/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4781499]

I don't understand why people say a space elevator is impossible.

>Hurr durr gravity
Build the thing tall enough so that the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation keeps it steadfast

>Hurr durr storms
Build the thing out of graphene or some other hyper-strong material

>Hurr durr orbits of satellites/the ISS
That's such a retarded suggestion that I'm not even going to bother wasting the energy it would take to type an answer

[Anonymous No.4781501]

>>4781499
> some super-strong material
Let me know when you've completed you're work, anon!

[Anonymous No.4781502]

>>4781501
>you're = you are

Nice grammar

[Anonymous No.4781510]

ITT : /x/

[Anonymous No.4781505]

Just build a giant motherfucking tractor beam.

[Anonymous No.4781514]

>>4781502
welcome to 4chan

have a nice day

[Anonymous No.4781512]

>>4781505
How?

[Anonymous No.4781518]

>>4781499
It is not feasible.
There is a reason that skyscrapers do have a limit on height.
The tallest so far is 828 Meters, and this is pushing the limits of what is feasible.
To build a space elevator would mean building something many dozen times higher than this.

It is simply impossible.

[Anonymous No.4781520]

>>4781512
That is also not feasible.

[Anonymous No.4781524]

>centrifugal force

Come back here when you've taken a basic physics course.

[Anonymous No.4781530]

>shear force

/thread

[Anonymous No.4781531]

>hurr durr
>I accurately portray the arguments of my ideological opponents.

[Anonymous No.4781528]

>>4781520
>implying you know the physics or economics of GIANT TRACTOR BEAMS

[Anonymous No.4781532]

>>4781528
You may as well ask me about the physics and economics of teleportation chambers and time machines.

[Anonymous No.4781536]

>>4781532
Both of those things are allowed by our current understanding of physics

[Anonymous No.4781539]

OP

Let me introduce you to my friend, his name is FUCKING TORQUE.

No matter how strong your material is, if the end that is in space starts to become unaligned it will snap whatever you make the elevator out of if it's rigid.

But we could possibly look into flexible materials.

[Anonymous No.4781546]

>>4781499
>>4781501
Graphene and/or colossal carbon tubes are plenty. No need to invent a whole new material.

Now, producing required amounts of flawless nanostructures, that's where we're still lacking.

Also, the stress on the ribbon(s) could be diminished by a dynamically supported mass-stream structure.

If an awesome piece of engineering fails at some definite point, add some more awesome engineering to fix it.

[Anonymous No.4781567]

Just put an station in geosync orbit and lift stuff from earth with a huge ass iron rope

[Anonymous No.4781591]

>>4781567
You will pull the satellite down towards Earth and it will enter a lower orbit.
It will crash.

[Anonymous No.4781597]

Do any of you even bother just wiki'ing shit? Space elevators aren't possible right now because of a simple rule.

At a certain height the strain of a materials weight overcomes its tensile strength. Even with most forms of carbon nanotube cables, we can't get something high enough into space for a space elevator without it snapping.

They've just about gotten there with recent advancements in da nanotubez, but they still can't produce them on anything larger than a nanoscale.

[Anonymous No.4781598]

>>4781591
Unless the station is somehow repelling the force acted on the rope, like with thrusters or something

[Anonymous No.4781649]

Also you absolute fucking morons, Graphene is not a strong material. Graphene by definition is a carbon lattice of one atomic layer. When you build it up into a larger, stronger structure for something like a cable it ceases to be graphene.

MFW /sci/ is still full of pretentious assholes who think they know what they're talking about, throwing around science buzzwords.
Also a side note, carbon nanotubes aren't all the same and aren't instantly amazing. Various groups are trying to find different configurations with the required youngs modulus for shit like space elevator cables but only one has succeeded so far. And even then it's not at all reproducible larger than a few nm in size

[Anonymous No.4781719]

>>4781591
You're doing it wrong.

The counterweight resides beyond the geosynch. orbit, providing enough weight as to prevent the GO station from descending.

[Anonymous No.4781735]

>>4781499
Sure. You can use the tidal effect to keep it in position, and keep the tether taut. You can even line it with conductors and, if I remember correctly, generate electric power from the mere fact that parts of it are in different orbits.

The real issue why we don't have one? Nobody wants to pay for it.

