like an orbiting platform that is the thing that space elevator attaches to, like a nail in a mountain that a mountain climber puts his rope around when he is climbing up the mountain.

[skorpio]

A space elevator would be very costly to maintain. Then entire thing would have to be continually checked for weaknesses just to ensure that it would not break apart. The idea in principal is sound, but we are not ready to leave earth quite yet. Besides, it would take us a year to get to Mars, minimum. What we need first is a more effective way to travel through space without using so much fuel. So if we can't travel faster than light most of this becomes pretty pointless anyways.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

A space elevator would be very costly to maintain. Then entire thing would have to be continually checked for weaknesses just to ensure that it would not break apart. The idea in principal is sound, but we are not ready to leave earth quite yet. Besides, it would take us a year to get to Mars, minimum. What we need first is a more effective way to travel through space without using so much fuel. So if we can't travel faster than light most of this becomes pretty pointless anyways.

Your comments do not appear to be based on facts. The space elevator is not necessarily costly to maintain nor would the entire thing have to be continually checked. Since its made of carbon nanotube cables, its a misnomer to say that it would "break apart". Cables do not break apart, they snap.

The problem of fuel consumption is more relevant to leaving Earth's gravity well, which is the whole point of the space elevator, so you put the cart before the horse, saying that we must solve fuel consumption problems by eliminating a device that reduces fuel consumption.

It is not necessary to travel faster than or at light speed to have very fruitful missions within the solar system. I think it's possible to even visit a neighboring solar system or two with sub light speed.