If I were that unfortunate person on the elevator when the cable snapped, I would look down at the Earth, look back up at the vastness of space, and think to myself; "Well.... at least I didn't go out like David Carradine."
Please please please do O'Neill cylinders next...or maybe von Neumann probes...or Dyson Swarms. I watched Casual Criminalist's latest installment and really need cheering up after that. So does Simon. 😓😔
You should read/lessen to the bobiverse books. The main character is a human who's mind was uploaded into a Von Neumann probe, he explores, fights hostile probes from other countries, Clones hem self hence the first books name "We are Bob, We are legion."
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the idea of the Space Elevator involved two cables and two cars. One dropping as the other rose and their relatives motions providing the power for each other.
A Moon space elevator (running from the moon/lunar orbit to LEO) is far cheaper and easier for us to do right now. While not quite as Game changing as and Earth to Orbit one, it would allow use to cheaply begin building the "Gas Station" and Space Mining out there that we will need if we actually want to get people into space. LEO rockets could lift (basically) un powered cargo pods up to the end and bring others down as well. The cable needs are way less (strength wise). Although there is always the (small) possibility of a space object hitting it , at least it will be above the "Trash Line" for the most part.
Space elevators are nice, but I'd rather build a related structure: the Orbital Ring. Imagine a thin ring spinning faster than orbital speed. Now imagine a non-spinning ring acting as a magnetic sheath. It allows you stay in geostationary orbit without geostationary speeds or distances. You can build structures on them, like power stations, habitats, factories, launch systems. You can also build them at assorted altitudes and inclinations, with tethers dropping to various cities for orbital access. And the best parts? We can build them with current materials, and they start at 100km up, not 10s of thousands. Just a cable car ride to orbit.
We can’t make a space elevator until we can mass produce flawless nanotube, molecular printing and enough power to cover the exterior of it with black diamonds molecularly bonded to the outside of it. I envision it being a bit thicker than actually needed, a bit of redundancy, a safety factor, room for more cars to go up and down… and an Iron Dome type system at key elevations to protect the cable. One or two defensive systems in the atmosphere, and a few more in low orbit, a few more for the many many kilometers to GeoStation, and one or two for the counter weight side.
A single nanotube doesn’t actually need to be flawless, or even the length of the cable. It just needs to lack imperfections for a long enough stretch for the Van der Waals forces (basically friction) between the nanotubes to exceed the tensile strength. Also, I’m not sure what the diamond coating is for.
@@JM-us3fr you are right. nanotubes are very strong mechanically, but they can be damaged by UV light, charged particles and friction from cars traveling up and down them, black diamonds are the hardest material, block UV light, relatively inert to charged particles and can be fused to nanotubes directly.
@@JM-us3fr UV light is going to be hitting the whole cable on all sides. But yeah, the upper upper atmosphere where the air molecules are just zipping around at very high speed (just below escape velocity) (I don’t know what percent) but lots of them are very highly charged +1,+2, maybe even more.
In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Clarke describes the space elevator that he imagines exists by then in greater detail, with habitats staged as you ascend. Worth a read, Simon, if you haven't already? :)
I first heard about this in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. I think the first book, Red Mars, takes place in 2035 or the 2040s and used carbon nanotubes. Good to know science has caught up with science fiction. The 2050 Timeline seens rather ambitious, but I'd be *thrilled* if it happened during my lifetime (I was born in 1980).
It's good to not let yourself become despondent. In this modern day of 24 hours news it's easy to lose sight of one's optimism. We live in a age of unprecedented technological innovation and let me be the first to say that with modern advancements in healthcare and medicine I believe you will live to see the 80s once again. And should the prediction set forth in this video be even remotely correct you'll no doubt live to see that elevator too.
I don't want to sound too critical, because I love Simon's content, but I have a few notes/corrections to share. I see several other SFIA fans in the comments, I'm sure any of which could tell you that you don't need to have the cable at the equator. You can instead have more than one cable as long as at least one cable is on each side of the equator. This allows multiple cities to have elevator cable access and redundancy if one cable were to fail. Geosynchronous orbit is not the same as geostationary orbit, geosynchronous is an orbit where the orbiter passes over the same spot on the ground during each orbit. Geosynchronous orbits tend to look like a figure 8 from the perspective of someone on the ground. Geostationary is the orbit described in this video. Low earth orbit is perhaps best expressed as a range of altitudes. The ISS averages 420km, well under the 2000km stated in the video.
And, of course, a simple steel cable is likely possible if you anchor it to an orbital ring rather than place it in geosynchronous orbit. For that matter, just build the orbital ring in such a way that it intersects the ground and ride a train into space. Just don't let Elon Musk sell that train to you as a "hyperloop".
I don't understand how you could have cables anywhere but the equator. If you had one above and one below, they would still independently drift toward the equator and pop to the other side. you couldn't balance the two with a cable in the middle, because those only work with tension, and you'd need compression to push the two cables apart...
@@ThomasBomb45 I don't think TH-cam is allowing links in comments these days, but search for "Isaac Arthur Space Elevators" and you should find a much better explanation than I can likely give. If you enjoyed this video, there's a good chance you're going to love Isaac's content too.
There's this amazing book called "Dangerous" that deals with a space elevator that they called The Beanstalk. It's been SO long since I've read it and I can't quite remember who wrote it but it's a fantastic sci-fi book. Edit: It's by Shannon Hale!!! Her books are marvelous
It’s worth noting that the cable doesn’t need to be composed of single continuous molecules that stretch the entire length of the cable. They can actually be much shorter, and the friction between molecules can become so great that they hold each other together. It’s also worth noting that carbon nanotubes aren’t the only material we could use. Graphene might be easier to produce, Boron Nitride nanotubes have comparable strength, and so do diamond nanothreads.
The interesting thing about a space elevator is that it can also be used as a launch platform. That counterweight cable could be used, just like the one down to earth, with a climber hauling things to the counter weight. Once there, anything released would be flung off into space at high speeds. It's only along one plane, but that plane also happens to be where the other planets are located, as well as where our current rockets take off along, so it would dramatically reduce the cost of launching anything to Mars, Jupiter's moons, the asteroid belt, etc.
Space elevators will make it cheaper but you still have to take into account the fact the space elevator has to orbit the planetary equator, and that is inclined about 23 degrees compared to the plane of the planets. The main issue with a space elevator (besides materials to make it) is the rest of the satellites whizzing around the earth which all have orbits that would cross the equatorial plane making collision a very real possibility for any satellite or debris that can't maneuver.
Ok, what I don't understand is you still need to get the elevator car up to orbital seed right? So isn't the energy to get it up to speed being taken away from the orbital platform? So you would have to keep boosting the speed of the orbital platform right? Am I missing something here?
@@jeffk464 No, that's the benefit if using the climber, it can go as slow or as fast as necessary/safe up the tether. It's horizontal movement will automatically be added by the tether's movement around the planet.
