Question for the scientists here.
Many years ago Arthur C Clark wrote about an elevator built up from the ground and downwards from a geostationary platform in or on the edge of space, to complete the task.
The idea has been resurected and is being considered as a possible means of transferring material into space cheaply.
What chance of using the structure to make the vacuum of space suck CO2 gas out of the earths atmoshere and into the void?
Why would you want to suck out CO2 gas? You'd kill all plantlife, not to mention that you'd completely destabilize our atmosphere.
That aside, there's also the possibility that it becomes very unstable and completely sucks out our atmosphere, including the other dominant gasses such as O2 and N2, leaving us all dead.
So... What's your point?
In other news, if this is really possible (and I early heard this idea come up again a few years ago), then it would be a great way to get rid of the highly expensive rocket launches. It does come with a lot of risks though, I mean, you need to make sure absolutely nothing ever flies into it, plus it needs to be in an area with a very stable weathercondition, cause if tornadoes start pulling on it... No matter how strong, everything moves, and if it moves a lot, then it could be disastrous..
Then again, I'm not a construction engineer, so what do I know.
I think that a lot of energy would be needed to suck up all that CO2, much better to send down the energy so that we use it instead of fossil fuels.
would it even suck out any of the gas? Saying you had a tube from near ground level all the way to space, it wouldn't be any different for the air in the tube than if it wasn't there. Say you took a closed tube with a vacuum inside and then opened both ends, the air would just be sucked up until pressure was equalized. Think of a tube from the bottom of the ocean to the top, just below the surface, there is much more pressure at the bottom than at the top, but that difference would only cause the tube to be filled.
it's possibility is far from the amount you'd spend before completing the whole thing! Another question there is where to put it up? who will do it?
Im gonna write this down as "damn near impossible" not even the worlds tallest buildings can claim to be near the edge of space, your talking about buiding something taller than Mt. Everest and have some structure supported at the top not to mention powering the damn thing... and as someones mentioned a simple pipe would do nothing since it would just hold atmosphere style air inside it.
First, the structure would have to be immense to support even a simple rope hanging that distance. The tried to get around that by saying carbon fiber would be used as the conveying part. Even then, heavy.
It would cost way too much to use for what is gotten out of it. It would cost more money than could be put together to do it. It isn't financially sound to do.
A space elevator is a requirement if the human race truly wants to expand beyond our planet in any meaningful way.
It IS VERY possible, even with currently emerging technologies. Carbon Nanotubes are resilient enough to support the massive weight of the huge structure, though we don't know enough about them to make enough in a reasonable amount of time.
Space elevators are often misunderstood. The real thing to realize is that the Earth's gravity gets weaker the farther away from the planet you travel, approximately half of the structure would likely have little gravity pulling on it. In addition, the outward force of the elevator spinning in relation to earth's natural rotation would help to offset the weight of the structure.
As for the CO2 into space idea, get a grip, man.
CO2 is vital to plant life, and plant life is vital to human life. The fact that we have too much CO2 in the air at present does NOT mean that we should take it off-planet! The CO2 on earth is a part of a very vital carbon cycle, it must remain here, just not in the atmosphere.
Additionally, you seem to misunderstand the way that the vacuum of space works. Space isn't a vacuum because it sucks, it's a vaccum because it simple has very little matter in it. Any "tube" from the earth to space would not suck away atmosphere simply due to gravitation. The entire atmosphere is open to space right now, what is keeping it from being sucked away?
In summation, Space Elevator = good idea, for the future, maybe 20 years or so.
It is probably possible, but chances are some terrorist will just launch a nuke at it when its halfway done 
| LeviticusMky wrote: |
It IS VERY possible, even with currently emerging technologies. Carbon Nanotubes are resilient enough to support the massive weight of the huge structure, though we don't know enough about them to make enough in a reasonable amount of time.
Space elevators are often misunderstood. The real thing to realize is that the Earth's gravity gets weaker the farther away from the planet you travel, approximately half of the structure would likely have little gravity pulling on it. In addition, the outward force of the elevator spinning in relation to earth's natural rotation would help to offset the weight of the structure.
|
If I remember this correctly A.Clark made some calculations on this when he wrote the book. There would not be any weight pressure at all from a structure of this kind, not in the conventional way anyways. There would however be a "pull" from a massive satellite pulling the cable up from Earth. I know nothing about Carbon Nanotubes but the good doctor found that the only material known to man, at that time, that was strong and light enough to support its own weight was a synthetic diamond. So much for cheap 
There is also a non trivial problem with keeping the exact geostationary position, specially during construction. Cause the sattelite pulling up the cable would have to be huge.
