NASA Mission: YOU Decide....

[Santa_Claus]

Does the space elevator need to reach earth?

Just dangle far enough into the atmosphere so either something could fly up and hook on and then travel upwards to space......or the dangly end had a Beam-a-Tron (Patent Pending) that beamed the energy the last mile or so to earth? (saving trasmission losses through the atmosphere).

Yeah, I'm making this up as I go along..........

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Anchored to Earth, Santa Myth. Otherwise it's goes bye-bye.

[Don't Panic]

Actually, I think they should spend the money on geostationary solar energy harvesters, beaming it to energy collectors on earth. That would be a step towards helping us wean ourselves of our oil addiction.

I'm not sure if that is actually possible. Reflectors tend to get hot and explode when they handle heavy light loads. If you point a reflecting telescope at the sun it will explode, I heard.
Refraction might handle it, but that would probably be too heavy to be practical.

I think there are big problems with a space elevator too. I imagine the centrifugal force needed to support such a cable would be gigantic, and you would need to provide that force with a rocket, until the cable was attached. And get the cable up in the first place. I think it would need rockets on an unimaginable scale.
(which sort of defeats the object).

There are very few materials with the properties necessary to be usable as the cable for a space elevator, all of them man-made, so common sense would dictate sending up the manufacturing equipment and making the cable up there, then sending it down to be anchored.

[Santa_Claus]

Anchored to Earth, Santa Myth. Otherwise it's goes bye-bye.

But satellites stay up. Just need a bit of cable dangling off one into the atmosphere - doesn't have to be stationary - a few energy receiving stations dotted around the world. the sattelite could even be powered if it needed some help staying vaguely where needed.

I'm sending an e-mail to NASA. and the North Koreans.

[ScholasticSpastic]

Pappa, have you considered combining the space based solar collectors with the space elevator? The power is beamed to receivers at the top of the elevator, and conducted to the ground via cables, which help support and anchor the elevator. Loss-less transmission from the collectors to the receivers in space, safe conduction through the atmosphere with the cables.

They would need to be made of an electrical conductor.... likely way to heavy to support their own weight.

Article: Carbon nanotubes conduct electricity without heating.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54732612.html

[Pappa]

Pappa, have you considered combining the space based solar collectors with the space elevator? The power is beamed to receivers at the top of the elevator, and conducted to the ground via cables, which help support and anchor the elevator. Loss-less transmission from the collectors to the receivers in space, safe conduction through the atmosphere with the cables.

They would need to be made of an electrical conductor.... likely way to heavy to support their own weight.

Article: Carbon nanotubes conduct electricity without heating.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-54732612.html

Now that would be a good combination of properties.

[ScholasticSpastic]

Recall that carbon nanotubes consist of a highly conjugated system of aromatic rings. They should be expected to conduct electricity efficiently as the C-C bonds in an aromatic system have a lot in common with the metallic bonds which make metals such good conductors of electricity- though this is only in terms of gross characteristics. The models of the two systems are probably quite different.

I thinks it's really cool that the conductivity of carbon can swing between two disparate extremes as a function of the nature of its bonds (diamond is a very good insulator).

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Recall that carbon nanotubes consist of a highly conjugated system of aromatic rings. They should be expected to conduct electricity efficiently as the C-C bonds in an aromatic system have a lot in common with the metallic bonds which make metals such good conductors of electricity- though this is only in terms of gross characteristics. The models of the two systems are probably quite different.

I thinks it's really cool that the conductivity of carbon can swing between two disparate extremes as a function of the nature of its bonds (diamond is a very good insulator).

So, do you think the receiver/elevator think would be better, worse, or kimchi?

[ScholasticSpastic]

Recall that carbon nanotubes consist of a highly conjugated system of aromatic rings. They should be expected to conduct electricity efficiently as the C-C bonds in an aromatic system have a lot in common with the metallic bonds which make metals such good conductors of electricity- though this is only in terms of gross characteristics. The models of the two systems are probably quite different.

I thinks it's really cool that the conductivity of carbon can swing between two disparate extremes as a function of the nature of its bonds (diamond is a very good insulator).

So, do you think the receiver/elevator think would be better, worse, or kimchi?

