Space Elevator Bread

Are you ready for mankind's next leap forward? Did you know we already have the technology to build a space elevator?

youtu.be/0qezLhypA0Y

Wrong

Technology, yes.
We don't have the Unobtanium to build the structure out of, however.

first post worst post

Kevlar is strong enough to build a space elevator.

>Out of steel and aluminum
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no.

If we had the technology the elevator would have already been built.

Prove me wrong

I've been hearing about the space elevator since the 90s. It's the same story over and over.
>We can build one, we just need the right kind of material to build one.

Watch the video

Japan has been pumping money into this; they want it real bad, it would be incredible for their economy.
The materials to make it happen don't exist.
>Kevlar
Sorry no.

We already have the technology for an orbital ring elevator. The idea of building a cable to geosynchronous orbit with a counterweight beyond requires carbon nanotubes or similar, but orbital rings do not.

Kevlar is more than sufficient for an orbital ring. You simply don't know what you are talking about.

Here's the problem with the ring; you are going to park a permanent, massive orbital structure right over the top of the Russians, or the Chinese, plus a lot of other nations.

Yes I was assuming an elevator, a ring isn't feasible because of nations.

Fuck off Larry Niven

So? They won't blow it up for the same reason they don't nuke NYC or LA. Especially considering there will be people living there as tickets to space would be reduced to ~$50 / person.

Too bad it will be terrorist target number 1 because

1) It angers allah or whoever the fuck
2) The debris will cause so much destruction on the countries (plural) it comes down on it'll be like 9/11 times 2356
3) The best construction locations are in third world shitholes where bribing police to smuggle shit around is more normal than taking a shower

It would be great and pave the way for space exploration, but it wont happen in a long time I'm afraid.

If the Western world decided to build it the other countries would have to shut the fuck up.

Couldn't you just put weapons on it and blow the fuck out of the third world from orbit?

>So? They won't blow it up for the same reason they don't nuke NYC or LA.
They won't let it be BUILT over them in the first place. Fuck, you have to jump through hoops with diplomacy if you and a couple of your rich buddies want to fly a hot air balloon around the planet for lulz. A lot of them will tell you to fuck right off.

The Communists are not going to let the USA or Japan start constructing massive shit in permanent stationary orbit over their territory, and we sure as fuck aren't going to let THEM.

And there's no benefit to the First World Nations to letting space access become cheap for everyone. We like having our advantageous access.

>If the Western world decided to build it the other countries would have to shut the fuck up.

You can't really believe this.

yes i honestly believe it we would have something like 70% of the worlds wealth god help them if we militarise.

The third world the elevator is built in? Why the fuck would you want to do that, it would render it obsolete.

I'm glad you raised these points.

(1) and (2) Actually, the orbital ring rotates faster than orbital velocity for the altitude it is situated. Therefore, a break in the ring (terrorist attack, meteorite, etc.) would result in the ring climbing to higher altitude, not falling to the ground. It would take hundreds of years for the orbit to decay, allowing plenty of time for repair.

(3) This isn't true - we can build orbital rings at any inclination. For example, it can run along the 30 and 150 degree longitude lines, avoiding the middle east, china, etc.

No they would just revert to their animal nature, are you worried about Gazelle or buffalo? no because we shoot them and they are too stupid to do anything about it.

But how can we do this when the earth is flat and space doesn't exist???

We need nations to invest in space elevators for taking out the trash and then we can talk (so we wait for china and india to drow in their own wastes)
It is the only feasible and realistic investment r/n for these kind of things. Getting rid of rubbish will be almost free compared to its price now

They would let it be built if it a joint enterprise and equal access was allowed to contributing nations. But does China want a ring elevator? How exactly will it make it's money back?

But you're right about not wanting space access to be cheap, the USA is never going to just give out space access if it becomes profitable.

>no benefit

You really gave yourself away here.

That would indeed pose quite the problem if it were true!

That's an interesting point. One of the things cheap access to space provides is cheap energy. With cheap energy and cheap access to space, we can set up high tech recycling facilities in orbit. Spin up your trash, blast it with lasers and allow centrifugal forces to sort your old trash by atomic weight.

What kind of cost are we looking at? if we started building rockets like Sea Dragon and launching parts of the orbital ring into space how long would it take before we can finally add towers to transport materials from planet to orbit?

Could we build say half a ring and tell China and the poo in loos too fuck off?