@@jamesjellis Satellites already dodge debris and other satellites daily. Dodging the cable would be easy. Plus, the cable would effectively make satellite technology obsolete, since reflectors could be placed on the cable to bounce signals. The angle of rotation vs. the orbital plane doesn’t really matter, since you would just…aim for the orbital plane when you release. However, they _would_ have to take into consideration _when_ they release, which is already something we do for rocket launches.
@QBCPerdition Where does the climber get its energy from? It either needs to bring its own energy or steal it from the cable/system. So the cable needs to add energy to its system to compensate
The concept is applicable to other planets and celestial bodies. For locations in the solar system with weaker gravity than Earth's (such as the Moon or Mars), the strength-to-density requirements for tether materials are not as problematic. Currently available materials (such as Kevlar) are strong and light enough that they could be practical as the tether material for elevators there.
@@ThatWriterKevin Not Mars, but I have done the calculations for the Moon, Ceres, and Psyche for a novel I'm working on. The moon is possible, but only as a prestige project. Ceres requires a composite cable, but could boost useful loads into orbit. On Psyche a practical cable could be made out of mild steel. With the added advantage that the orbital ring makes parking a large number of spacecraft in the tight orbital confines of its hill sphere easier.
@@seanwoods647No, the moon isn't possible, because a luna-stationary orbit is impossible. It would need to be so far out from the moon that the earth would be the dominant gravitational force.
@@Stukov961 Looking at the complex orbit for Nasa's way station for moon missions, I have no choice but to agree. In my story the main way for getting stuff to lunar orbit is actually mass drivers, mainly because the moon has a negligible atmosphere. The fact that a space elevator would only be good for lobbing things into unstable orbits kind of puts the nail in the coffin for a space elevator on Luna, or any of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn for that matter. I tip my hat to you.
@@seanwoods647 it could possibly work on Ceres however. There's a neat concept by a Finnish (IIRC) futurist of an O'Niell type colony in stationary orbit around Ceres, anchored to the surface with a space elevator, making access to raw resources for expansion easy.
We could build a space elevator today with present day materials on the moon, as was presented on the you tube channel cool world's last year and also talked about in the TH-cam channel SFIA with Issac Arthur.
With the falling back to earth if it fails. Carbon nanotubes don't bend much, so as it falls it would start to bend and then shatter into small shards resulting in smaller mass particles. Also, it would be fairly simple to install explosives at regular intervals along the length to cut it into smaller sections. Any parts above ~40km would burn up in the atmosphere.
While the individual tubes don’t bend much, an entire cable of the stuff would certainly bend and wrap around the earth (just look at Rice university’s videos showing strands of the stuff). That being said, it would probably still burn up in the atmosphere, and only the lower portion would hit the ground with almost no force.
Aw man this is so cool! I'm familiar with Clarke's novels but I had no idea of the advances being made in the science since then. I thought the idea had kinda died off so it's cool to hear that it's being persued again 😁
It's not. Carbon nano-tubes are inherently unstable. The structure of the carbon atoms' bonds has to be perfect at all time in order to have that 'theoretical' tensile strength and structural integrity. Even at the length of currently feasible technology/research they break all the time due to atoms or bonds somewhere breaking off - causing the strand to break as well. As you scale up to 10,000 km which is 8-9 order of magnitude btw, the chances of breaking increase tremendously = possibility of its breaking is a certainty. That is not even accounting for debris hitting, effect of weather, wind, sun and even the present of atmosphere, or water-vapor, etc. So, no. This is still a science fiction and would still be a science fiction in the foreseeable future by a long shot. By the time the science has enough to make this kind of approach to become somewhat feasible; by then, we would had found another way to transport goods to space that would be more cost-effective/safer than this
Wait till Simon finds out about the proposal to hang an semi stationary facility from earth using chains that have no choice but to remain taut because of the curvature of the earth.
As soon as the climber vehicle pulls on the cable to climb it, the cable will need to be pulled taught with equal force from the other end or will likely get pulled from orbit.
Those have technically existed since the 1970s. The hypertech cars that are basically just hoverboards on steroids are something else and likely won't ever exist.
Personally, I like the idea of "rotovator" style elevators. Get something up to high altitude, have it "hook" onto the elevator, and it flings up while the counterweight comes down for the next. Yes, more complicated than that, and altitude is actually variable depending on length and speed, but the high-altitude interception version is the one that's actually within our current engineering ability.
Would it be easier, and far more economically viable, to make a space elavator from the Moon orbit to its surface, and just transport material there with a space shuttle, thus having a permanent base on the Moon and, above it, plenty of space (pun slightly intended) to build bigger projects, like massive ships or telescopes, heck maybe a mini death star just to make things interesting again?
IIRC someone did the calculations on this and found that 1. the moon's gravity is weak enough that you can make a space elevator there out of regular steel, but 2. the space elevator would be pointing away from the Earth, from the moon's dark side permanently, because the moon is tidally locked to Earth, and 3. You cannot build the elevator on the Earth facing end, because the counterweight would have to extend so far above the moon's surface that it would actually end up in a region of space between the Earth and Moon where Earth's gravity is stronger than the moon's, and as a result Earth's gravity would tear the elevator apart. So a space elevator on the moon would be most useful for launching space missions out into the rest of the solar system from the Earth-moon system, but it would not help at all in actually making getting stuff from the Earth to the Moon any easier, and you need to already have the ability to build, maintain and operate a permanent installation on the far side of the Moon before you can make proper use of one.
We've got AGI now, they've actually confirmed in the papers that GPT4 is showing significant signs that it's starting to become more than a simple language model, and is actively using tools without instruction on how to use them and able to do an impressive number of things it was never shown how to do and they got models training each other on single home computer cards, someone made a capable model that's about equal to GPT3 for about $600.
If a space elevator were ever to be built, the climber would probably have to be set up more like a long-haul passenger train than an elevator, sleeping quarters and all. But on the bright side, it's entirely feasible that the counterweight used to keep it up in space would be a large scale orbital station, and I care little enough about my life and family that I wouldn't mind working and living there. It would have to wait until they got good internet, though.
One thing to also note when considering the issue of space junk collisions on a Space Elevator, is that having an operational Space Elevator also vastly increases your ability, and decreases the cost, of getting equipment into orbit that can be used to actively clean up your space junk, and protect future orbital installations from the space junk. So if a civilization gets to the level of being able to construct a working space elevator, one of the first things they will probably use it for is sending up missions to clean up the space junk it had already put into orbit before, to protect the investment they put into that elevator, make building more elevators easier and safer. And only after significantly reducing the threat of space junk collisions would they then start contemplating sending people up the elevators.
none of us will be alive to see a space elevator on earth (mars perhaps). Skyhook is the more promising way to get to orbit without rockets, although I am quite impressed with those guys doing the slingshot development.
There was some concern about the fact that a space elevator would possibly slow down the speed of rotation of the planet causing a cooling effect into the nucleus and consequently causing the fall of our magnetic field that protect us from solar radiations. 🤔
With our current launch capacity, the Earth’s rotation wouldn’t change much (the Earth has A LOT of rotational inertia). However, if we start sending things up the cable far more frequently, perhaps for many centuries, then it might have an effect on the rotation of the Earth. However, that would only happen if nothing ever _returned_ to Earth. With returning vehicles, their angular momentum would be added to the Earth’s.