[Anonymous No.4781778]

It always annoys me when liberals deny things can be done to cover their ideological failure. Given three years and a minuscule level of funding carbon nanotubes strong enough to support the weight in nanotubes that it would take to build elevators could begin mass production. You would probably build a dozen or so of these, everyone would want one and you would no longer be considered a first world nation if you didnt at least own shares in one nearbye to your country.

[Anonymous No.4781792]

>>4781597
see >>4781546

>>4781649
That goes for you too mr. high and mighty.

[Anonymous No.4781834]

We should try for some kind of larger station in geostationary orbit with a cable extending down not to the surface of earth but rather into the upper atmosphere, so that airplanes could reach the end of the cable and thus transport payload to the station. This would eliminate the need for extreme material strength while still making the cost of getting things to orbit a lot cheaper.

[Anonymous No.4781882]

Just build the god damned elevators in australia, japan, usa, pannama, singapore, hongkong, Brittian, Russia, china, brazil, india, korea or taiwan..... Once you start building one everyone else will start so they can retain first world status. Keeping up with the jones and national prestiege etc.etc...

[The lamb No.4781917]

Not only would they have to be flawless, they would have to be self repairing. Micro-meteors would end most of your guy's ideas.

[Anonymous No.4781915]

>>4781882
>Just build the god damned elevators in australia
You really want an equatorial position for the first model, as if you build one in australia it will not be balanced gravity wise and from a surface dwellers view it would actually be slanted as it climbs into space,

[Anonymous No.4781931]

>>4781917
Any space elevator idea would be based upon putting an intial tether up and then running cable bots up and down until you have multiple and stronger ones in place. The easiest solution to the micrometeorite problem could be to simply replace the cables at regular intervals or when micrometeorite impacts are detected.

[Anonymous No.4781945]

Launch Loop.

[Anonymous No.4781971]

>>4781931
Build the thing out of nanotubes then the structure can sway, attatch nanocarbon muscles at correct positions to be able to correct for impacts or move the structure which can sway. Dodge micro meteorites that is if they are even a threat :D.
>Modular armour, etc..etc.. Active defense systems, magnets, blahh blahh blahh easily solvable. If not mass produce them and if you lose one every hundred years then big deal.

[Anonymous No.4781980]

>>4781945
Launch loops and other assisted methods don't bring things down do they..... Even nuclear propulsion is inconvinent. We need to improve terrestrial-extraterrestrial transport infrastructure if we want to colonize other star systems.
>Picture related, automated peat farm that has been running for over a year unassisted now. It is the future, get used to it.

[Anonymous No.4782138]

>>4781980

space fountain

[Anonymous No.4782158]

>>4781971
>Build the thing out of nanotubes then the structure can sway

This is also why there's an entire field of physics and engineering dedicated to oscillation dampenings. Belive me this is not the most limiting factor; funding and vision is.

[Anonymous No.4782189]

>>4781536

[Anonymous No.4782194]

>>4781518
>impossible

You're no scientist.

[Anonymous No.4782207]

Look, folks, it's pretty simple: Take the breaking limit on the strongest atomic bond (C=C, the double covalent Carbon-to-Carbon bond), hang another carbon atom off of it, then keep integrating for stress across the bond as you keep adding atoms on the far end as it keeps dropping into Earth's gravity field. Start at geosynch orbit.

I've run back-of-the-envelope calculations, and it seems that you can't reach the ground from GSO. Period. So the matter is impossible. You must start from GSO. You have the strongest possible material (there is no atomic bond stronger than C=C). There it is, folks.

Run the numbers yourself and tell me if I'm wrong.

[Anonymous No.4782221]

>>4781778
A miniscule amount of funding?

Well geez man, start a Kickstarter and go for it. I imagine you'd get a lot of dumb libertarians to back you up. The starry-eyed space savior set has plenty of spare dough and they fucking love crowdsourcing.

[Anonymous No.4782238]

we should be able to find a way to use Gravitational energy to pull things from earth, up into orbit, while the pulling mechanism can stay stationary. Use some gyroscopic rotating on a ship that can pull things up to it. Could use human energy to create the pull.

If you can believe it, you can do anything.

[Anonymous No.4782276]

>>4782207
Yes, you're right. The millions of dollars spent on researching such technology missed a basic proof of it's impossibility.

Sometimes saying it out loud will tell you how stupid it is.

[TedBundy !!EICqJyoF0S1 No.4782460]

What would happen if for some reason the elevator snapped at the very base. Just curious. My brother thinks it'd be a catastrophic event that would kill many people, I have no clue.