Why bother with space elevators when we can build mass drivers? Much cooler, stays in the backyard so the third world doesn't have to shit their collective pants, probably much more technologically feasible.

1. If this was feasible and massively profitable at least 3 nations would be racing and/or competing to build it now.

2. If it isn't massively profitable, no one is going to front up the moneys necessary to make it happen.

As no one is building it, or even seriously talking about building it, I have to assume 2.

You're just pipe-dreaming on this one.

The Japanese are focusing research on Elevator materials because they don't need to concern themselves with "international space", and they would control the most desirable (and hence profitable) window into space.

Orbital rings maybe, but you still need the elevator to give that ring any purpose so you haven't really fixed anything.

Although thinking about it any breakage beyond say 40 or 50 km will probably result in the centripetal force keeping it erect, but beyond that, beyond the atmosphere, don't you have to worry about the Kessler Syndrome making space exploration impossible from one terrorist attack, or one accident?

If you watch the video, costs are all explained.

A space elevator would cost between 180-450 billion depending on how expensive your rockets are.

You need about 3,000 Falcon Heavys to lift all the material into orbit, which is about 30x the number of rockets we use on an annual basis. There is nothing preventing us from scaling up to produce that many within a couple of years though. Technologically, an elevator is actually extremely simple and there is no real bottleneck other than rocket production.

In fact, you can build "half rings" as well, although it is better for America to just lead the way into space with a full blown ring and tell the haters to get over it.

Why would you want to build a full ring straight away when you can use it as political and especially economic leverage against everyone else there would be nothing they could do about it either. Also i want to claim Mars for white people because i am a hater and would pay millions to get away from the savage shitskins.

Although there are many good reasons, reliable access by humans is probably near the top of the list. Mass drivers have g forces that are too high for people and rockets fail 2-5% of the time, far, far too high for anyone to become a regular visitor to space.

As everyone knows on Sup Forums, the government is not on our side. For the same reason that they intentionally destroy the middle class in Europe and America, they do not want projects which open up immense new wealth to be completed.

Oh okay, that makes sense. I can see a lot of good a mass driver could do, but easy use by humans is pretty important.

Hope I'll get to see an elevator in my lifetime.

No pajeet, just no.

With an elevator in hand, you can clean up space very cheaply.

You should also bear in mind that the US military already has lasers capable of shooting down missiles. No terrorist organization is going to be able to launch a rocket at the orbital ring - intercepting it with lasers is particularly easy from above as you don't have any problems with "seeing over the horizon" to your target, no need for forward radars, etc.

>3,000 Falcon Heavys to lift all the material into orbit
Which is about 20 times the lifting capacity you'd need to put a space station into orbit around Mars, if I'm remembering correctly.

>based Space Elevator thread after a long period of absence
>newfags shitpost

this is why you don't create a subriddit

i want to smell Mia's butt

Maybe - I would have to do the math - but a space station in orbit around Mars doesn't do anyone any good. It is simply "cool."

On the other hand, an orbital ring space elevator reduces launch costs to geosynchronous orbit to approximately $2/kg. Space based solar power, asteroid mining, semiconductor manufacture, protein synthesis, permanent zero-g industrial zones all become immediately profitable.

Furthermore, you can afford to colonize Mars with a space elevator rather than just waving your dick about being first there and back.

You're seriously underestimating the effect debris will have on future space missions if an elevator was destroyed. It wouldn't just float there waiting to be sent into deorbit, it'll be ripping apart whatever you send up there while growing in size. Keep in mind that your elevator is destroyed now and the other on the other side of the planet (assuming you've finished the ring), which is possibly prone to destruction also.

Also missiles aren't the problem, it's people smuggling on enough explosives and snackbaring on the way up.

One of the estimates from 2003-ish gave the cost as $3000/kg. What's made it come down in price?

Right, so we are incapable of thorough security screening and even if we were not, we should give up on progress because what if bad guise.

Regardless of the irrelevance of this sort of defeatism to everyone else, the problems you suggest can be engineered around with "no fly" zones in the vicinity of the ring, armoring it up (very cheap at $2/kg launch costs).

I would imagine that you could upscale very quickly once you have an elevator or hook system in place.

The Falcon Heavy sells for $2400/kg now to LEO.

With mass manufacture (defined as 10+ per year) that is expected to drop to $1000/kg.

We want 3,000 of them, i.e., very massive scale production and can realistically expect $500/kg rockets. The cost of the elevator and orbital ring would drop from about $430 billion to about $90 billion if you can get $500/kg launch costs.

