Space Elevator...Beam me up Scottie!!

[Domino]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/11/05/space.elevator/index.html

Found this quite interesting while reading CNN's site.  Doubt it will ever happen, but could you imagine the ride though?

Space could be just one button away.

[Darth Mandarb]

If you like that, you'll probably love this.

I find this fascinating and would be first in line to ride it!

[Wonkyth]

I read an article on the space elevator idea in SciAm a while ago, and it certainly seems interesting.
About whether it could be done or not, I think it probably could, but who cares?
Sounds like an awesome idea, but I doubt it would be of much consequence to most people...

Having not been into space myself(I live in a very cluttered world ), I have no idea what it would be like travelling in such a thing...

[m0ds]

Am I missing something here, why do things like Mir, and this if it ever happened - never get hit by rogue meteorites?

The space lift would certainly be neat! James May did a little piece on some companies trying to build prototypes which is interesting to watch too. But gigantic tethers, flimsy ones - or rigid structures even - wouldn't exactly look great sticking out the side of the earth. Great idea as the space lift is, I can't exactly see Obama being too thrilled about it and fund it especially after recently questioning if NASA is going in the 'right' direction.

[TerranRich]

Mods, space... is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is...

That having been said, the chances of a meteorite hitting such a small, tiny object are pretty small. And if they did detect such an incoming object, I'm sure they could move well out of the way in time., or have some sort of countermeasures.

[Darth Mandarb]

I think Mods is referring to the tiny (undetectable) meteorites that are [I think] a much larger threat than NASA necessarily wants the general public to know.  The kind that would travel through the space shuttle (possibly destroying it) with ease.

As for the space elevator ... I think any politician (who makes the budget decisions for NASA) should be thrilled at the prospect of a space elevator.  Right now to get 1 gallon of water into space costs approximately 80,000 USD [source].  The space elevator would drastically reduce that cost not just for water, but for all manner of cargo which now must be lifted via bulky and mega-expensive rockets.  The new Ares program is a more cost-effective method to put cargo into space but it has gone back to the old Apollo days as far as "polluting" space goes (all the debris and such that it just abandons in space) and is still extremely pricey (I don't have figures for the cost reduction, I remember hearing it is something like a 1/4 reduction of the cost of the space shuttle delivery system).

We NEED to be in space.  We NEED to go to the moon, and Mars (and beyond).  It's pathetic that no human being has left low-earth orbit since 1972.  I'm a huge advocate of space exploration though. I think it's the most important thing we, as humans, should be putting effort into right now ... so my opinions on the matter, I admit, are probably a tad biased. 

Imagine how we could advance the space program if we took the trillions of dollars we're dumping into useless foreign wars and put it towards space exploration... makes me sad.

[Calin Leafshade]

Agreed.

We need to realise that earths days are numbered. There are certain threats to the earth that there is simply nothing we could do about.

We need an alternative if we want the human race to survive into the far future.

[Atelier]

The idea that one day in my lifetime I could be walking on the moon is so exciting, and because I'm quite a bit younger than most people on these forums I've got the biggest chance!

Not satisfied with colonizing Earth, humans settle on the moon. Not satisfied with colonizing two planetary bodies, humans use the moon as a springboard to Mars. I have no doubt both these things will happen in the future, but needless to say not in the near future.

We could use the moon as a second chance at civilisation. When we first settled the Earth (however it happened), we knew nothing. Now we know about politics, art, science, and (literally) an encyclopedia of other things, there's a chance we can resolve things like disease and poverty before they occur.

For President of the Moon vote AtelierGames!

[Ali]

The idea that one day in my lifetime I could be walking on the moon is so exciting, and because I'm quite a bit younger than most people on these forums I've got the biggest chance!

That kind of gloating won't make you very popular when we're all cramming into one space elevator, watching the waters rise and incessantly jabbing at the 'up' button.

[Atelier]

Looks like no election for me then...

[Domino]

The idea that one day in my lifetime I could be walking on the moon is so exciting, and because I'm quite a bit younger than most people on these forums I've got the biggest chance!

