We can build an Orbital Ring Space Elevator today, using steel and kevlar. The Orbital Ring goes to low earth orbit, so it does not need advanced materials.
Why build the Orbital Ring? It would cut our costs of going to orbit from about $2000/kg to about $1/kg. There are individual asteroids that have tens of trillions of dollars in materials on them that could be mined. One mission could easily pay for the cost of building the Orbital Ring.
We could then deploy solar power satellites in orbit above cloud cover and return the power back to the surface with near zero loss by running power transmission cables down the elevator, and sell the power at a profit.
With increased luminosity in space, enhanced exposure time, and the ability to deliver base loads, solar panels pay for themselves in only 1-2 years while having a 20 year life time.
In other words, if you put $5 trillion of solar panels into space, you get your $5 trillion back by the end of year two and a $5 trillion income stream each year thereafter.
In other words, the US could cut everyone's taxes, both personal and business, income, capital, death, or otherwise, all to 0%, not even cut any benefits or current spending, and pay off the national debt within a decade.
it's a retarded, Elon-tier idea. watch fewer Ted talks, dumbass. they don't want you smarter.
Cooper King
how long are carbon nanotubes? >less than 1 cm see your plans in a few centuries OP
Bentley Adams
Then surely you could explain some reason why it can't be done.
Caleb Lopez
Because it is fucking stupid.
Lincoln Johnson
Did you read the OP? We don't need nanotubes to build this. That's the whole point.
Grayson Harris
Glad you cleared that up.
Caleb Ortiz
>Build an 80,000 km ring out of structural steel Yeah, okay, have fun with that.
Liam Thompson
No prob. I'm here forever.
Hudson Moore
Wouldnt it look like a halo since the earth is flat? Why is that one tryingto go around it?
James Moore
Did you read the OP? It's not a solid piece, it's a dynamic structure.
Juan Sullivan
The earth is not flat, CIA. It would go around the spherical earth.
Jose Roberts
Isn't this the retarded memestructure that would collapse if power shortage occurred?
Jaxson Roberts
That's a good question. It wouldn't collapse if a power outage occurred. There would redundant systems in place. In case of a total collapse of power, the ring would float away from earth, not collapse downward.
Jonathan Baker
>any fucking angle that thing's going to break
Evan Price
>"it's a dynamic structure" That term appears nowhere in the OP post and I do not think it means what you think it means.
Even if it's only a small ring structure connected by waystations, you're still talking about at least a small, cohesive ring structure to link the waystations together. And you're looking at a minimum circumference of somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 km.
Even if the superstructure is small, a cross section of maybe 10 cm x 10 cm, that's 63 MILLION metric tons of steel. That's $30 BILLION just on the material alone, let alone the TRILLIONS you'd have to spend to manufacture the components, ship them into orbit, and install them.
The whole reason people are looking at carbon nanotubes or similar complex materials is because they're cheaper, lighter, stronger, and could potentially be manufactured from the raw material in space as opposed to on Earth.
Brayden Diaz
What, specifically are you concerned about happening?
Henry Martin
Did you read the article I linked, which gave specific number which are totally different from the numbers you made up?
Angel Hill
>Why build the Orbital Ring? It would cut our costs of going to orbit from about $2000/kg to about $1/kg.
Orbital rings are also the most expensive brute force approach to a launch assist option you can get. Even with a massive reduction in launch costs it would take forever to break even and bankrupt any nation that tried it.
>There are individual asteroids that have tens of trillions of dollars in materials on them that could be mined. One mission could easily pay for the cost of building the Orbital Ring.
One asteroid would also crash the price of whatever material it was made from. In terms of raw amount Earth still has more in the crust than any asteroid.
Ian Myers
Wouldn't it be vulnerable to outside forces from space since it's beyond the Earth's atmosphere?
How the fuck do you even build that anyway?
Why is this a good investment besides "solar panels"?
Wouldn't this cost a shit ton of money and time with only a small promise of return?
Noah Adams
Not sure where you're getting those numbers, but what would you do instead?
Sebastian Bailey
i spent 12 fucking minutes to figure out what did you just ask. I still don't, rephrase your question
Jason Flores
>Wouldn't it be vulnerable to outside forces from space since it's beyond the Earth's atmosphere
I'm not sure what you mean. Gravitational force? We can calculate those and adjust trajectories accordingly.
>How the fuck do you even build that anyway?
Probably start with the ring and then hang the tethers, but there are a lot of proposals.
>Why is this a good investment besides "solar panels"?
That could be trillions of dollars a year. But asteroid mining is another factor.
>Wouldn't this cost a shit ton of money and time with only a small promise of return?
A pretty big investment of time and effort? Yes. But it would pay for itself within a few years, and then start throwing off many times its initial cost in benefits.
We're talking 20% GDP growth, no more taxes, fusion power, etc.
What is the doomsday scenario you are envisioning?
Camden Allen
>thing cracks >thing collapses on earth mecause muh gravity >people die That's it.
Hunter Robinson
There isn't any reason to think it would spontanteously "crack" as you're envisioning. But if it did, it would not collapse. And if it did, the pieces would burn up.
Julian Brown
>thing inside gravity's field cannot collapse >metal can burn up dude.
Adrian Jenkins
>In other words, the US could cut everyone's taxes, both personal and business, income, capital, death, or otherwise, all to 0%, not even cut any benefits or current spending, and pay off the national debt within a decade.
lol. the amount of autism in that line alone is more than i will see all day combined. And i'm pretty fucking autistic myself.
Ian Cruz
The pieces of the ring are in motion. So, they would go away from the planet if the structure collapsed.
Wonderful idea, isn't it?
Nolan Gray
>mining asteroids for materials
We've had one (1) successful asteroid landing with the intent of collecting samples. Just one. The lander stayed for a couple of seconds and then left. That's it. We do not have the technology or the knowhow to successfully and reliably land on asteroids, let alone gather resources.
This meme needs to die. It's the solar roads shit all over again, except OP is the only one falling for it.
Lucas Ortiz
The article proposes a geosynchronous orbital ring. That means each waystation goes up 36,000 km. That means the circumference of your station is 266,270 km.
Even if you're just using 1" steel cable, that's well over a billion dollars worth of steel. And no - an article published in 1982 that says it would cost less is not a fucking reliable source for your bullshit. The whole reason we *haven't* built a fucking space elevator using kevlar and steel isn't because there's some diabolical conspiracy against it, it's because it'd be a logistical and engineering NIGHTMARE.
All it takes is one sheared cable, one terrorist flying a plane into a ground station, and suddenly you've got millions of metric tons of debris falling on people and thousand mile long stretches of steel cable flying through neighborhoods at 6300 m/s.
Parker Morris
what if the ring gets hit by a meteor or an asteroid?
Luis Jenkins
>We've had one (1) successful asteroid landing with the intent of collecting samples. Just one. The lander stayed for a couple of seconds and then left. That's it. We do not have the technology or the knowhow to successfully and reliably land on asteroids, let alone gather resources.
How did your first statement prove the second?
>This meme needs to die. It's the solar roads shit all over again, except OP is the only one falling for it.
Disprove it then.
>The article proposes a geosynchronous orbital ring.
Stop talking. Start reading.
We already have systems that can take down most of these