I'm looking forward to a couple of thousand kilometers of heavy cables whipping around the earth like an insane octopus when something goes wrong. That ought to be amusing.
Do topopolis next! A theoretical megastructure, similar to O'Neill Cylinders, but bigger. Basically, it's so big in comparison to an O'Neill Cylinder that it would encircle a star, rather than just orbit it.
I watched another video a while back about building the first low orbit station from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the guy came to the same conclusion, it's certainly possible we just need an entirely new material to build it with
I imagine there are plenty of other considerations, such as: * Micrometeorite strikes * Parts of the cable near Earth will have to deal with weather, including potential hurricanes, and the entire airspace surrounding the cable will likely need to be a no-fly zone for aircraft * We really should know for sure what happens if the cable breaks, somebody ought to simulate that and small scale test it * We're talking about lasers and nuclear power for the climber? Can somebody make sure the power required is still lower than just refueling a reusable rocket? I fully expect when a space elevator is practical, reusable rockets will be the norm rather than the exception.
I didn't study physics, but... Just speculating that the cable will act as a flexible string and oscillate because of the energy of air currents and the dynamic pressure gradient inversely proportional to altitude. Oscillating can be can be cancelled before it's really damaging the entire system but that would require a network of sensors and mechanical energy input 180 degrees out of phase and of equal amplitude. Then again if the entire length of the string is under constant oscillation this energy could be useful against gravity by moving the climber up the cable in a sort of snake like manner!
I once thought if you could have the the system be interlocking stations/sections of the tube/wire.Each one would have it's own system to keep the whole thing up and running. And if anything goes wrong they can be preprogramed to immediately seal and then shot off into high orbit.
@@EZ-D-FIANT Isaac Arthur usually leave out from his consideration: material requirement and do they already exists; energh consumption; deployment method(s); etc. He did ig for spacd elevetor, skyhooks and orbital ring. At most Isaac give a generic comment. For example a space elevator can be powered by solar pannels on the upper station (not to confuse with the counterweight). How much time would the pannels be in earth shadow? How big do they need to be? The pannel do one orbit per day, but the earth rotation is tilted and it is quite up. What about power loss in transmission? The elevetor at the middle point is thousands of kilometers from both ends. If the elevator must generate/store the power, how does this affect the cost of bringing cargo jnto orbit? Those are all engeneering issue that Isaac ignores in his video.
@@eliahabib5111 he's way more in depth then Simon lol.... If you've inly watched his outward bound, inward bound series that is vauge but he does specific videos too, I've watched all his stuff he is definitely more thorough then Simons writers are capable of in an engineering context!
even if you'd build a pyramid, basically the strongest structure you can make, it would just collapse under it's own weight. So all bets are off with that
Just one of the hurdles not mentioned. The worst is the amount of material needed. Say the 37,000 kilometre cable has an average 10 metre diameter (it would have to be much bigger) that makes about 2.9 billion cubic metres or 3.7 billion metric tonnes. That is approximately a tenth of the amount of concrete produced globally each year. Or ten times the amount of paper and cardboard produced globally per year. The counterweight and transit centre would also have to be quite massive. To justify the turning over of a massive part of Earth's manufacturing capacity to this project you would have to show some vast capacity for transport into space at a rate and cost that would be competitive with rocketry. That is not shown in any model except for those using unobtainium cables. How many cars could you put on a cable almost at its theoretical limit of supporting its own weight? If they take a week (2 days is improbable) and you can only have three at a time, what profit can you have over rockets? How does the crawler crawl up a tapering strucuture? How does the crawler grip a carbon nanotube structure that has no possibility of adding any weight? Carbon nanotubes are not sticky. How do you keep the nanotubes together? If you put bands or tubes round them that will increase the weight massively. How do you fix the shorter nanotubes to the longer naotubes as you taper the structure? How much radiation damage reduces the nanotube cable to below its functional state? In engineering, design usual allows a massive safety margin, how safe is something operating at its theoretical limit? How flexible is a carbon nanotube cable over thousands of kilometres? Would you get harmonic resonance building up some interesting waves? Would that shorten the cable and lift the attachment to the Earth? How much pure carbon would you have to process into perfect nanotubes Small objects could support a useful space elevator but without a major breakthrough in physics there will never be one on Earth. Simple engineering will not cut it.
When building one of our first space elevators, we should build an orbital shipyard attached to that counterweight. Via this shipyard, we could build small drone vessels that act as garbage catchers using aerogel blocks to collect smaller debris and robot arms for larger trash. By clearing out Terra's orbit of debris, it would give a greater push to make more space elevators, and the shipyards/docking stations built at the end of them. From that point forward creating vessels for engineering and colonization as well as mining drones for asteroid mining, would become viable.
I have heard an idea to use pushing lasers. These would fire on the debris giving them a slight thrust down over time to push the debris into the atmosphere to burn up on slow decay orbits. The thing with the lasers is they could clear large swaths of orbit at a time and you wouldn't have the problem of the drones becoming debris themselves.
Space Elevators will only be suitable for Low(er) Gravity bodies, such as the Moon and Mars. Both of those have also very low - or no - atmospheric pressure, as well as low gravity. Plus, they don't have enormous numbers of satellites in orbit. An Earth-to-Orbit Space Elevator, if there ever is one, will be in far distant future. Many centuries from now.
It doesn’t need to be a cable counter weight. Just pump fluid up and down to a counter weight tank. I think a floating platform would be better than anchoring it at sea level. It would lessen the distance, be above the weather and you could just fly up to it where the elevator takes over where planes can’t go.
In Gundam 00 they used orbital elevators mainly to gather solar energy since everything was solar powered. Orbital elevator itself was more like train that goes vertically instead of horizontally.
Really, we just need to give the elevator engines in space such that it can propel itself back towards the planet, thereby counteracting the requirements for tensile strength. We'd also need to give it (since it's now a somewhat slack cable) engines in the atmosphere also, just to steer it and keep relatively straight; it'd be more like a sort of space gondola with fuel lines and cable running between various floating stations.
30 years was what Back To The Future expected us to have hoverboards and flying cars. And look at what we get 30 years later. Do you expect us to believe we will get space elevator within 30 years, Simon? Wanna bet?
Angular momentum: the basic reason space elevators are fantasy, not real engineering or even plausible science fiction. You need some mechanism to add angular momentum to the elevator as it goes up, because it’s distance from the center of the Earth is increasing.
I've been following this for a number of years now and as I've read all along (and stated in the video), once the material of the cable challenge can be overcome, there is no major obstacle standing in the way. The cost of sending items into space would drop from $20k per kilogram to around $500 which I would think would lure companies to help fund the project. If multiple elevators could be built, imagine sending items into space everyday (that would get that generational ship built!!). Just gotta get those carbon nanotubes developed. My guess on this would be 50-75 years out.
