An Elevator Leading All The Way To Space! the title says it all

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

Today during lunch, i was hanginng out with my math teacher and he was talking about plans on building an elevator that leads into outer space!!personally i think this would be total awsome!! but here is how it would be donw,ok, welll as some of us know once you reach a certin point in space gravity gives awayand instead of pulling down towards the planet, it pulls away from the planet.. and so the ideal is to get a HUGE weight, probably like a humongus space station or somthing big n heavy and putting it right outside of the earths geosynchronous orbit (which is: basicly the last part of the atmosphere... but defined by wikepedia! it is A geosynchronous orbit is a geocentric orbit that has the same orbital period as the sidereal rotation period of the Earth. It has a semi-major axis of 42,164 km [1] Thanx!)so now, wit that counterweight they would have all of the mechanics i would imagine up there with a cable built up of material with a super high tensile strength..i think my teahcer said it was somthing like microorganisms or somthing like that.. but the cable would span from earths surface to the counterweight in space with an elevator that basicly went up and down hat cable..people would prefer this over using rockets..i think it would be safer..i had a question but it was answered--the weight in space would move around with the earth, so i wouldn't stay in one place...i think it would be much better to do this..less polution! and they can have things take off from a platform in space >_< that would be soo coolli also thing it would be cool if you could pay to go up there and stay for a while!i hope somthing like this does happen before i die! hehe

[moldboy 0]

I think one thing most people liking of when they first hear this idea is, "what about the ring of fire" As we say on the Simpsons when Homer returns to earth (and on many other shows) there is a shield of fire that covers the earth, that's why they have super thick heat shields, so you think won't the cable have to withstand that heat? Now I'll admit I had the ame thought when I first heard about it but, that passed after a few seconds when logic struck and of course there isn't a ring of fire, and if the elevator moved slow enough then there wouldn't be enough friction to generate one.

[jlhaslip 4]

So aside from trying to create a 42,000 kilometre long rope and getting it into space, and getting the counterweight there as well, how would you return the counterweight to the space platform after it got used the first time. It would take a whole mess of energy to haul that thing back up there. (again) Mind you, I'm no engineer (thank the stars).

[Plenoptic 0]

Ya I don't think this is gonna happen anytime soon. There is the atmosphere that will still burn you up as you go through I believe no matter how fast you are going. I don't quite think you will be able to have an elevator do that, it would take 100 years to build and figure out because what are we gonna do when we get over 1000 feet building it build a bigger ladder? Not trying to ruin anything but it wouldn't really be safe either. If the elevator gets stuck they would have no way to get down unless they have a parachute but if they in the ozone layer they are done for. I could go on and on about how this wouldn't work but I think you get the picture. Unless they figure out how to work through all this I think their plan is sunk.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

more info could be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator although it might be dangerious, i would be willing to be the first person to do it.. i do not believe that we would have to worry about leaving the atmosphere because nothing really happens there except pushing up against gravity verry heavily, but coming back down into earth at no matter rate we would have to pass through a few unsafe things, but if they can make a spaceship pretty much deflect it, i think that in the future *not too far out* they will have a material that will deflect fire, and keep it from melting in any way shape or form..but like i said, i would be more than willing to try it out..even if i make it half way up there i am sure the sight would be magnificent..but no matter what consequences i still think it would be totaly awsome to have like a hotel up there lmao!

[Avalon 1]

I remember seeing a newspaper article on this subject. If I remember correctly there is a competition going for the first person/company to do it. Being as I work for an elevator company, the article sparked a great deal of interest. A few questions come to mind, assuming it is eventually possible. What if the elevator breaks down midway, how does the mechanic get there to fix it and how long would it take? How would you survive while you're waiting? How long would the trip take and will you have to listen to "Elevator Music" all the way? I think if you did, you'd be insane by the time you got there!I'll see if I can find the article and I'll quote some of it here.

[moldboy 0]

If I remember correctly there is a competition going for the first person/company to do it.

I don't know if this is the same thing but I remember hearing that NASA holds a robitcs compition where the builders are to design a robot who can climb a ribon going straight up, I believe this has to do with designing a chamber that can climb a rope to space.

[vujsa 0]

Pretty sure Star Trek Voyager had an episode about this concept.The space tether where a space station is at the other end of the shaft. The idea of using a counterweight and cable wouldn't really work because the length of the cable needed would cause it to be either too heavy to lift itself or too weak. A crawler would work best. The rack and pinion system is the way to go. The further up you go, the less gravity that is exserted. It would be slow but in a few hours you'd be in space. Coming back down would be fine at a manageble speed (under 1000 MPH) since the reason things burn up in the atmosphhere is because of the extreme friction caused by the super high speeds (mach 20+) of falling objects from space.The problem is building such a thing since the tallest buildings in the world are nowhere near the required height.more later.vujsa

[Cool_Freaker 0]

Seriosly, I'm not an engineer nor do I pretend to be, but that is one of the most stupid and inefficient ideas i have seen thus far.

[moldboy 0]

How do you mean? Stupid maybe, you're intitled to your opinion. But are you telling me that the current way is more efficent? That red tank is full to the top with rick fuel, and all that fuel is burned up in the first few minutes of flight.

