Re: [twuug] OT: NASA space program

[Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Feb 03, 2003 at 04:14:44PM -0500, Ethan O'Toole wrote:

> I thought they make the ribbon, then send up crawlers with more ribbon until
> a huge, thick, beanstalk into the sky is created? 

That's what I read too.

> There is no way 1cm thick ribbon of carbon fiber can have the tensile
> strength to lift a huge mass.

Not necessarily true.  A 1-inch steel cable can support huge amounts of
weight, and carbon fiber made with buckytubes is supposed to be hundreds
to thousands of times stronger.

It's a ribbon, not a cable, which probably helps.

They said they'd bring up other ribbons, but didn't really say what the
configuration was.  I don't see how they could add thickness since they
can't glue it together on the way up.

Can you imagine a 62K mile cable snapping and coming back?

Also, that's a hell of a lot of cable to make, especially something
expensive like carbon fiber.

> So we can finally get rid of nuclear waste!

Maybe... that could be very risky.  You would have to be able to garantee
to residual radiation imparted to the lift.

> Well, a lunar lander would help too -- for exploring planets. 

You can fling all kinds of things off something like this.


-- 
UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza____________________s h a n n o n@wido !SPAM maker.com


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