We have already done something similar. There was a Shuttle mission which extended a tethered satellite cable into a higher orbit. Despite the engineering problems encountered (a bolt extended too far, limiting the extension of the tether), as expected, a great deal of electricity traveled back down the cable, due to the difference in orbital speeds. The shuttle was traveling faster than the satellite in a higher orbit, which generated an electrical current.
the tensile structure thing reminds me of the science experiment where you take a shoe box, tie a string around a steel/iron nail, attach the string to the bottom of the box, place magnets on the outside on top of the box, and pull the nail up towards the inside of the top of the box where the magnets are. If the string is the correct length there should be just a small space between the nail and the top of the box. The magnet will try to pull the nail up while the string anchors it to the bottom making it seem as if it is defying gravity and just floating there.
Could you imagine being the elevator operator? "Going up?, asks the operator. A rich billionaire replies, "yep, going up." The operator sighs, "well, we'll reach your floor in about six days. And, there's no toilet, so good luck."
I remember at the turn of this century they were saying there would be a space elevator in 10 years. Now there is so much space junk that I doubt that it will ever be practical. Just watch the movie Gravity, and see if you would ever want to buy a ticket for a ride…
Sky hook hybrid model fixes nearly all space elevator issues. No base station and possible mag lev launched flight pod to meet up with sky hook @ 45-60k feet. That's zero rocket fuel ground to orbit transfer.
On the other hand, they would be much more feasible for Luna, Mars, and the moons of the gas giants. You could mine ice from one of the smaller moons, ship it up the cable and launch it toward Earth, Mars, etc, where it would be used to provide air, water, and rocket fuel.
A possible fix to stop getting thrown into space if the cable snapped would be having a propulsion system in place on the counterweight or platform in space 🤷♂️
I think most people having a wrong idea about space elevator, It is not like riding a small box that is a normal elevator, it will probably like a small train with huge rocket booster that goes upward. the rockets are needed to leave earth orbit or decelerate when it comes back down to earth.
There is one thing that was not mentioned in the video. Assuming we were able to build one would the cable and car be able to take the fluctuations in the temperature they would be exposed to and then would the car be able to keep people safe as well.
The platform would be moving at a high speed being so far from the center of motion, so if you were to jump off you'd actually fall back to earth unless you somehow increased your speed a lot very quickly to fully escape earths gravity. Same thing that happens to anything else in orbit if they lose speed, you come down to gravity. So the snap would really just mean the whole thing came down when the platform ended its slight outward arc and then came back down, hopefully with emergency parachutes and or rockets. Imagine the arc of a baseball, it fights gravity, but eventually if it's not gaining speed it comes back down. One of the more interesting space structures has to do with orbital rings that are smaller than the earth's diameter at the equator. Imagine a hula hoop attached to the wearer by strings up to their shoulders, as long as there is counter pull on each line then it would just sit there trying to go down towards the earth but being held back. Now imagine a giant hula hoop that circles Antarctica for instance, where the tethers hold the ring up from falling to the equator being the center of gravity but also hold it outside of our atmosphere by counter pulling on each other. With that design you could lay lines to major cities, and it could be around any general circle that's wide enough. So for instance Antarctica or the pacific oceans rim, making connecting to major cities much easier because those Iines wouldn't be support lines and could reach out in any direction to attach to station to use space elevators.
If you guys want to read a amazing novel that goes into building a space elevator (with the writer using actual scientists to help with the writing) its called ‘Pillar to the Sky’ by William Forstchen
I do have a solution to the space elevator. 1st carbon nanotubes correct, cable no, keep it a tube like honeycomb tubes strap together. The capsule moves inside the tube, keeping it safe from everything. Second, the satellite is a big Spear space station and port that has a fusion reactor for power. The capsule inside the tube would move like a magnetic train through the tube. The magnets can also block some of the radiation issue and another device can collect some of that radiation and turn it into power. Some of that tech I would like to apply to SpaceX's starship.
The climbers would actually be a bit safer than you’d think. If the cable is severed and you’re beneath the break, just wait until the climber’s about to hit the earth and then jump.
Simon, You actually don’t need to worry about power to operate that elevator. The earth is a very large electric dynamo. One of the experiments ran on a space shuttle was to drop a wire from the shuttle to “induce” electricity from our planets magnetic field. Any elevator built would induce electricity from our magnetic field. I’m not a tree hugger, but everybody wants green energy, so here you go. Sincerely, Robert
![Yoshi Rinrada - 'มาทำไม' [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/r41xbfRLkLs/mqdefault.jpg)
Imagine having to hear the space elevator music for 8 days straight!
Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from…
Or enduring that awkward silence between the passengers as you wait for the "ding" announcing your arrival at your stop.
A Muzak version of the Tomito album “The Planets”?
If I were that unfortunate person on the elevator when the cable snapped, I would look down at the Earth, look back up at the vastness of space, and think to myself; "Well.... at least I didn't go out like David Carradine."
David Carradine died doing what he loved though
@@rubiconnn true. 🙂
Hey, there may be closets on the space elevator, you can still go out that way!
@@NS-cs3wp true enough. 🙂
@@rubiconnn Didn't he hang himself? I'm not sure your statement makes much sense in light of this.
Please please please do O'Neill cylinders next...or maybe von Neumann probes...or Dyson Swarms. I watched Casual Criminalist's latest installment and really need cheering up after that. So does Simon. 😓😔
I like launch loops.
Space hooks would be great as follow up at this épisode. Good work.
Check out SFIA if you haven't already
@@Andrew-zq3ip OMG Of course! Isaac Arthur is one of my best Mentats. 😉🤓😄
You should read/lessen to the bobiverse books. The main character is a human who's mind was uploaded into a Von Neumann probe, he explores, fights hostile probes from other countries, Clones hem self hence the first books name "We are Bob, We are legion."
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the idea of the Space Elevator involved two cables and two cars. One dropping as the other rose and their relatives motions providing the power for each other.
Not just power, momentum
"That's terrifying...thanks for watching" 🤣
A Moon space elevator (running from the moon/lunar orbit to LEO) is far cheaper and easier for us to do right now.
While not quite as Game changing as and Earth to Orbit one, it would allow use to cheaply begin building the "Gas Station" and Space Mining out there that we will need if we actually want to get people into space.
LEO rockets could lift (basically) un powered cargo pods up to the end and bring others down as well.
The cable needs are way less (strength wise). Although there is always the (small) possibility of a space object hitting it , at least it will be above the "Trash Line" for the most part.
Space elevators are nice, but I'd rather build a related structure: the Orbital Ring. Imagine a thin ring spinning faster than orbital speed. Now imagine a non-spinning ring acting as a magnetic sheath. It allows you stay in geostationary orbit without geostationary speeds or distances. You can build structures on them, like power stations, habitats, factories, launch systems. You can also build them at assorted altitudes and inclinations, with tethers dropping to various cities for orbital access. And the best parts? We can build them with current materials, and they start at 100km up, not 10s of thousands. Just a cable car ride to orbit.
We can’t make a space elevator until we can mass produce flawless nanotube, molecular printing and enough power to cover the exterior of it with black diamonds molecularly bonded to the outside of it.