[Anonymous No.4782640]

>>4782276
> The millions of dollars spent on researching such technology missed a basic proof of it's impossibility.

So you have the basic proof? Link?

Oh wait, you don't have that. It's because it doesn't fucking exist. People are just hand-waving in front of your face, telling you some future materials science development will cover it. But it can't. The C=C bond dictates the maximum material strength, and the tension (without even considering safety factor) in the cable proposed exceeds that. So nothing material will work.

Show proof for what you believe or admit you've been CONNED. It's a fucking integral of stress over the changing g force over 23000 miles. It really can't be that hard to do for some guy in college calc.

[Anonymous No.4782650]

>>4781598
But then you might as well put the thrusters on the thing you're sending up, right?

[Anonymous No.4782656]

>>4782640
What are you using as the strength of the C=C bond, and what's your reference for that?

[Anonymous No.4782664]

>>4782640
"Basic Proof" is referring to your proof of the structure being impossible, and the post is claiming that they would have noticed it by now with all of the funding.

[Anonymous No.4782670]

>>4782640
There are other interactions binding materials together.

[Anonymous No.4782681]

>>4781546

>Now, producing required amounts of flawless nanostructures, that's where we're still lacking.

You answered your own question. This is precisely why it is, at present, impossible. Why did you make this stupid thread?

[Anonymous No.4782684]

>>4782670
>implying there are interactions as significant as a double covalent bond

wtf man fuck off back to high school chemistry.

[Anonymous No.4782685]

>>4782460
It just lifts off from the earth and flies out into space.

More like there would be emergency ways to stabilize it so it just floats there.

If it would tear higher then it would wrap around the world prolly.

Anyways
nuclear pulse propulsion is superior to this.

[Anonymous No.4782692]

>>4782681
it's fucking impossible because it entails creating an unbreakable 100,000km cable (that's 2.5x the circumference of the earth for anyone keeping track), not because we can't make enough nanotubes. it's not a certain thing nanotubes would even work, either, especially not when you've factored in the requisite safety margin.

if you've got the materials to build a space elevator, you've got the materials to build a space fountain or a launch loop too, and theyre far more effective, accessible designs.

but compared to concepts like startram, they've got nothing. startram is the fucking future.

[Anonymous No.4782697]

>>4782684
>>4782684
They add up, idiot. Intra/Inter-molecular bonds, etc. Plus I believe there are bonds such as metallic or ionic bonds with far more bonding energy, but I may be mistaken.

[Anonymous No.4782710]

>>4782697
>metallic bonds
these will be weaker than covalent bonds, almost all the time
>ionic bonds
too brittle

[Anonymous No.4782720]

>>4782710
>these will be weaker than covalent bonds, almost all the time
It's highly variable, though. Nevertheless there are other interactions that add up with the covalent bonding energy, so chances are you are underestimating the total stress.

[Anonymous No.4782744]

The posts claiming that there are significant interactions other than a C=C bond were deleted. Coincidence? I think not.

[Anonymous No.4782763]

>>4781499

well shit, we never thought of it that way! Let's commence construction tomorrow now that we've solved all our problems by assuming they don't exist

[Anonymous No.4782784]

>>4782781
>why build houses, tents are good enuff for me

[Anonymous No.4782781]

there really wouldn't be a point...

who would fund it?

Plus, why would you need all the different floors? If you're on floor 20,000, and it opens into space, why would you need a floor 20,001?

It would just be more space

[Nuka-Cola No.4782819]

>>4781546
>Graphene and/or colossal carbon tubes are plenty
no, sadly.

it was long suspected nanotubes were the jesus of materials science, come to absolve our sins of inefficient and wasteful materials production. baptized with carbon rings or whatever this analogy is dumb

anyway, they aren't that magical. they're a bitch and a half to grow to any appreciable length (and the only way to get their super awesome strength is in tons of unbroken molecular chains). even at maximum theoretical efficiency they don't quite make the cut for space elevator rope

graphene? who the fuck knows, that shit's weird yo. a lot of the hype around it is just hype based on a few very specific findings and a whole lot of theoretical maximum efficiency shit, which never seems to pan out.
maybe it'll work out, i'm not hopeful.