[catfish 0]

to geosync? ya right...im sorry, but your not going to build a tower 1,836,218 kilometers high... (and then some.)the energy you are going to need to send up an "elevator" is going to be no less then sending up a rocket. AND i seriously doubt that there would be enough of anything to build that relativly stable. not to mention you would have to replace billions in dollars of satalites that would be in the thing's way.plus some guy is going to blow it up from the base and the whole thing will come tumbling down...

[Plenoptic 0]

Like I said you will burn up in the atmosphere. It will take them years to figure out how to get it to work maybe decades. I don't think they are going to figure it out in this lifetime unless we find some new technology to help us out. The higher you go the colder it gets and then in the atmosphere you burn up. Also there is a lack of oxygen so you would have to have a huge tank of oxygen in the elevator to last. lol I can imagine, someone halfway to space when they get stuck. "Honey, I just wanted to call to tell you I might be late for dinner"

[Cerebral Stasis 0]

I read an article in a science magazine about this a few years ago. Let me see if I can smooth out a few wrinkles in the posters' brains.

First of all, there is no "ring of fire" as you so call it. As was mentioned in an earlier post, the only reason things burn up while entering Earth's atmosphere is because of the extreme friction resulting from falling at high speeds through the mesosphere.

Millions of meteors burn up daily in the mesosphere as a result of collisions with some of the billions of gas particles contained in that layer. The collisions create enough heat to burn the falling objects long before they reach the ground.

That is why Burt Rutan's Space Ship One does not need heavy thermal shielding for reentering Earth's atmosphere (it instead uses a wing technique that allows it to lose enough speed to safely reenter the Earth's atmosphere without creating enough friction to cause the vehicle to be incinerated).
The tether would be composed of thousands of carbon nanotubes, which are able to hold enormous amounts of weight. These nanotubes would be woven one at a time by robotic "rovers" that would roll up and down the tether, adding an extra thread each time it went up or down. Although this would take awhile, eventually the tether would be strong enough to hold a lift that could carry something as gigantic as a space shuttle up to the counterweight spacestation, from which it would be launched, greatly reducing the amount of fuel necessary for it to lift off (those savings, in and of themselves, would make the cost of making such an elevator worthwhile). Elevators, whether self-powered or powered by a current running through the tether cable, would be able to move at enormous speeds, yet avoid being burned up in the atmosphere when going to or from the counterweight.

Now, the counterweight for the tether wouldn't fall to Earth if the tether snapped - that would defeat the whole purpose of it's being a counterweight. It would fly off into space and would eventually be retrieved, although it may be difficult and take quite a bit of time.

Since the elevator itself wouldn't be run by the complicated and unreliable mechanics that normal elevators are run by, they would rarely break down (and would never break down at all, if they were regularly given maintenance). The elevator itself wouldn't require any more energy to lift an object clear to the counterweight than it would take to lift the same object on an elevator completely within Earth's atmosphere the same distance. The energy required to lift the object will only decrease as the craft gets higher (since gravitational pull will decrease), and going down, little or no energy would be required at all, save to hold the elevator back so it does not descend too fast.

Contrary to what many of you have been saying, while there would be risks involved, as there always are, this space elevator would be a much more efficient and much safer means of transporting people and equipment to outer space. What would you prefer to use to get into space - an elevator that pulled itself up along an anchored tether, or a gigantic bomb that exploded downward to push you up?

In any case, I doubt anyone here has much to worry about at the moment, since such a technology, if it's ever attempted, won't be economically feasible for a few decades, at least.

[elevenmil 0]

I'm not a science goof nor am I slightly interested in science, but this all seems like a nice little fairy tail story to read to the kiddies at bedtime. Honestly, this whole idea sounds quite ridiculous. Firstly, the money spend on this project would be a total waste, and it would be A LOT of money, no doubt. The issue of the elevator breaking down would be troublesome indeed, due to the fact that many of our aviating devices cannot fly at such a incredible altitude. It would be extremely difficult to fix a problem at the crest of our atmosphere and we would need to develop a craft that is capable of flying at such an altitude, which I believe hasn't been done nor will be in the near future. (Maybe I'm wrong there, but hey, like I said, I'm no science goof).Ultimately what we're looking at is a huge costly project that will have little benefit, only providing us an opportunity to say "look what we can do". Right now the whole idea is what I mentioned earlier, a fairy tale. It would be hard to even write a realistic fiction on it...But hey, this is what our society has become. We live in a world of competition. Everyone comes up with new ideas that try to out-do everyone. Heck, if we do ever make this pathetic elevator, the next thing we'll try to do is extend it to Mars, so all the little martians can travel back and forth...

[moldboy 0]

we would need to develop a craft that is capable of flying at such an altitude, which I believe hasn't been done

No it hasn't been done, one of the main reasons is because there isn't anything in that high up for the craft to ride on. However who says you would need to fix it with an airplain (of sorts)? You could just have another ellevator car go up after it, it after all wouldn't be tradational with pullies and the works. It woule much similar to an inch worm crawling up a building.