That is correct. The $430 billion (or less than $100 billion more realistically) design presented in the video is capable of about 200 billion kilograms of throughput year.

Compared with the 10 million kilograms total put into orbit in the last 60 years, your possibilities are basically unlimited from day one.

>Right, so we are incapable of thorough security screening and even if we were not, we should give up on progress because what if bad guise.

>Can't refute my points
>"J-j-just ignore those problems jeez"

M8 the world isn't ready for an elevator. The majority of the world's population isn't going to want it, they'll blame all of their problems on it and lash out at it because they're retards from a shithole country. They'll see the wealthier nations who built it and have the wealth to utilize it leaving them in the dust in terms of progress and technology and they will attack it. If they get lucky, just once, space is blocked off for centuries gg go home.

Not to mention potential design faults with the elevator or the shuttles using it.

And you can't just say "armoring it up" that's a load of shit.

What's the rub why isn't this being done? i swear if it is China and Russia along with their snackbar friends i will have none of it and go full deus vult the stars are ours.

I have an idea how to build space elevator but everyone ignores it.

Your objections are silly nonsense.

With an orbital ring space elevator, global wealth goes up by hundreds of trillions of dollars almost overnight. Near earth asteroids are economical to retrieve, with trillions of dollars of minerals in each one. Each solar panel you place into GEO (simplified way of putting it) pays for itself in about one year, producing income stream afterwards for 20-30 more years.

Rather than 2-3% economic growth, we will be looking at 20-30% annual GDP growth and boundless optimism around the world. This is why you, and the evil governments you parrot, hate this idea.

1. You have to send every part of it into the space
2. When on the orbit set it up
3. It is a HUUUGE sphere
4. It is very stiff
5. Close the sphere
6. You have a vacuum balloon in space
7. Attach ropes to it
8. Drag it closer to Atmosphere
9. Let it lay on the Atmosphere like a boat on a water
10. Send ropes down
11. Use plane or space shuttle to transport goods to the end of a rope.
12. Drag it closer to the balloon
13. You have space elevator.

Pilot

Is this a poo in loo joke video?

jesus it sounds like something from troll physics

The country that pays for the elevator is not going to let The Congo or Afghanistan start mining asteroids, the wealth would not be shared with them, not in today's economic climate. Prove to me otherwise or come up with alternatives.

if you can't do that admit that the World isn't ready for it, yet.

CARBON NANO TUBES MOTHEFUCKER!

Vice news told me they solve everything

For starters, one of the selling points in governmental halls as to why we should suppress the middle class or third world countries is resource exploitation in a scarcity-driven world.

With an elevator in hand, we can afford 100% recycling down to the atomic level by centrifuging waste in space blasted with lasers. Landfills are completely unnecessary with a space elevator: organic waste becomes fertilizer, all else is recycled with 100% efficiency.

Most of the world's problems are solved in this way, and the new paradigm is uplifting the masses around the world to drive economic growth and rising production / utilization of our newfound mass sustainable wealth.

Then tell me what would not work here?
If you place balloon on a water it will float.
Works same of every material that is lighter than the other. Vacuum is lighter than thin air. Should float.

Not doubting it, I dont know shit about physics but it sounds cool as hell

>white mans burden
No thanks i'm out now i see why it wont ever be done.

I hope 2017 is the year.

go find some carbon nanotube woven cable to buy
you're going to need a few thousand kilometres of it, a few metres thick.

I know, I was posting that for a year know and you are the first person to even respond...

Stop linking your video, no one gives a shit.

We'd need to find a safe place on Earth's equator to build a space elevator if we're ever going to build a space elevator.

>Makes space elevator thread
>Doesn't post interesting science and technology news

you abandoned us for so long, what happened to the dream of exploring the universe and fucking alien hotties. You left and never came back. I waited for you you were one of the few cool threads on this shit hole

If we continue to regress culturally, our technological developments mean nothing.

It doesn't help the the majority of advanced technology is locked into black projects.

That's actually not true for orbital rings. The elevator is supported by the ring which can be at any inclination. It is possible to deploy over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, crossing only eastern Siberia. (30 west and 150 east longitudes)

what's that? why do i need to care about it

Vacuum is an empty space. There is nothing to float.