That kind of gloating won't make you very popular when we're all cramming into one space elevator, watching the waters rise and incessantly jabbing at the 'up' button.

This gave me a good laugh.

What would you do if it stopped working when you are 10 miles above the Earth?

[TerranRich]

"Yeah, uh, we got a call about an elevator stuck on the 45,637th floor..."

[Wonkyth]

lol

[Snake]

What about the first space minimall?

Imagine the prices..

[InCreator]

Space elevator, even more than common ones, needs maintenance and constant repairs.

How would it look like?
A hovercraft of some sort? Fighter pilot trying to tape up carbon cable whilst flying by? A really high ladder?

Also, how much impact is need to make upper, floating platform to stray from orbit? And what happens then?

[Lufia]

We need to realise that earths days are numbered. There are certain threats to the earth that there is simply nothing we could do about.

We need an alternative if we want the human race to survive into the far future.

I think by the time Earth is seriously threatened (and I mean the planet itself, not the ecosystem) by the Sun going supernova or some such, the "human race" will be a really outdated concept for the creatures with the blue tentacles and 12 eyes that will be dominant species by then.

[Atelier]

It reminds me of a story that I read when I was little about a King who owned a huge kingdom. He'd been captivated by the moon, and always dreamt that one day he could walk across the surface. So he ordered his private forest to be cut down to make wooden boxes, which he ordered the servants to stack into a tower. As the King got higher and higher up the tower, he became more and more certain that eventually he'd reach the moon. After his hunting forest had been completely cut down, he ordered another two forests to be cleared and made into boxes. As the tower rose taller and taller, the King ordered all the trees in his kingdom to be sawn down. Eventually, the moon was within a hair's breadth of the King's fingers. But the King had been driven so mad with his desire to touch the moon that all the trees had been cut down, and there were no more boxes left. The King jumped, the tower toppled beneath him, and the soon to be ex-King fell to Earth.

Maybe the story is prophetic?

[InCreator]

I think by the time Earth is seriously threatened (and I mean the planet itself, not the ecosystem) by the Sun going supernova or some such, the "human race" will be a really outdated concept for the creatures with the blue tentacles and 12 eyes that will be dominant species by then.

Right and wrong I think.
But instead of tentacles, it is most likely that prevailing species would be either bugs (which make already 95% of earth's species overall, and about 20% of earths whole biomass, plus - are tough as hell)...

OR some kind of viruses.

It's not nukes and ozone layer that threats extinction of mankind, but rather diseases. What if AIDS or cancer spreaded airborne? Would be pretty quick demise for us. And new diseases happen quite often, much quicker than cure for them.

Space elevator would not help us here.

[Darth Mandarb]

So rather than taking the [intelligent and logical] steps to create a space elevator (or any other method to expand our species off the planet) we should just sit idly by for a few million years until we get wiped out by a virus or swarms of insects.  That makes much more sense.

It's those same kind of defeatist attitudes that I suspect people like Columbus had to deal with in the past.  It is human nature to explore, to push boundaries, to investigate the things we don't understand.  When we suppress that instinct we stagnate as a species.  Not to mention the huge advances such exploration will usher in.

I can usually just ignore the negativity because, one way or another, we will explore space.  It's inevitable.  We just need to wade through the bullshit that those in opposition throw in the way.  I'd be really curious (though hope to never have to test the theory) to see how quickly those naysayers would eat their words if/when we detect a large mass approaching earth on a collision course and we find out that had we spent the time, money and energy on space exploration (as we should have) we'd have the ability to do something about it (like maybe put a counter-measure into space via the space elevator).  It would be some powerful irony although not very satisfying as the outcome, the destruction of our species, would rather suck.

I do get it though.  Pessimism is easier than optimism.  It's easier to adopt a negative attitude.  I think it's probably a way to protect against disappointment.

[Lufia]

Evolution hasn't stopped just because we started building stuff. The concept that the "human race" will stay anything like it is today or remain the dominant species for million of years is far, far from being obvious. But hey, let's just blow some space rocks, you're right, that'll have an impact on... somehting. Probably.