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Kobayashi
sage
Reged: 07/10/08
Posts: 291
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Re: Japan to build Space Elevator
09/23/08 09:34 AM
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Your point about harmonics is well taken. Myself, I envision craning my neck back to look at the cable rising up and seeing a million fold scenario of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge incident.
The Tacoma Narrows bridge was destroyed by wind, which is unpredictable and chaotic. The forces experienced by a space elevator would be much simpler, just Newtonian physics. Gravitational forces from the Earth, Moon and Sun are easy to predict. The force from the elevator cars can be controlled by simply controlling the speed of the cars. I suspect it's also easy to control current through the nanotube cable which will push the elevator against the earth's magnetic field. And for redundancy you could always put ion thrusters along the cable.
Quote:
Energy density is the key to everything. Once we develop a small compact extremely dense energy source there will be no need for things like the the Space Elevator or large cumbersome rockets.
I'm not sure what you mean. An energy source doesn't necessarily translate to a propulsion method. And even if it did, it's far more efficient to climb up a cable than fly straight up. We have petroleum fuels that allow a helicopter to fly straight up a mountain, but it's much more efficient to put that fuel in a car and drive up the mountain.
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What's wrong with having a focused microwave beam pointing straight up like a search light? Vehicles could be placed in the beam and their engines powered by absorbing the microwave energy all the way to orbit.
OK, so the vehicle has power. The vehicle still needs to use that energy to eject propellant out of a nozzle in the back to get thrust. Which means the vehicle has to carry all the propellant needed to get to space. You don't gain much by carrying an inert propellant and using a microwave beam to accelerate/heat the propellant, vs. carrying a propellant that also happens to be an energy source.
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-- Ken Kobayashi
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