I envision it being a bit thicker than actually needed, a bit of redundancy, a safety factor, room for more cars to go up and down… and an Iron Dome type system at key elevations to protect the cable. One or two defensive systems in the atmosphere, and a few more in low orbit, a few more for the many many kilometers to GeoStation, and one or two for the counter weight side.
A single nanotube doesn’t actually need to be flawless, or even the length of the cable. It just needs to lack imperfections for a long enough stretch for the Van der Waals forces (basically friction) between the nanotubes to exceed the tensile strength. Also, I’m not sure what the diamond coating is for.
@@JM-us3fr you are right. nanotubes are very strong mechanically, but they can be damaged by UV light, charged particles and friction from cars traveling up and down them, black diamonds are the hardest material, block UV light, relatively inert to charged particles and can be fused to nanotubes directly.
@@jsbrads1 That’s pretty cool. I didn’t know that
@@JM-us3fr UV light is going to be hitting the whole cable on all sides. But yeah, the upper upper atmosphere where the air molecules are just zipping around at very high speed (just below escape velocity) (I don’t know what percent) but lots of them are very highly charged +1,+2, maybe even more.
In 3001: The Final Odyssey, Clarke describes the space elevator that he imagines exists by then in greater detail, with habitats staged as you ascend. Worth a read, Simon, if you haven't already? :)
I first heard about this in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. I think the first book, Red Mars, takes place in 2035 or the 2040s and used carbon nanotubes. Good to know science has caught up with science fiction. The 2050 Timeline seens rather ambitious, but I'd be *thrilled* if it happened during my lifetime (I was born in 1980).
It's good to not let yourself become despondent. In this modern day of 24 hours news it's easy to lose sight of one's optimism. We live in a age of unprecedented technological innovation and let me be the first to say that with modern advancements in healthcare and medicine I believe you will live to see the 80s once again. And should the prediction set forth in this video be even remotely correct you'll no doubt live to see that elevator too.
space elevators would also be vastly easier and safer on Mars, thanks to the low air pressure and gravity
I was thinking of the same series. But I was thinking of the massive gash left across Mars when the one faction manages to break the cable.
Love how Simon has so much fun with this channel. I enjoy the other channels, but this one actually makes me laugh. Lol
My favourite bit is where we’ve already ruined orbit and outer space by dumping all our shit there in the form of broken crap and literal crap.
I don't want to sound too critical, because I love Simon's content, but I have a few notes/corrections to share.
I see several other SFIA fans in the comments, I'm sure any of which could tell you that you don't need to have the cable at the equator. You can instead have more than one cable as long as at least one cable is on each side of the equator. This allows multiple cities to have elevator cable access and redundancy if one cable were to fail.
Geosynchronous orbit is not the same as geostationary orbit, geosynchronous is an orbit where the orbiter passes over the same spot on the ground during each orbit. Geosynchronous orbits tend to look like a figure 8 from the perspective of someone on the ground. Geostationary is the orbit described in this video.
Low earth orbit is perhaps best expressed as a range of altitudes. The ISS averages 420km, well under the 2000km stated in the video.
Well said, my friend.
And, of course, a simple steel cable is likely possible if you anchor it to an orbital ring rather than place it in geosynchronous orbit. For that matter, just build the orbital ring in such a way that it intersects the ground and ride a train into space. Just don't let Elon Musk sell that train to you as a "hyperloop".
I don't understand how you could have cables anywhere but the equator. If you had one above and one below, they would still independently drift toward the equator and pop to the other side. you couldn't balance the two with a cable in the middle, because those only work with tension, and you'd need compression to push the two cables apart...
@@ThomasBomb45 I don't think TH-cam is allowing links in comments these days, but search for "Isaac Arthur Space Elevators" and you should find a much better explanation than I can likely give. If you enjoyed this video, there's a good chance you're going to love Isaac's content too.
There's this amazing book called "Dangerous" that deals with a space elevator that they called The Beanstalk. It's been SO long since I've read it and I can't quite remember who wrote it but it's a fantastic sci-fi book.
Edit: It's by Shannon Hale!!! Her books are marvelous
Wow, that is a MUCH longer length requirement than I had envisioned.
As space launch systems go. Space elevator is the least feasable. Orbital rings, active pillars or mass drivers might be better options.
It’s worth noting that the cable doesn’t need to be composed of single continuous molecules that stretch the entire length of the cable. They can actually be much shorter, and the friction between molecules can become so great that they hold each other together.
It’s also worth noting that carbon nanotubes aren’t the only material we could use. Graphene might be easier to produce, Boron Nitride nanotubes have comparable strength, and so do diamond nanothreads.
Glad I stumbled on this channel since fact boy is not linking it yet... getting real OG Business Blaze vibes and loving it!
The interesting thing about a space elevator is that it can also be used as a launch platform. That counterweight cable could be used, just like the one down to earth, with a climber hauling things to the counter weight. Once there, anything released would be flung off into space at high speeds. It's only along one plane, but that plane also happens to be where the other planets are located, as well as where our current rockets take off along, so it would dramatically reduce the cost of launching anything to Mars, Jupiter's moons, the asteroid belt, etc.
Space elevators will make it cheaper but you still have to take into account the fact the space elevator has to orbit the planetary equator, and that is inclined about 23 degrees compared to the plane of the planets. The main issue with a space elevator (besides materials to make it) is the rest of the satellites whizzing around the earth which all have orbits that would cross the equatorial plane making collision a very real possibility for any satellite or debris that can't maneuver.
Ok, what I don't understand is you still need to get the elevator car up to orbital seed right? So isn't the energy to get it up to speed being taken away from the orbital platform? So you would have to keep boosting the speed of the orbital platform right? Am I missing something here?
@@jeffk464 No, that's the benefit if using the climber, it can go as slow or as fast as necessary/safe up the tether. It's horizontal movement will automatically be added by the tether's movement around the planet.
@@jamesjellis Satellites already dodge debris and other satellites daily. Dodging the cable would be easy. Plus, the cable would effectively make satellite technology obsolete, since reflectors could be placed on the cable to bounce signals.
The angle of rotation vs. the orbital plane doesn’t really matter, since you would just…aim for the orbital plane when you release. However, they _would_ have to take into consideration _when_ they release, which is already something we do for rocket launches.
@QBCPerdition Where does the climber get its energy from? It either needs to bring its own energy or steal it from the cable/system. So the cable needs to add energy to its system to compensate
The concept is applicable to other planets and celestial bodies. For locations in the solar system with weaker gravity than Earth's (such as the Moon or Mars), the strength-to-density requirements for tether materials are not as problematic. Currently available materials (such as Kevlar) are strong and light enough that they could be practical as the tether material for elevators there.
Sure, but it being easier to build a space elevator on Mars doesn't somehow make having one on mars usefulto us
@@ThatWriterKevin Not Mars, but I have done the calculations for the Moon, Ceres, and Psyche for a novel I'm working on. The moon is possible, but only as a prestige project. Ceres requires a composite cable, but could boost useful loads into orbit. On Psyche a practical cable could be made out of mild steel. With the added advantage that the orbital ring makes parking a large number of spacecraft in the tight orbital confines of its hill sphere easier.