I've actually thought often about how cool it would be to fringe the counterweight structure with solar collectors and transmit the collected energy to Earth via carbon nanotubes. Things I'm curious about: Are carbon nanotubes being considered merely as cable elements? Has anyone looked into the effects of including other elements withing the carbon nanotubes so that they're caged within? I understand that buckminsterfullerenes can display different chemical properties as a function of including other elements/molecules within the spheres. Nanotubes have a lot in common with fullerenes, so if we're not looking into caged-inclusion chemistry for these structures we're probably missing out.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've actually thought often about how cool it would be to fringe the counterweight structure with solar collectors and transmit the collected energy to Earth via carbon nanotubes. Things I'm curious about: Are carbon nanotubes being considered merely as cable elements? Has anyone looked into the effects of including other elements withing the carbon nanotubes so that they're caged within? I understand that buckminsterfullerenes can display different chemical properties as a function of including other elements/molecules within the spheres. Nanotubes have a lot in common with fullerenes, so if we're not looking into caged-inclusion chemistry for these structures we're probably missing out.

Spaz, Pappa proposed solar collectors in space. I was worried that the transmission to the ground would heat up the atmosphere and be "lossy" to boot. By beaming the energy to receivers on the elevator station and piping it down via the tubes, we would avoid that. Or am I wrong.

[ScholasticSpastic]

Spaz, Pappa proposed solar collectors in space. I was worried that the transmission to the ground would heat up the atmosphere and be "lossy" to boot. By beaming the energy to receivers on the elevator station and piping it down via the tubes, we would avoid that. Or am I wrong.

Yes, it would heat the atmosphere and yes, it would be "lossy." Regarding atmospheric heating, what's important to consider is whether the heating occurs at a rate which exceeds the transmission of the added heat back into space. Consider the rate of cooling of water in your freezer: Hot water will cool faster in your ice cube tray per unit time than cooler water will, because hot water has more heat energy to lose. The global warming bother isn't so much about the fact that we're generating heat as it's about the fact that we're possibly reducing the atmosphere's ability to shed heat. So we can't necessarily conclude that generating more atmospheric heat is problematic by itself.

Also, any energy we transmit to the surface of the Earth will represent a net heat gain regardless of how we get it here. So the difference between microwave or laser transmission and cable transmission in terms of atmospheric heating will be negligible. The more important difference is how much of that heating we'll get to run through our i-pads before entropy does the job of making the energy too difficult to bother recovering.

Loss is only an issue in terms of economy: The less we lose on its way back to Earth, the fewer satellites we must toss into space per unit energy recovered. But why would we bother launching satellites if we had a massive counterweight to hang our solar collectors off of? Collecting solar energy directly at the counterweight structure cuts out yet another link in the transmission chain and, thus, further reduces loss. It also increases the likelihood that we can recover and repair damaged solar collectors instead of writing them off and hoping they don't fall somewhere populous when their orbits decay.

Another fun thing we could do with geosynchronous facilities might be building massive fission and/or fusion reactors. We'd be in a fantastic position to jettison our nuclear "waste" away from the Earth and we'd also remove a lot of the worries about consequences of a meltdown scenario.

[mistermack]

I think we haver the technology for solar collectors, and for making electricity from it. But I doubt if we have a laser machine that can beam power continuously for long periods, at very high loads. Or a microwave generator to do the same.
And this sort of kit usually needs constant hi tech maintenance, which would be impractical in space. If we could make this stuff, and maintain it, it's likely to be gigantic, which would rule it out for the forseeable future.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think we haver the technology for solar collectors, and for making electricity from it. But I doubt if we have a laser machine that can beam power continuously for long periods, at very high loads. Or a microwave generator to do the same.
And this sort of kit usually needs constant hi tech maintenance, which would be impractical in space. If we could make this stuff, and maintain it, it's likely to be gigantic, which would rule it out for the forseeable future.

Okay then, that's the future sewn up.

Who's going to win the Kentucky Derby?

[Trolldor]

Me. Riding George Lucas.

Guy runs like a Bantha.

[mistermack]

Okay then, that's the future sewn up.

Who's going to win the Kentucky Derby?

I do know, but I'm not saying. That sort of information is worth real money.