Re: [twuug] OT: NASA space program

["Ethan O'Toole" <ethan@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 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.

Yea, the biggest issue I could see is the friction required by the drive
system of the lift. Unless the cable was wrapped around a pulley set, it
would seem to me like the elevator wouldn't be able to grip the smoove
carbon nanofiber toobe.

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

They said on their web page it would gently flutter down. Wouldn't harm
anything. 

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

True, and then some pissed off aliens would come to Earth and destroy us
for sending them trash. But I guess if we shot it at a planet we don't
like, we might be okay.

I still say put a resturant at the top of one.

Not quite the Resturant at the end of the Universe but...

+----------------------------------------------------------------------.
 Ethan O'Toole / 757 Technologies / (757)233-9460 / www.757tech.net    :
+----------------------------------------------------------------------'
                          


-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
* To unsubscribe from the TWUUG discussion list, either send e-mail to
-  twuug-request@twuug.org with the word "unsubscribe" by itself
-  in the body of the message or visit: 
-  http://www.twuug.org/lists/twuuglists.html