@@seanwoods647No, the moon isn't possible, because a luna-stationary orbit is impossible. It would need to be so far out from the moon that the earth would be the dominant gravitational force.
@@Stukov961 Looking at the complex orbit for Nasa's way station for moon missions, I have no choice but to agree. In my story the main way for getting stuff to lunar orbit is actually mass drivers, mainly because the moon has a negligible atmosphere. The fact that a space elevator would only be good for lobbing things into unstable orbits kind of puts the nail in the coffin for a space elevator on Luna, or any of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn for that matter. I tip my hat to you.
@@seanwoods647 it could possibly work on Ceres however. There's a neat concept by a Finnish (IIRC) futurist of an O'Niell type colony in stationary orbit around Ceres, anchored to the surface with a space elevator, making access to raw resources for expansion easy.
We could build a space elevator today with present day materials on the moon, as was presented on the you tube channel cool world's last year and also talked about in the TH-cam channel SFIA with Issac Arthur.
And that would accomplish....?
Best space elevator was seen in Fundation the series based on Isaac Asimov's work
Foundation Series? What about Scalzi? 😉🤓🤓
With the falling back to earth if it fails. Carbon nanotubes don't bend much, so as it falls it would start to bend and then shatter into small shards resulting in smaller mass particles. Also, it would be fairly simple to install explosives at regular intervals along the length to cut it into smaller sections. Any parts above ~40km would burn up in the atmosphere.
While the individual tubes don’t bend much, an entire cable of the stuff would certainly bend and wrap around the earth (just look at Rice university’s videos showing strands of the stuff).
That being said, it would probably still burn up in the atmosphere, and only the lower portion would hit the ground with almost no force.
This video gives me hope that space elevators WILL be real… Some day probably outside my lifetime. 😢😢😢😢😢
Yes thank you Simon, no idea if you saw my comments or were always going to do a space elevator video but cheers!!
Great suggestion!
Aw man this is so cool! I'm familiar with Clarke's novels but I had no idea of the advances being made in the science since then. I thought the idea had kinda died off so it's cool to hear that it's being persued again 😁
It's not. Carbon nano-tubes are inherently unstable. The structure of the carbon atoms' bonds has to be perfect at all time in order to have that 'theoretical' tensile strength and structural integrity. Even at the length of currently feasible technology/research they break all the time due to atoms or bonds somewhere breaking off - causing the strand to break as well. As you scale up to 10,000 km which is 8-9 order of magnitude btw, the chances of breaking increase tremendously = possibility of its breaking is a certainty. That is not even accounting for debris hitting, effect of weather, wind, sun and even the present of atmosphere, or water-vapor, etc. So, no. This is still a science fiction and would still be a science fiction in the foreseeable future by a long shot. By the time the science has enough to make this kind of approach to become somewhat feasible; by then, we would had found another way to transport goods to space that would be more cost-effective/safer than this
If you like that kind of stuff theirs a science talker on here called issac Arthur he's well worth checking out.....👍👌👍
@@EZ-D-FIANT Yeah I watch his stuff, he's one of my favourite youtubers but some of his stuff goes over my head 😅
Simon - another excellent video. Part of the reason I enjoy your TH-cam videos is because you seem to enjoy presenting them. Well done.
Wait till Simon finds out about the proposal to hang an semi stationary facility from earth using chains that have no choice but to remain taut because of the curvature of the earth.
As soon as the climber vehicle pulls on the cable to climb it, the cable will need to be pulled taught with equal force from the other end or will likely get pulled from orbit.
It’s already being pulled taught from the other end by the counterweight.
Im surprised Simon hasnt done an episode on Flying Cars yet.
Becaus Those Exist ...DUH!?!
Probably in the chute already
Its coming
Those have technically existed since the 1970s. The hypertech cars that are basically just hoverboards on steroids are something else and likely won't ever exist.
He has, or I've seen one hosted by Simon on another channel.
9:31 72,000,000 of those record setting nanotubes.
This channel needs more tangents and or Simon's life story.
Same thing, really...😉😁
My man really didn’t mention foundation.. best example of a space elevator in my opinion
Personally, I like the idea of "rotovator" style elevators. Get something up to high altitude, have it "hook" onto the elevator, and it flings up while the counterweight comes down for the next. Yes, more complicated than that, and altitude is actually variable depending on length and speed, but the high-altitude interception version is the one that's actually within our current engineering ability.
Analyzing so many of these attractive sci-fi ideas seems to end in disappointment, to approaching them with humor is definitely a welcome method.
Would it be easier, and far more economically viable, to make a space elavator from the Moon orbit to its surface, and just transport material there with a space shuttle, thus having a permanent base on the Moon and, above it, plenty of space (pun slightly intended) to build bigger projects, like massive ships or telescopes, heck maybe a mini death star just to make things interesting again?
IIRC someone did the calculations on this and found that 1. the moon's gravity is weak enough that you can make a space elevator there out of regular steel, but 2. the space elevator would be pointing away from the Earth, from the moon's dark side permanently, because the moon is tidally locked to Earth, and 3. You cannot build the elevator on the Earth facing end, because the counterweight would have to extend so far above the moon's surface that it would actually end up in a region of space between the Earth and Moon where Earth's gravity is stronger than the moon's, and as a result Earth's gravity would tear the elevator apart.
So a space elevator on the moon would be most useful for launching space missions out into the rest of the solar system from the Earth-moon system, but it would not help at all in actually making getting stuff from the Earth to the Moon any easier, and you need to already have the ability to build, maintain and operate a permanent installation on the far side of the Moon before you can make proper use of one.
We've got AGI now, they've actually confirmed in the papers that GPT4 is showing significant signs that it's starting to become more than a simple language model, and is actively using tools without instruction on how to use them and able to do an impressive number of things it was never shown how to do and they got models training each other on single home computer cards, someone made a capable model that's about equal to GPT3 for about $600.
If a space elevator were ever to be built, the climber would probably have to be set up more like a long-haul passenger train than an elevator, sleeping quarters and all. But on the bright side, it's entirely feasible that the counterweight used to keep it up in space would be a large scale orbital station, and I care little enough about my life and family that I wouldn't mind working and living there. It would have to wait until they got good internet, though.
I love the sassy attitude and graphics on this channel. Keep up the great work.
One thing to also note when considering the issue of space junk collisions on a Space Elevator, is that having an operational Space Elevator also vastly increases your ability, and decreases the cost, of getting equipment into orbit that can be used to actively clean up your space junk, and protect future orbital installations from the space junk. So if a civilization gets to the level of being able to construct a working space elevator, one of the first things they will probably use it for is sending up missions to clean up the space junk it had already put into orbit before, to protect the investment they put into that elevator, make building more elevators easier and safer. And only after significantly reducing the threat of space junk collisions would they then start contemplating sending people up the elevators.
You could do replicators from Star Trek with a side track in to 3D printing…
none of us will be alive to see a space elevator on earth (mars perhaps). Skyhook is the more promising way to get to orbit without rockets, although I am quite impressed with those guys doing the slingshot development.