[Nuka-Cola No.4782895]

>>4782819
case in point, around 62 GPA seems to be the magic number just to establish a space elevator (without any safety margins),
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast07sep_1/
at least, that's without factoring in density

things get really muddy once density, and thus specific strength is factored in. that space elevator blog has done a lot of calculations, but they tend to inflate things, a lot.

clarke did a nice write up of the math involved, some simple calculations about required strength as this thing gets longer (22,000 miles longer)
http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/CLARK2.HTM

CCNs have a specific strength of maybe 59,460kN*m/kg, in a laboratory setting
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18851539

turns out the required specific strength is about 100,000 kN*m/kg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator#Cable

so, even in a best case scenario, CCNs are only about halfway there.
but that's actually pretty damn good! it's well within an order of magnitude. it's just not quite what we need.

having a hard time finding a specific strength for graphene, just lots of science journalism articles and buzzwords

[Anonymous No.4782904]

one question kind of related
when we'll be able to reproduce gravity?

[Anonymous No.4782944]

>>4782904
It's pretty easy, you stand in a wheel and spin it. We can already effectively reproduce gravity.

[Hebrewdamus !bWnTSinS32 No.4782987]

>>4782944
You can replicate it pretty easily with centrifugal force.

[Nuka-Cola No.4783023]

>>4782944
>>4782987
there are some nuances to this.
replicating gravity at an appreciable scale (for a space station or something) requires a rotating, enclosed environment about 100 meters in diameter if i remember correctly, such that you get an even 1G down your entire body (your head gets slightly less, but 100 meters is the magic number where it becomes negligible for most people under 7 feet tall)

of course you'd need two of these, counter rotating, so they force off of eachother and spin instead of the entire station spinning.

[Anonymous No.4783101]

>>4781980
>bringing things down
>difficult
Nigga what?
Strap some fucking wings on it and glide the fuck back down.
Or for that matter just land in a fucking lake or ocean.

Getting down is piss easy.

[Anonymous No.4783122]

>>4781591
This kills the satellite

[Anonymous No.4783132]

>>4781524
Came here to say this. I am FAR from an aerospace engineer, but even I remember centrifugal vs. centripetal. I'm guessing you took HS physics somewhere south of Virginia, west of Georgia.

[Anonymous No.4783134]

>>4782692
I'm really liking what I see there, and I think startram 4km/s + momentum exchange tether seems entirely possible pretty easily.

[Nuka-Cola No.4783271]

>>4783134
startram is kind of a buzzword, mostly because of how flimsy and enormous scale it is

dont get me wrong, a space elevator is huge, but installing one isnt all that complex.

startram requires a shit ton of shit, all precisely engineered, and if anything goes wrong the whole shit goes to shit. i particularly do not like the need for a decent vacuum along that much track. vacuums are hard as fuck to hold, even worse over such enormous distances

generating the juice is another issue, but a nuclear power plant or two, servicing the grid when they aren't charging the capacitors could be cost effective

the eventual economics once its built are very enticing though. then again, so does a space elevator

[Anonymous No.4783309]

I'm a structural engineer, don't venture into space as much with that one (a lot of the forces start going the other way, fucks stuff up), but I figured the real big problem would be micro-meteors and space trash.
It's one thing to design an oil pipe-I can do that no problem. Standing it up straight would be pretty rough, but if you could put it under tension then life gets easier.

But I have never needed to worry about fucking ballistic porcupines smashing into my pipeline, and I can only assume that leaks would be a pretty big deal with this sort of whatnot.

[Anonymous No.4783407]

>>4781980

>Automated farm

I demand more informations!

[Blackman No.4783409]

Nuka-Cola, will you take my hand in marriage?

[Nuka-Cola No.4783460]

>>4783409
no
i am married
to SCIENCE

(i'm currently having an affair with the LFTR reactor design)

[Anonymous No.4783465]

If we _did_ have super strong materials then what would prevent it from being uprooted by the force of being swung around like that?

[Anonymous No.4783469]

>>4783465
Wouldn't they have to build it like 50 stories deep into the ground like a bunker, with tethers drilled tens of meters into solid rock?

Cause that would be pretty cool...

[Anonymous No.4783471]

why are people talking about a 22,000 mil long cable? All the plans I've heard seriously promoted required a cable only 200 miles long in a loop making 2 100 mile long cables.

[Anonymous No.4783474]

Perhaps in a 100 years it'll become feasible.

I do think that hundreds of years from now most of the shit is lifted from low gravity wells such as Moon or Mars.