To build such a ring we would need dirt cheap access to orbit. We won't have it that cheap without a space elevator in the first place.

no, no no... you see, you're not CONTAINING the vacuum...
it will not float at all, because buoyancy is required. That means the net density of the "vacuum balloon" must be lower than the net density of the atmosphere at that given height.

When you put a boat in water, it displaces the water.So, when you put a giant spherical shield in space, it will displace the upper atmosphere below it until it finds buoyancy.
But, there is nothing IN the shield, and I don't mean vacuum. It would be a single layer.

Now, for argument's sake, let's say it does in fact have a double layer and connection points to keep it together as a unit. The problem is that it would STILL be denser than the upper atmosphere until it sinks to a certain point, but the nature of a SPHERE would not allow it to sink, without breaking into pieces.

So, either it will crumble, sending silicate death down on 7 billion people, OR it would need to have flexible areas in between, which would mean those areas would be more dense... causing the WHOLE density to increase until it sinks FURTHER. At which point, it would no longer be buoyant, and it would start colliding with itself. And then break... again.

Now, it gets interesting...
Could it be done AT ALL?
Well, yes... but what you'd want is more of a pressure-ball, which would mean you'd need to compress the atmosphere until its outward force is greater than the sphere's inward force.

But, we gotchu one more problem:
Now the pressure on the ENTIRE earth increases... causing incredible amounts of problems from ears popping to widespread nosebleeds, headaches, breathing issues, numerous animal species die, etc.

In other words, your best bet is to make it spin really fast and be evenly-weighted.

And it'd requrie astronomical fucktons of material to build, too

aw shit why does it sound like tower of babel 2.0
well it's not to see God so maybe it can happen

here is why it will never happen...

It is a balloon not a boat. See point:
5. Close the sphere

Atmosphere will not get inside of the Vacuum balloon.

You just need to convince nuclear energy share holders that this is the way to get rid of their trash easily and stfu about the solar thing.

They could lower their radiating garbage coast by the factor 1000.

>the world isn't ready for an elevator
Not an argument

>The majority of the world's population isn't going to want it

Projection; still not an argument. Whether the world will want something or not is more than likely subjective, until you can provide proof

>They'll see the wealthier nations who built it and have the wealth to utilize it leaving them in the dust in terms of progress and technology and they will attack it. If they get lucky, just once, space is blocked off for centuries gg go home

This is speculation on your part alone, this is hardly enough to make it worthwhile to consider building a space elevator.

While im sure this plan is not fault-proof, it doesn't mean that it's just open to bullshit, baseless speculation

>It is a balloon not a boat.
Did you ever wonder why Zeppelins/Blimps are also called "Airships"?

The Helium or Hydrogen they are full of is less dense than the air around the blimp. But, because it's less dense, and because airs spread, there is greater outward pressure on the inside of the blimp, causing the balloon to expand to the balanced size between internal and external pressure.

density in this case is determined by the mass per unit volume, such as kg/m^3
>pic related
You will need to make the net density of the "balloon" to be less than the density of air at that height.

At 35,000 ft, it's 0.379 kg per cubic meter.
"The density of most glass ranges between 2.4 g/cm3 to 2.8 g/cm3. The density of window glass is between 2.47 g/cm3 and 2.56 g/cm3. The glass in a vehicle headlight falls with the range of 2.47 g/cm3 and 2.63 g/cm3."

Even at some ridiculously light type of glass, say 1.9 g/cm3, that's STILL
1900 kg/m3, which is 5013.19 times more dense than the air at that level, and SPACE is WAY beyond that, usually considered at 100,000 ft.

But here's to your other point:
>5. Close the sphere
>Atmosphere will not get inside of the Vacuum balloon.
The vacuum balloon in this case IS the atmosphere. you're saying the air won't escape into Space.
But, here's your problem: the glass, even a very light type, is no less than 5 THOUSAND times more dense than air.

Ergo, it would sink into the atmosphere until it is pretty much just above the earth's crust, which has a density of ~2.72 g/cm3 (2720 kg/m3).
You MIGHT get a couple hundred feet AT MOST, IF you did it as I mentioned, and made a pressure-ball instead.

A vacuum balloon is already an idea by aerospace engineers, but it is impractical, because to even GET to the height at which it would float would require that it can ALSO withstand sea-level pressure, which it can't, because the EXTERNAL pressure forces it into itself and will make it collapse.

A balloon IS a boat, an atmospheric one

The ballon will crumble because the pressure outside is greater than the pressure inside. The pressure difference is so much that it'll need a lot of material (beams and trusses and the like) to support it, raising it's density, and defeating the purpose.