There was some concern about the fact that a space elevator would possibly slow down the speed of rotation of the planet causing a cooling effect into the nucleus and consequently causing the fall of our magnetic field that protect us from solar radiations. 🤔
With our current launch capacity, the Earth’s rotation wouldn’t change much (the Earth has A LOT of rotational inertia). However, if we start sending things up the cable far more frequently, perhaps for many centuries, then it might have an effect on the rotation of the Earth.
However, that would only happen if nothing ever _returned_ to Earth. With returning vehicles, their angular momentum would be added to the Earth’s.
Pillar to the sky is the best space elevator book IMHO.
I like it when Simon hurrumphs smuggly while laughing at his own jokes....
"allegedly"
I'm looking forward to a couple of thousand kilometers of heavy cables whipping around the earth like an insane octopus when something goes wrong. That ought to be amusing.
Do topopolis next! A theoretical megastructure, similar to O'Neill Cylinders, but bigger. Basically, it's so big in comparison to an O'Neill Cylinder that it would encircle a star, rather than just orbit it.
We need a shirt with Simon’s face on it with ‘Allegedly!’ Right above it 😁
One of the best representations I've seen for space elevators was in Gundam 00.
Yes! I remember gundam 00 right away!
I watched another video a while back about building the first low orbit station from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the guy came to the same conclusion, it's certainly possible we just need an entirely new material to build it with
I imagine there are plenty of other considerations, such as:
* Micrometeorite strikes
* Parts of the cable near Earth will have to deal with weather, including potential hurricanes, and the entire airspace surrounding the cable will likely need to be a no-fly zone for aircraft
* We really should know for sure what happens if the cable breaks, somebody ought to simulate that and small scale test it
* We're talking about lasers and nuclear power for the climber? Can somebody make sure the power required is still lower than just refueling a reusable rocket? I fully expect when a space elevator is practical, reusable rockets will be the norm rather than the exception.
I simply can’t wait for Elon Musk to “invent” the “Vertical Space Escalator”.
I didn't study physics, but...
Just speculating that the cable will act as a flexible string and oscillate because of the energy of air currents and the dynamic pressure gradient inversely proportional to altitude. Oscillating can be can be cancelled before it's really damaging the entire system but that would require a network of sensors and mechanical energy input 180 degrees out of phase and of equal amplitude.
Then again if the entire length of the string is under constant oscillation this energy could be useful against gravity by moving the climber up the cable in a sort of snake like manner!
Does a tight cable oscillate?
@@catprog a cello string is a tight cable.
I once thought if you could have the the system be interlocking stations/sections of the tube/wire.Each one would have it's own system to keep the whole thing up and running. And if anything goes wrong they can be preprogramed to immediately seal and then shot off into high orbit.
A video on Skyhooks would be an excellent follow-up
He couldn't do it better then issac Arthur tho......
@@EZ-D-FIANT Isaac Arthur usually leave out from his consideration: material requirement and do they already exists; energh consumption; deployment method(s); etc.
He did ig for spacd elevetor, skyhooks and orbital ring.
At most Isaac give a generic comment.
For example a space elevator can be powered by solar pannels on the upper station (not to confuse with the counterweight). How much time would the pannels be in earth shadow? How big do they need to be? The pannel do one orbit per day, but the earth rotation is tilted and it is quite up. What about power loss in transmission? The elevetor at the middle point is thousands of kilometers from both ends. If the elevator must generate/store the power, how does this affect the cost of bringing cargo jnto orbit?
Those are all engeneering issue that Isaac ignores in his video.
@@eliahabib5111 he's way more in depth then Simon lol....
If you've inly watched his outward bound, inward bound series that is vauge but he does specific videos too, I've watched all his stuff he is definitely more thorough then Simons writers are capable of in an engineering context!
your editing is seriously awesome!
even if you'd build a pyramid, basically the strongest structure you can make, it would just collapse under it's own weight. So all bets are off with that
Imagine a conductive wire going through some ridiculously charged Areas of the atmosphere, big badaboom and zapping
Just one of the hurdles not mentioned. The worst is the amount of material needed. Say the 37,000 kilometre cable has an average 10 metre diameter (it would have to be much bigger) that makes about 2.9 billion cubic metres or 3.7 billion metric tonnes. That is approximately a tenth of the amount of concrete produced globally each year. Or ten times the amount of paper and cardboard produced globally per year. The counterweight and transit centre would also have to be quite massive. To justify the turning over of a massive part of Earth's manufacturing capacity to this project you would have to show some vast capacity for transport into space at a rate and cost that would be competitive with rocketry. That is not shown in any model except for those using unobtainium cables.
How many cars could you put on a cable almost at its theoretical limit of supporting its own weight? If they take a week (2 days is improbable) and you can only have three at a time, what profit can you have over rockets? How does the crawler crawl up a tapering strucuture? How does the crawler grip a carbon nanotube structure that has no possibility of adding any weight? Carbon nanotubes are not sticky. How do you keep the nanotubes together? If you put bands or tubes round them that will increase the weight massively. How do you fix the shorter nanotubes to the longer naotubes as you taper the structure? How much radiation damage reduces the nanotube cable to below its functional state? In engineering, design usual allows a massive safety margin, how safe is something operating at its theoretical limit? How flexible is a carbon nanotube cable over thousands of kilometres? Would you get harmonic resonance building up some interesting waves? Would that shorten the cable and lift the attachment to the Earth? How much pure carbon would you have to process into perfect nanotubes
Small objects could support a useful space elevator but without a major breakthrough in physics there will never be one on Earth. Simple engineering will not cut it.
When building one of our first space elevators, we should build an orbital shipyard attached to that counterweight. Via this shipyard, we could build small drone vessels that act as garbage catchers using aerogel blocks to collect smaller debris and robot arms for larger trash. By clearing out Terra's orbit of debris, it would give a greater push to make more space elevators, and the shipyards/docking stations built at the end of them. From that point forward creating vessels for engineering and colonization as well as mining drones for asteroid mining, would become viable.
I have heard an idea to use pushing lasers. These would fire on the debris giving them a slight thrust down over time to push the debris into the atmosphere to burn up on slow decay orbits. The thing with the lasers is they could clear large swaths of orbit at a time and you wouldn't have the problem of the drones becoming debris themselves.
Space Elevators will only be suitable for Low(er) Gravity bodies, such as the Moon and Mars. Both of those have also very low - or no - atmospheric pressure, as well as low gravity. Plus, they don't have enormous numbers of satellites in orbit. An Earth-to-Orbit Space Elevator, if there ever is one, will be in far distant future. Many centuries from now.
great channel and very professional looking. hope it continues to grow
It doesn’t need to be a cable counter weight. Just pump fluid up and down to a counter weight tank. I think a floating platform would be better than anchoring it at sea level. It would lessen the distance, be above the weather and you could just fly up to it where the elevator takes over where planes can’t go.
In Gundam 00 they used orbital elevators mainly to gather solar energy since everything was solar powered. Orbital elevator itself was more like train that goes vertically instead of horizontally.
Ad Astrar had a pretty cool depiction of a space elevator... at least I think it was an elevator. Either way it was pretty dope.