The only great project I'm interested at the moment is geoengineering though. It can be done right now with existing technologies and it's financially not only feasible but also will generate enormous positive ROI unlike a space elevator which will only generate gigantic losses.

[Anonymous No.4783496]

>>4783474
>Your space elevator is stupid
>my weather machine is awesome

[Anonymous No.4783509]

>>4783496

It's not stupid in 100-200 years. But it's stupid now when the longest carbon nanotube we've managed to make is less than a meter and costs millions.

Besides, what are we going to do in space? I think we need to figure out that part before committing trillions in a space elevator nobody uses.

Geoengineering on the other hand will generate great returns in a short timeframe and it's totally feasible. It could have been done in the 50s or 60s. It's just like people have their heads so far up their asses they can't figure out the answer to all our problems is relatively simple and can be done starting today.

[Anonymous No.4783526]

>>4783474
Stereotypical geologist with a disappointing case of Down's syndrome that somehow thinks geoengineering to the extrema is technologically feasible and/or benefits society whatsofuckingever detected.

[Anonymous No.4783532]

>>4783526

Read up on iron fertilization.

[Anonymous No.4783559]

>>4783271
>startram requires a shit ton of shit, all precisely engineered, and if anything goes wrong the whole shit goes to shit
How so?

Seems more viable than a launch loop, space fountain or the space elevator. And as such, would seem like the next logical step in space access. Or am I ignoring something?

[Anonymous No.4783562]

>>4783559
>am I ignoring something?

ROI

[Anonymous No.4783570]

>>4783562
>economizers
I'm ignoring that intentionally, since it's not really important.

[Nuka-Cola No.4783583]

>>4783559
the logistics and construction cost, overall complexity, overenginering for safety.
i could get all misty eyed about a stepping stone for humanity or whatever, but it all comes back to dollars and cents. from that alone, a space elevator makes more sense

[Anonymous No.4784172]

"...Other concepts related to a space elevator (or parts of a space elevator) include an orbital ring, a pneumatic space tower, a space fountain, a launch loop, a Skyhook, a space tether, a space hoist and the SpaceShaft..."

THIS motherfucker:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop

[Anonymous No.4784179]

>>4781499
Umm the earth is spinning. The bottom part of the elevator will be moving significantly faster than the top. It's gonna break off and go flying out into space. Unless you accelerate the top of the elevator to the same speed as the bottom this is not even remotely viable.

[Anonymous No.4784188]

>>4783471
I was wondering the same thing. Why not make some extremely long cable and have a sort of box car go up and down.

[Anonymous No.4784192]

>>4783583
But considering that the space elevator depends on materials we can't manufacture to specifications yet, while the Startram generation 1 could be built with existing materials and technology, while possessing less moving parts than the space fountain and requiring less space than the launch loop, it would seem more viable in the short run.

Even Startram generation 2 could seemingly be built with refinements to existing technology.

[Anonymous No.4784205]

> mfw people on /sci/ think space elevators are impossible "because gravity"

[None !PS3SUXv1S. No.4784219]

>>4781598
But if it does that, you're just lifting the materials with rockets, we already d... fucking troll. 6/10

[Anonymous No.4784224]

I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS IS SO HARD, DORKS

YOU JUST BUILD AN IMPOSSIBLE DEVICE MADE OUT OF UNOBTANIUM AND DREAMS AND SOMEHOW MAKE IT IGNORE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS, ALSO PART MAGIC

COME ON, GEEKS, IT AIN'T THAT HARD, DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF???

[Anonymous No.4784232]

Just a little thought...

What in the actual fuck would a space elevator be good for?

[Anonymous No.4784238]

>>4784232
This, everyone says it has economic benefits, but what economic benefits? We don't really have any significant low orbit colonies to deliver shit to. Unless you would use a space elevator as a base to build low earth orbit civilization from?

[Anonymous No.4784250]

>>4784232
Transport.
- Space elevators will render both airplanes and our primitive rocket "starships" obsolete
- think about the next step - orbital stations

[Anonymous No.4784264]

>>4784250
Uh no..

Just because you build a life doesn't grant you access to the entire earth from it, you'd have to build a whole fucking network of shit up there. Our primitive spaceships may be primitive, but it takes us further out then any elevator ever could.

Having a goddamn elevator is useless unless you spend billions upon billions to build it, secure it and manfuncture it.

