Elevator In Orbit, Low Price & High Worth Are Up!

\Like most I didn't think Tsiolkovsky and Goddards space elevator was all that good a boost to orbit of my TV dish, it wouldn't even seem to, or so I yawned. While it would be the largest machine ever constructed, after reading about it in a Discover magazine memo, I tended to believe a lot more in the elevator, originally envisioned by Goddard and others around 1900 and continuously by others through the 1900's. It's amazing, about the elevator they may have actually solved all there is and more!! "With improved super strong materials like Fullerines the cost would be just 24 billion. In contrast with this a visit to mars would cost trillions." (They may pay for this via the lottery, I always keep my winning reciept in another room than the paper shredder, just be on the safe side!) "Rogue nations are not thought to be a problem because the tower would be out in the middle of the ocean of the tropics so any attack for a thousand miles would be stopped with advanced warning systems. If the tower fell down it would now be made of such light weight materials that even if falling for some reason, the pieces of the tower would only feel like a piece of a magazine as they landed with the world's most slow calm clunk! Space junk is not considered to be a problem because the tower could just be moved to one side a few hours ahead. And of course the tower could be used to clean up space junk."

The Tower may be built by small self assembling machines in droves so mostly they would just pour in materials on the site. Some think if the self assembling machines were left to themselves they would continually assemble all the materials in and out of sight and this would damage the earth's ecology or atmosphere, so the self assembled machines will be designed to automatically self-destruct awhile after they had constructed their part of the machine.

One problem they imagine that hasn't been solved is about the slow time of travel the elevator would have compared to a launch where the astronauts are just in the radiation for a few minutes. With the elevator, they would be in the radiation for weeks or months. I think this could be shielded with light weight cylindrical shields made of light weight foam. Or radiation cancelling shields that would actively cancel the wavelength of radiation by reversing it the same way sound cancelling headphones cancel much of the sound when worn in an airplane or a plant. Another lightweight option is jamming, the same way you can't see a small light like a planet by a giant star because of the glare of the larger light.

I think rotating shields around the tower could be used to shield from such as missiles because the tower is so large it's not just in the middle of the ocean, it also would reach up to the hassock of the stars so there would be more to defend necessary than the authors of the elevator plan would imagine about the risk of attack. Another way to shield the tower might be with lightweight exploding armor like the military is now developing.

While all these plans show that the elevator they imagine is not impossible and it would be of great economic worth, The army's laser powered ships "lightcraft" Popular Science about '98 (see below, or click Atomic Spin Motor for a good power source) may be hugely cheaper. With super dense but lightweight materials like the hadron solid, the tower may be built, with much reduced amount of mass and so perhaps a lot cheaper by economies of scale over time (like 50 years) with much more strength.


A BETTER PLAN

Better than the elevator may be to use a captured asteroid with high angular momentum moved to geostationary earth orbit and harness the asteroids angular momentum, this would be a source of both electric power and lift on launch by using a strong PROTON WIRE that would loop a round a narrow track on the comet/power source and also loop down around to electric generators just above the earth's surface in a continuous band around both the asteroid and the machines to receive the power. To move the asteroid to geostationary orbit would be achieved by moving a small block perhaps with a laser that would then move a large stone by gravity as it moves, whose path in turn would move a larger one to the earth orbit cheaper and fast.

The rapid motion of the wire belt would be used to launch and lower elevators that would clamp on the wires from the earth's surface. The axle would be connected to the earth's surface by yokes from the large band around the comet, and so on.
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. The proton ribbons are with the alternating N and S poles of each proton for great tensile strength, and the outside of each proton wire is made of electrons in a sort of continuous wire forming the tube. Electrons on the outside of each wire would bind the ribbon for more stability. Because of the compression of the lines of the magnetic field of the protons, proton wires may be much stronger in tension than more complex materials like Fullerenes and cheaper faster and easier to make, plus because of the greater strength it would take much less material to make the equivalent result of a safe cheap way to launch and land payloads to and from orbit.

.ItIt's already been proposed to use an asteroid above to stabilize the top of the space tower. The elevators that already have been concieved are of strong enough material to support the asteroid already. Using proton wires would be cheaper, more reliable and so on. I had the idea of using a loose wire to launch and land payloads, then I realized it would be more stable with a continuous band of the proton wire, at no more cost, plus the momentum of the comet if it were spinning already would be a useful power source.
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The profile of the large asteroid that would be of ultimate worth would have large mass, nearly a sphere so it would spin with stable motion and not move off the small launching wire and with high speed of travel so once it was headed toward useful earth orbit, we wouldn't have to wait a hundred years for the arrival. Small asteroids or comets would be moved cheaply by a beam from earth, this would move larger asteroids near us by the small comet moving the larger when they would pass close to each other. Motors on the incoming stone would speed up the process or accelerating them with more stones by the same motif (of moving them by the beams to where we want the impact or power). And (in the best of all possible starshine worlds) it would have rare on earth minerals we don't mine here. The water they found on the moon is considered to be worth trillions (because it's cheaper rocket fuel and air and water to go to mars via than if it were boosted from earth to the moon) but by using the asteroid as a launcher the price of it and all other terrestrial elements and compounds would be so economical more unusual minerals would be an option achieved via this vision of a much better elevator than Goddard's, an option not otherwise available to us.
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In addition to high speed and good materials for mining the asteroid of highest worth, the best would have rapid spin. Many asteroids or comets might have good materials without the added worth the gold mine of angular momentum. If needed this could be achieved by an axle and a beam or boom out a bit to one side of the distant asteroid to be moved here. The axle and boom are at 90 degrees, and the end of the boom would have a sort of cosmic scoop, a north star of the Milky Way. Another high-speed asteroid would be moved (by the method above) to impact with the scoop, so the asteroid would have spin achieved at higher speed. This would be a way to boost more spin to more asteroids so we would have more options. Many asteroids with a wealth of materials to mine may have slow spin and to make it of even more worth than it's weight in salt or salt water, angular spin would be added.