That was a tower build from the ground just to space.
I think, the elevator doesn't need to carry weight. It just need to be able to power an electric vehicle along its way to obit.
I'm a simple person. I see a new Simon channel, I subscribe to it
Really, we just need to give the elevator engines in space such that it can propel itself back towards the planet, thereby counteracting the requirements for tensile strength. We'd also need to give it (since it's now a somewhat slack cable) engines in the atmosphere also, just to steer it and keep relatively straight; it'd be more like a sort of space gondola with fuel lines and cable running between various floating stations.
A space elevator seems like it would be insurmountable complex. Too many things could go wrong.
Space elevator? Coming right up! California is planning to build one just as soon as the bullet train is finished.
Great video!
30 years was what Back To The Future expected us to have hoverboards and flying cars. And look at what we get 30 years later.
Do you expect us to believe we will get space elevator within 30 years, Simon? Wanna bet?
What is going on? I thought someone had stolen your likeness or a clip from another video, but no. This looks real! I like the format! Cool!
Multiple space elevators attached to an orbital ring is the way to go.
Angular momentum: the basic reason space elevators are fantasy, not real engineering or even plausible science fiction. You need some mechanism to add angular momentum to the elevator as it goes up, because it’s distance from the center of the Earth is increasing.
I've been following this for a number of years now and as I've read all along (and stated in the video), once the material of the cable challenge can be overcome, there is no major obstacle standing in the way. The cost of sending items into space would drop from $20k per kilogram to around $500 which I would think would lure companies to help fund the project. If multiple elevators could be built, imagine sending items into space everyday (that would get that generational ship built!!). Just gotta get those carbon nanotubes developed. My guess on this would be 50-75 years out.
Simon went from poster boy for scifi future dream to being a guy who shits on your scifi future dreams.
I watched a video, from kurzgezagt, about creating a tether instead of a space elevator.
Edit: its called a space hook.
We have already done something similar. There was a Shuttle mission which extended a tethered satellite cable into a higher orbit. Despite the engineering problems encountered (a bolt extended too far, limiting the extension of the tether), as expected, a great deal of electricity traveled back down the cable, due to the difference in orbital speeds. The shuttle was traveling faster than the satellite in a higher orbit, which generated an electrical current.
Thanks for the new nightmare Kevin and Simon!
You are pritty much covering all the topics from Michio Kaku's SIFI-Science point by point.
the tensile structure thing reminds me of the science experiment where you take a shoe box, tie a string around a steel/iron nail, attach the string to the bottom of the box, place magnets on the outside on top of the box, and pull the nail up towards the inside of the top of the box where the magnets are. If the string is the correct length there should be just a small space between the nail and the top of the box. The magnet will try to pull the nail up while the string anchors it to the bottom making it seem as if it is defying gravity and just floating there.
Could you imagine being the elevator operator? "Going up?, asks the operator. A rich billionaire replies, "yep, going up." The operator sighs, "well, we'll reach your floor in about six days. And, there's no toilet, so good luck."
2:09 I don’t think it needs an allegedly Simon 🤣
The only way an elevator to space would work is if it was built like an electromagnetic rail gun
I remember at the turn of this century they were saying there would be a space elevator in 10 years. Now there is so much space junk that I doubt that it will ever be practical. Just watch the movie Gravity, and see if you would ever want to buy a ticket for a ride…
Sky hook hybrid model fixes nearly all space elevator issues. No base station and possible mag lev launched flight pod to meet up with sky hook @ 45-60k feet. That's zero rocket fuel ground to orbit transfer.
On the other hand, they would be much more feasible for Luna, Mars, and the moons of the gas giants. You could mine ice from one of the smaller moons, ship it up the cable and launch it toward Earth, Mars, etc, where it would be used to provide air, water, and rocket fuel.
A possible fix to stop getting thrown into space if the cable snapped would be having a propulsion system in place on the counterweight or platform in space 🤷♂️
I think most people having a wrong idea about space elevator, It is not like riding a small box that is a normal elevator, it will probably like a small train with huge rocket booster that goes upward. the rockets are needed to leave earth orbit or decelerate when it comes back down to earth.
There is one thing that was not mentioned in the video. Assuming we were able to build one would the cable and car be able to take the fluctuations in the temperature they would be exposed to and then would the car be able to keep people safe as well.
The platform would be moving at a high speed being so far from the center of motion, so if you were to jump off you'd actually fall back to earth unless you somehow increased your speed a lot very quickly to fully escape earths gravity. Same thing that happens to anything else in orbit if they lose speed, you come down to gravity. So the snap would really just mean the whole thing came down when the platform ended its slight outward arc and then came back down, hopefully with emergency parachutes and or rockets. Imagine the arc of a baseball, it fights gravity, but eventually if it's not gaining speed it comes back down.
One of the more interesting space structures has to do with orbital rings that are smaller than the earth's diameter at the equator. Imagine a hula hoop attached to the wearer by strings up to their shoulders, as long as there is counter pull on each line then it would just sit there trying to go down towards the earth but being held back. Now imagine a giant hula hoop that circles Antarctica for instance, where the tethers hold the ring up from falling to the equator being the center of gravity but also hold it outside of our atmosphere by counter pulling on each other. With that design you could lay lines to major cities, and it could be around any general circle that's wide enough. So for instance Antarctica or the pacific oceans rim, making connecting to major cities much easier because those Iines wouldn't be support lines and could reach out in any direction to attach to station to use space elevators.
Cool idea re: space elevators but how will deal w/ storms and hurricanes?
good luck with that, the elevator at our shopping centre breaks down nearly every week and it only travels 2 floors...
If you guys want to read a amazing novel that goes into building a space elevator (with the writer using actual scientists to help with the writing) its called ‘Pillar to the Sky’ by William Forstchen
In addition to using counterweight cables to stablaize the satellites orbit while lowering the tether, you could also use thrusters.
I do have a solution to the space elevator. 1st carbon nanotubes correct, cable no, keep it a tube like honeycomb tubes strap together. The capsule moves inside the tube, keeping it safe from everything. Second, the satellite is a big Spear space station and port that has a fusion reactor for power. The capsule inside the tube would move like a magnetic train through the tube. The magnets can also block some of the radiation issue and another device can collect some of that radiation and turn it into power. Some of that tech I would like to apply to SpaceX's starship.
The climbers would actually be a bit safer than you’d think. If the cable is severed and you’re beneath the break, just wait until the climber’s about to hit the earth and then jump.
So, a Babel Cable? I'll get me coat... :)
Simon,
You actually don’t need to worry about power to operate that elevator. The earth is a very large electric dynamo. One of the experiments ran on a space shuttle was to drop a wire from the shuttle to “induce” electricity from our planets magnetic field. Any elevator built would induce electricity from our magnetic field. I’m not a tree hugger, but everybody wants green energy, so here you go.
Sincerely,
Robert
I guess the question is - how much power can you generate that way, will it be enough?
If the cable snapped while I was on the elevator, I would be "even higher than Carrero Blanco" (I should not joke about that).