If we could theroetically build one and make it stable, it would need maximum security 24/7 and service working on in 24/7. Crazy religious bastards would want to blow that shit up because it's too close to "god" or some bullshit.

tl;dr: It's useless to have an elevator.

[Anonymous No.4784278]

I've calculated that in order to have the forces equalize, you would need a rope at least 1 million miles in length.

[Anonymous No.4784281]

>I don't understand why people say a space elevator is impossible.

Nobody says this. Who do you hang out with, idiots?

[Anonymous No.4784305]

>>4784264
>so many factual errors
You could have just said "I don't know" and saved yourself and those that would read your post a few seconds of time.

[Anonymous No.4784309]

Without any physics calculations, the ideas are wishful thinking. You need to figure out how much you need of materials, fuel, labor to pull off such a project. Unless this is just a thread to troll each other.....

[Anonymous No.4784313]

>>4784309
>Without any physics calculations
Just because you're totally ignorant of them doesn't mean they don't exist.

Go play with google for a while and post something more relevant next time.

[Anonymous No.4784444]

>>4784264
Space elevator would be fucking useful to go beyond Earth orbits. Problem with spaceships is that you need to have them escape the earth orbit in the first place. With a space elevator, you bring the pieces up very easily and build a fucking destroyer in orbit if you want to.

[Nuka-Cola No.4784717]

>>4784192
i suspect we'll have a space elevator viable material or meta material within about 15 years.
considering the cost and complexity and safety issues of startram, you probably aren't going to even get funding for another 15 years

[Nuka-Cola No.4784736]

>>4784309
see
>>4782895
http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/CLARK2.HTM

clarke did all this decades ago, it's still quite viable

[Anonymous No.4784749]

>>4781518
Pushing the limits...

Theyre building a 1000 meter one.

A 1420 meter one on drawing boards.

China building a 838m one in 90 days
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/comparing-china-sky-city-to-some-other.html

Nigger please learn you shit.

[Anonymous No.4784766]

1 km space elevator......

Nigga please...

[Anonymous No.4784767]

God damn it. You people are retarded.

It's a 100% sound idea that will probably see the light of day in 100 or 200 years. If we don't invent something more efficient. We possibly will.

The only thing preventing a Space Elevator now is mass fabricated super strong materials http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator#Cable

These will happen as we see the air industry and such push for maximum fuel efficency. No need to invest in them because people are already investing SHITONS into carbonnano tubes they're basically the holy grail of structural engineering now. And once you can mass produce it accurately we'll build one. Maybe not in /sci/ life time. But if it proves to be the most efficient way to shoot shit into space it's a done deal.

The whole idea of it is based on MADE calculations by Ph.D smartasses that do it for a living.

This is just a matter of time and if it's efficient. Just like maglev vacum trains. If we suddenly ran out airplane fuel all over the world. You'd see this technology skyrocket like it's fucking newyears fireworks.

[Nuka-Cola No.4785434]

>>4784767
>because people are already investing SHITONS into carbonnano tubes they're basically the holy grail of structural engineering now.
used to be, not anymore once everyone realized manufacturing them in hundred-meter-long no-imperfections lengths was going to be bordering on impossible.

they're a nice novelty, and have some interesting uses when laid haphazardly in a molecular fashion (thing yarn ball, less cotton string), but too expensive as a structural material in any form

wait for graphene, maybe

[Anonymous No.4785490]

>>4785434
and making very long chain polypeptides was also thought to be borderline impossible.

Hey, what do you know, we worked out how to do that too.

[Anonymous No.4785499]

>>4785490

This. Recognizing the difficulty of an endeavor is one thing. Writing it off as "impossible" is quite another.

[Nuka-Cola No.4785502]

>>4785490
the old
>"we thought it was impossible back in <year> but it turned out to be possible ANYTHING IS POSSIBBLEEELLEELE"
argument doesn't really work well anymore.
for CNTs, we're basically running into the fundamentally chaotic nature of small, organized molecular structures at this point. if it is possible for whatever reason, it will not be developed for decades. i am not banking on CNTs

[Anonymous No.4785529]

>Build the thing out of graphene or some other hyper-strong material
just imaging the traction stress of such slim structure, even more having it build with a hyper-fragile material

[Anonymous No.4785551]

>>4781518
Humans will never fly. It's impossible. We will never design a working aircraft.