I still think the project is a good idea, but instead of trying (in vain) to dump valuable CO2, we should dump the politicians responsible for the global warming problem.
Last edited by FunFunkyFritz on Thu Jul 27, 2006 11:19 am; edited 1 time in totalThe idea of a space elevator is very appealing. It should happen. I also agree that it would be a great alternative and give savings on space shuttle launches.
We could focus much effort into building one. It would be an international and worldwide effort. Government and civilians would work on this together.
It would help in the colonizing of the Universe or better yet(don't get too ahead of ourselves?) the colonizing of our solar system. Why would we colonize? There are many reasons. We would naturally want to get off of this planet due to overpopulation and straining of the planet's resources.
Arthur C Clark was a genious. And this space elevator idea is a good one. It could be possible, if they could find (or fabricate) some materials that can resist to the big friction with air or the high speed contact with tiny particles in the Earth atmosphere. Also it must have a relative high speed, so they don't get bored when it will be used and will be more convenient.
The big problem i think will be the wires they will use, because in space there are different conditions then on to the ground. And also the financial part.
I thought the space elevator would hang down from the space station to where it was just barely dragging through the upper atmosphere. Then more traditional craft can dock at the end of the tether and get slingshotted up further to the moon. Where they could dock with another tether and get sling shotted even further out into space.
| jwellsy wrote: |
| I thought the space elevator would hang down from the space station to where it was just barely dragging through the upper atmosphere. Then more traditional craft can dock at the end of the tether and get slingshotted up further to the moon. Where they could dock with another tether and get sling shotted even further out into space. |
I think that if they hang the elevator on a satilite, the friction with the atmosphere will slow the satilite down till it falls back to earth. Ouch!
Anyway, the use of an elevator te get to space cheaply sounds cool to me... The elevator won't have to lift all of it's fuel -- it can be launched with energy from directly from earth. I suppose that would make space exploration much cheaper and safer 
I've heard of this before, I think the author of the "Mister Monday" series stole/borrowed the idea.
| Rhysige wrote: |
| Im gonna write this down as "damn near impossible" not even the worlds tallest buildings can claim to be near the edge of space, your talking about buiding something taller than Mt. Everest and have some structure supported at the top not to mention powering the damn thing... and as someones mentioned a simple pipe would do nothing since it would just hold atmosphere style air inside it. |
in order to have a geosynchronous orbit, you need to be at an altitude of 20,000km!!! This is somewhat taller than everest (8km) This 'project' is impossible and would not even work anyway as atmosphere would be in the tube during construction anyway, so this would need to be sucked out before the pressure difference of space could be utilised. Dont get your hopes set on seeing this project in reality
JBI have to agree with LeviticusMky. The space elevator is most definitely possible. Because Japan's population is growing so rapidly with no where to expand to, the Japanese are in the planning and development stages of building a carbon nanotube city. It will a pyramid like no other and will support itself on carbon nanotubes that heal themselves if any damage is incurred. There are a lot of uses for carbon nanotubes, building cities and space elevators is a good way to start.
Before writing anything off as impossible, or stating assuredly that it is "definitely possible", it is wise to read what others have to say on the subject. And I don't mean other FriHost members. I suggest at the very least investigating some of the following links before trying to draw any conclusions (these are merely the more reliable Google results for "space elevator". I'm sure you can do better if you try):
space.com
Wikipedia
science.nasa.gov
Basically, the idea of a space elevator is in the realm of "not crazy, but still a long way from realization." It might happen within our lifetimes. It might not. It's not going to happen in the next 20 years; any project of that economic, technical, and political magnitude will take multiple decades even once a concrete decision to do it has been made. As for sucking CO2 away into space; people keep asking why. Presumably, the intent of the idea was to reduce the greenhouse effect and global warming (not to remove all CO2 from the atmosphere--that would be ridiculous), since CO2 levels have been rising exponentially over the past century, and are becoming a serious problem. This is a legitimate concern, and a creative solution.
There are huge problems with implementing it, of course, and even if it were done, we'd then have a bunch of CO2 floating around in geosynchronous orbit, getting ionized (since there's no ozone layer protecting it from UV up there), and subsequently causing problems with precious geosynchronous satellites. Not to mention the depletion of carbon and oxygen atoms from the earth's atmosphere, which could otherwise be processed into more useful forms than CO2.
It's a cool idea, though. Don't let it's impracticality stifle future creative thinking.
