How to Build a Space Elevator(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
How to Build a Space Elevator
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/how-to-build-a-space-elevator/261405/
8 comments
Space elevator advocates have considered thunderstorms: http://www.mill-creek-systems.com/HighLift/chapter10.html
Yes -- they acknowledge that a lightning strike would destroy the cable. "One possible event that would destroy the elevator cable would be a lightning strike. Lightning has sufficient current and voltage potential in its arc to heat and destroy any composite that we have been considering."
But this fact is rarely pointed out in widely read descriptions.
But this fact is rarely pointed out in widely read descriptions.
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What would happen when a space elevator cable breaks:
http://gassend.net/spaceelevator/breaks/index.html
http://gassend.net/spaceelevator/breaks/index.html
space elevator again? oh...man... try launch loop next time.
1. A space elevator is necessarily located at the equator.
2. A carbon nanotube is a conductor, indeed a rather good one.
3. For practical reasons the tube needs to be as thin as possible consistent with its other requirements.
4. The structure will last until the first major thunderstorm, and thunderstorms are common at the equator.
The same kind of analysis could have been offered about the Space Shuttle (on which I worked), if anyone was willing to think deeply enough about the system's vulnerabilities. But no one was.