We can do it, today, with existing technology (free throat punches for the first person that says we need carbon nanotubes). The Orbital Ring can be built with steel and kevlar, no new technology is needed.
This would allow us to mine asteroids that have trillions of dollars worth of materials on them. It would also allow us to deploy space-based solar satellites that would drop the cost of electricity to less than 1 cent/kilowatt hour.
>be terrorist >destroy the base of ring >epicwin.jpg
Caleb Rodriguez
The ring stays afloat by electromagnetism, somewhat like maglev. Taking out the base wouldn't do anything, because the base isn't supporting the weight of the structure.
Benjamin Campbell
That's interesting.
That's probably explained pretty early on in the paper but I have too much ADHD to figure it out. Are the skyhooks rotating faster than the earth? Do you need to wait for one and "catch" it?
I can't picture how this whole thing work yet either way.
Matthew Brown
I put a video in that explains it. Basically, the whole structure is rotating, so that's what keeps it from falling. That means the tethers don't have to support the weight of the structure. It supports itself.
Dylan Sanders
Oh ok. The ring rotates faster than the earth, but the tethers don't, they "ride" the ring. Gonna watch the video. Damn that'd be a lot of material to bring up though.
Grayson Sanchez
The weight of the material is what drives all of the cost. You have to send tons and tons of material up. But once you do it, you can move things to space for almost nothing.
Jayden Young
The issue is the process of building it. Elevators delivering material into orbit are prime terrorist targets. It cant be built safely and quick enough.
Camden Martin
You mean our own government?
Ian Brown
IIUC it should be pretty resistant to attacks. The ring isn't crashing down if it breaks. It can be made of independent segments (they are all orbiting). The segments, base stations and the hooks can be replaced if they're damaged and the ring overall will be fine.
It's mostly nation states which are behind terrorism (including the US). Some of them could be DEUS VULT'd once and for all. Others bribed or be made to profit from the ring with us. Easier said than done I'm sure.
But it's not like the ring is that fragile either. And it doesn't have to be equatorial, if that's not the safest orbit.
You know the moment we build a space elevator too many niggers, pooloos, and turbinistans will crowd into it and cause it to explode, tumbling back to earth and killing thousands. Then everyone will blame Trump and he will be executed by feminist firing squad for six hours (because they keep missing) alongside Elon Musk and anyone else smart enough to save this god-forsaken species.
Owen Davis
>The United States creates most of the terrorists: But it's complicated. There were already conflicts underlying all of that. I'm not supporting the current way the US does things (especially in the middle east), but things wouldn't suddenly just become OK if the US started acting nice.
If a nation state has the capability to sabotage the ring (which they would do indirectly), then they will unavoidably try to use it as leverage unless something is done to prevent them. Which can be done though I'm sure.
That's a cynical way of looking at it, but things are pretty rough at that level.
Parker Howard
Whoa there, don't be a bad goy! That's just Russian propaganda! :^)
Aaron Diaz
FYI you can buy an AK47 in Afghanistan for around $10 US dollars. In parts of Africa you can buy them for 4-5 eggs.
RPG7s are 60 years old and are pretty much given away for free when you you buy other shit like heavy MGs and AA guns.
Your meme is commie tier
Austin Adams
There would be plenty of economic surplus to bribe these minor nation-states into not blowing the thing up.
Just the promise of electricity for less than a penny/kilowatt hour might be enough.
Do you know what that would do to backwards nations with no infrastructure? Water desalination, growing food indoors. 20% economic growth.
The problem with space-based solar is the cost of getting the satellites up. Once you build the space elevator you have something approaching free energy, which you can sell to the world at a massive profit (and discount to their cost costs of generation).
Pay for the project within a year or two, and then you have a trillion or two in free cashflow per year.
Charles Taylor
My understanding is that the US has purposefully prevented a lot of the third world from developing because they need to make sure they develop in a manner they will still be able to control in the future. It's also a pact any country allied with the US has to make. The west has an *immense* industrial overcapacity (which they're currently trying to get rid off heh), it could help all of the third world develop very easily with a small fraction of its GDP.
But we don't do that. Partly because of the ongoing struggle for influence with the second world. It makes things complicated. Also because keeping things the way they are is just easier I guess.
Maybe more overt imperialism and militarism might be better than all of those CIA shenanigans. Maybe that's the plan. Maybe that's what "peace through strength" is about.
We can help the third world a lot as long as they don't turn away from us in the future. Maybe this is better enforced by force than by subterfuge. Because it's happening anyway. The US gets its way. People don't realize that the alternatives are even more horrible. It's just out of sight, out of mind.
Lincoln Russell
That is exactly the problem. The aristocracy does not want economic growth. They want slaves.
Colton Bailey
>pic So they scattered his brains over his car trunk. >The aristocracy does not want economic growth. They want slaves. I'm starting to believe that. Can't make the third world adopt our ways? Let's become the third world instead. Our we could accept that changing the third world will take a long, long time and that we have to lead by example until then. And be strong. Very, very strong. The strength that made us so prosperous should be maintained and venerated. The cultural self-hatred the west is developing certainly isn't helping anything.
Jaxon Flores
He still hasn't been avenged. We need to go Deus Vult on the CIA. Protests, and if they won't bend the knee, breach Langley and arrest everyone.