Payloads by way of the proton wire grips sort of like pads would adhere to the upward speeding wire for launches of more fragile payloads. The launch would start slowly and then as the pads would press on the wire to launch the elevator it would speed up to the fastest speed of the wire around the outside of the rolling stone. It may seem that the asteroid would move a bit inward with each launch or landing, but it would be in closer with it's large mass like the earth only after perhaps 100 years, if it were moved outward a bit so the centrifugal force was holding the proton wire in tension, like a bucket being swung around on a string, even a bit of water is removed the bucket or other mass wouldn't move inward if held by outward force like the water. This would take stronger axles of the generators but they too might also be made of solids like the proton wires.

While you may have heard a lot about L-5 and the elevator, these are both visions for the future, at vast cost, and one collision would be a major loss. This "comet launcher" is much lower cost, so it could be up in just 5 to 10 years, and without the costing so much, if it were in a disaster, the asteroid would stay up, most of what would have to be rebuilt would just be the wire and a bit of machinery! While the 20th century tower would be down for 25 years, the wire around the comet would be up in just a few.
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To stabilize the spinning asteroid or comet so it wouldn't spin off to one side with the proton band in the mid zone, two axles might be used on either side, and two or more y shaped protons wire would hold the more stable massive stone, with perhaps an outer y shaped wire and smaller block on the outside at higher orbit would stabilize it if more stability were needed. Or two counter spinning asteroids on one axis with a motor between them aimed with the center of spin outward from the earth held at one end by the wire would generate much power. This plan would be good for launch of payloads via laser or other beam to boost starships without the wire (or mom's laundry with coins in each pocket she sends each month) and with the beams from the power generation of the rotation of the two asteroids with counterrotation. Or a wire powered by the energy generated by the asteroid via motors with perhaps a counterweight of comparable mass to the payload would be of worth in the outward spinning axle motif.

The Japanese plan to use solar collectors in orbit which are 50 to 80% more efficient or more at collecting sunlight because they are above the weather (in March if I'm under the weather, it's good rain and shine to be under.). The Japanese would hope to beam the power down and hope there is no unusual bad luck where the beam would miss and burn up a city. With two opposite spinning asteroids with motors to collect the huge power of the spin, more power would be collected than in this plan, at lower cost, and the asteroids would be more stable so there would be reduced risk of the beam missing the right destination. The simpler versions of these plans may be of higher worth. An option would be no wire. The asteroids would be used for power output only and payload launch would be by more conventional methods.

A problem with proton wires is about particles in orbit like neutrons being of such high energy they break the wire. For the higher strength uses where like the proton wire would hold the asteroids in tension, the problem of incoming particles like cosmic rays could be solved by redundancy of the wire (a proton ribbon) and by making the wire self healing or self assembling, i.e. in the event of a break in the wire, while the gap would be held together by the other redundant proton wires of the ribbon so there would be plenty of time to repair the wire, it would be sensed at the speed of light by the current in the ribbon and the particle beam would send protons to the exact spot needed to make the repair and the current would be increased to bridge the gap and then the increased current would align the protons so they would weld together.
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This leaves perhaps the problem of missiles fired at the asteroid to blast it and send the rocks toward us, but this may be solved by a web of wires or more mundane type wrapped around the asteroid like a regular spider web. The maximum blast and minimum sized rock from it that would not burn up on reentry would determine the amount of network needed to make the asteroid able to stop the worst scenario. All rocks larger than this would necessitate at least this much of the web, this determines the amount of conventional wire used to make the net.

To lay down the network around the asteroid a booster would reel out the (conventional) wire used for the web as it would zoom around and around the asteroid in a while. The main problem could be that the web would have to be precise to retain the rocks, but this may be solved by science like GPS and reeling out the wire slower and making the web mesh finer. The expert at NASA's asteroid warning station says 40 block or smaller asteroids go between the earth and moon each day. They say there's so much room they aren't always seen. If so (while it may be to some degree, the moon would seem to be continually resurfaced in just a million years) this motif of a web might also be of use to capture an incoming asteroid that would otherwise impact or mining it for materials in earth orbit via the new plan they have of moving a smaller asteroid in earth moon orbit and using it to blast away most of the larger stone or even blasting it with an atom bomb to move it away for the earth. The net would perhaps make it so the radioactive rocks even from the blast wouldn't hit the earth and make the impactor a sort of loose bag of stones headed away from us, saving the earth. Click Here for More.
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My speech recognition softwear is good for my authorships and I haven't had a morsel to eat in months! What a relief, I asked the 1 800 operator and she sez Life's a speech!

They now have a prayer booth with a built in heater and other climate control and it's got luxury cushions and other deluxe motifs, for about 5,000 per booth, the steam in orbit at faith.com (I think this is the name of the biz) may have silver and gold ocean liners! (And just as safe as my Doctor. She has say so about just how many alka fizzes are perscribed via her fizz machine per hour!)
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