Originally Posted By: redewenur
Mike: "Put this in the 'Not Quite Science' category,...until 2030?"

No, I think this is real science, Mike. The delay appears to be due not to any fantasy regarding the science - which we are told is quite sound - but rather to the best strategies for implementation. Even so, one may expect the rapidity of technological advances to lead to many modifications before it actually gets off the ground (so to speak smile )



Originally Posted By: Mike Kremer


No I'm sure its real Science redewenur. You are right.
Its your very apt phrase "......before it gets of the ground (so to speak)"
That worrys me.
Manned satellites orbit around 200-250 miles high.
Its the manufacture of woven carbon nanotube fibre into a 2-3 ft diameter rope 250 miles long, that worrys me.
It would be a huge almost impossible undertaking, unless a single hairlike nano-fibre could be extruded as one continuous filament (like glass fibre). Which I doubt.
So a few hundred thousand continuous extrusion machines would have to wind 250 mile lengths onto possibley hundreds of bobbins.
Which would then all have to rotate around each other, in just the same way as cotton, or twisted rope is produced today.
Until the desired thickness was reached. I'm guessing it would
end up as a woven rope, anything from 2-3 feet in diameter?
I assume the total length of 250 miles would have to be put up in one length. It may be strong, but it will still be tons heavy.
You have got to use the centrifugal force of the Earth to keep it taut.
Therefore I predict one single 250 mile length wound up on a 1/2 mile diameter Gigantic steel Bobbin!
With rope 3ft in diam.....a 55ft long bobbin would allow 17 turns side by side.....thats about 50 miles of rope. Allowing for 3 miles per turn
Allow 5 layers, should equal 250 miles long. The eventual steel bobbin diam: being about 2670ft max diam: when full.
Two ft diam rope on the same length bobbin would be a little less in diam:
The 1/2 mile diam bobbin is guesstimated, one can't allow a curvature to set in. The 55ft length is guesstimated for practicality.
Ok we now have our 250 miles of pristine Carbon rope on a huge bobbin...just how do we get all that weight 250 miles high?
Grab the end and fly it up using multistage rockets, possibley preceeded by a gigantic Helium balloon.
Anybody got any ideas? Let me know. Better still contact NASA,
and see what they say.
Getting it up is fantasy, as the actress said to the Bishop.
Which is why I put it in the Not Quite Science category.
Or do we forget a huge bobbin, and lay the lot on the ground, so one end can be concreted a few hundred feet deep into bedrock?
And then fly it up?





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"You will never find a real Human being - Even in a mirror." ....Mike Kremer.