Right, because when first world nations spend millions if not billions of dollars digging ore out of the ground they spread that shit around like candy to "uplift" the masses.

Get real mate, no country on Earth will do that and sending all of the world's garbage through a chokepoint as small as a space elevator makes me think that you're fucking retarded. Even if you somehow managed to streamline the loading of what amounts to billions of tonnes of waste through an area about the size of an office building, who the fuck is going to be cool paying for their garbage to be shipped hundreds of kms so it can shot into space and recycled up there?

I have a question does gravity become stronger the closer to the earths core? Where is the strongest gravitational point on earth? if we were to create a tunnel through the earth would we all die and get crushed to death the closer we got to the center?

>terrorist attacks are a daily occurrence
>but if we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on what amounts to an incredibly fragile and giant tower which will let us grow wealthy beyond our wildest dreams we don't have to worry about someone wanting to destroy that.

You're an idiot. The wealth is not going to be spread, the gap between poor and rich nations will increase and people will react to that. Do you honestly not remember 9/11? Haven't you ever wondered why Bin Laden chose the twin towers in New York instead of say, the twin towers in Malaysia? If America spent a lot of money building a tower that not only generated them obscene amounts of wealth, but which would become a universal symbol for their wealth, do you really think that pissed off muslims will let that slide?

Same with balloon at the bottom of the ocean vs balloon at the water surface.
Pressure on top of Atmosphere is not that great.

IDK off the top of my head the strongest point, I think around the equator, though, because the earth is more round at the equator than at the poles, because its spin causes it to pancake slightly.

This means there is more matter underneath you on areas about the equator, so therefore more mass to create more gravity.

There is no gravity in the center of the earth. Well... there's gravity from all directions almost equally, so there's no effective gravity.

You would still get crushed, but not by gravity, by pressure
"The pressure in the Earth's inner core is slightly higher than it is at the boundary between the outer and inner cores: it ranges from about 330 to 360 gigapascals (3,300,000 to 3,600,000 atm)"

You'd need some kind of fucking crystalline Unobtanium - Adamantium alloy to build any kind of tunnel to go through that.

But, you'd die long before anyway, because the temperature is about 5400°C/9800°F at the Inner/Outer core boundary, which is almost the temperature of the surface of the Sun

>I have a question does gravity become stronger the closer to the earths core?

No. If anything it gets weaker, as when you approach the centre of the earth, the two "halves" of the planet are exerting opposite forces on you.

but, you'd die long before anyway, because the temperature is about 5400°C/9800°F at the Inner/Outer core boundary, which is almost the temperature of the surface of the Sun

WTF we have a miniature sun inside the earth? how is that even possible? is it like giant nuclear reactor holy shit holy shit holy shit we need to get off here now.

So you would be crushed then ripped in half?

Exactly. Low air pressure will mean that it will sink down because of the density caused by the weight of the material used to build it until it reaches equilibrium. Currently no material or design is strong enough to be both buoyant at any point of the Earth's atmosphere and able to support an interior vacuum.

Can someone screen cap this bread - High Level Insider wanted this. We can meme this Space Elevator into existence. If anything it'd be cool

So atmospheric pressure is reason why my dreams crumble?

>holy shit holy shit we need to get off here now.
faggit troll

but here's your answer, anyway
>how is that even possible? is it like giant nuclear reactor
Yes, the earth can support life and an atmosphere because it has a gigantic fission reactor inside of it keeping the heat up so that the iron in the cores can move and cause an electromagnetic field which shields from solar radiation blowing our atmosphere away

>faggit troll
Nigra please i was against this whole idea when i realised it would mean poo in loo in space. that's fascinating as fuck though i knew the core of our planet was molten metal but i never realised it was a giant fission reactor

At the centre of the Earth the mass of the Earth would completely surround you so you would have equal gravitational force pulling you in all different directions and they would cancel each other. But gravity is a weak force, so you wont be ripped in half. Think about this way, you have the entire mass of the earth directly below you right now, don't you? So all of that gravitational force is pulling you down. If you hung from a bar with your hands and lifted your feet you wouldn't be ripped in two, would you? So why would half of that force pulling you left and half pulling right rip you apart? It wouldn't, you'd just float around.

Very true also the same principle applies to magnets no?

Kind of, but shitty materials are the real killer. Build something stronger than steel but lighter than air and your idea might work.