[Nuka-Cola No.4785606]

>>4785551
see
>>4785434

that old argument is used so much, it gets rather boring
>"they used to thing <thing> was impossible, thus <other thing> has to be possible by association"
...

[Anonymous No.4785615]

>>4785606
and saying that something is impossible just because it hasn't happened yet is equally as tired and played out an 'argument'.

[Nuka-Cola No.4785621]

>>4785615
not really saying it's impossible, it's just not going to happen in any appreciable or acceptable timescale.

look up the various attempts to use CNTs, look at the papers, they've hit a brick wall and there's lots of simulations and calculations saying the wall isn't going to be breached for a while

[Anonymous No.4785641]

>>4785621
>hundred-meter-long no-imperfections lengths was going to be bordering on impossible.
"It's only almost impossible" isn't a fundamentally different argument.

[Anonymous No.4785798]

The real reason this is impossible:

The moment it's built and dedicated, some terrorist jerkoff is going to crash a plane into it for Allah.

[Nuka-Cola No.4786001]

>>4785798
kinda hard to hit

[Anonymous No.4786125]

Wow, 50% of the people on this thread don't understand the basic physics of a space elevator. Everyone needs to read Wikipedia and Arthur C. Clarke's writeup before posting anything.
http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/CLARK2.HTM

Also, for the record, centrifugal force is the effective outward force you feel when your frame of reference rotates. It is the appropriate term here. Some high school science teachers' crusades against it are based on the fact that it's only a manifestation of inertia, not a true force like gravity. But it is a valid and useful way to model the physics in some cases, and this is one of them.

[Anonymous No.4786145]

I don't understand why people say a warp drive is impossible.

>Hurr durr infinite energy required
Warp space-time

>Hurr durr Hawkin radiation
Wear a lead suit

>Hurr durr antimatter fuel shortage
Mine some fucking antimatter, I'm not even going to bother wasting the energy it would take to tell you where

[Nuka-Cola No.4786178]

>>4786145
hur

[Anonymous No.4787804]

well, the string wouldn't really have a "string" shape. It would have to get thicker towards the middle to withstand without snapping.
After that, it's just a matter of putting down moar strings and create a SUPERSTRING that withstands almost anything!

[Nuka-Cola No.4787924]

>>4787804
that's true. a seed cable configuration allows for the first cable to be very weak at first, only meant to have a very lightweight counterweight, and a very small ascension platform will drag another line of cable upwards, and then another, and then another.

the trick is finding the "bare minimum" strength needed

[Anonymous No.4787943]

i always wondered how you would get the cable up into space.

you cant just fix it at the end of a rocket and shoot it up... or can you?

[Nuka-Cola No.4787957]

>>4787943
most likely you'd launch the entire thing up in the cargo hold of some rocket

[Anonymous No.4787980]

>>4787957
and then , after the rocket is in orbit, put down the cable and attach it. All wit previous calculation so that:
1==> the rocket doesn't fall to the earth
2==> you compensate for the rotation of the earth.
Final minor adjustments, and you can start making crawlers go up the rope to attach the next one.

>>4787924
Not only the bare minimum. It should be able to withstand what you say AND the weight of one extra string that will crawl after it on itself. make all of the strings like this and start you'll have a big string where the force at the end is divided between all of the seed strings, thus lowering the tension on each one of them.

[Anonymous No.4788947]

Aerospace engineer here,

The reason we haven't done it is mostly a physics issue. The force of gravity decreases with an R^-2 dependence on distance from the center of mass. thus the tangental velocity at any point on the string would need to be proportional to R^-1/2 since the magnitude of the inward vector of acceleration for circular motion is a = v^2/R. of course since a linear string would need to have a tangent velocity that was proportional to R at any given point along the string. Thus the elevator couldn't keep straight unless there were thousands of miles of additional cables or a very precise control of the mass of the cable. It makes for an engineering nightmare

[Blackman No.4789067]

>>4783460
>>4783460

[Anonymous No.4789957]

A lot of 'impossible' things are possible, it is just a engineering challenge to make it happen.


>>4787957
This might be a problem, since the path for spaceships launches isn't straight up, it follows the curve of the earth.
I'm sure someone here can explain better why.

It might be better off being in a geostationary orbit and launching something down with a cable attached.

[Anonymous No.4789986]

>>4781518

>Implying there is a height limit to skyscrapers to begin with.

>Implying that an space station or city in geostationary orbit wouldn't have inertia which would act counter actively to gravity.

The only limit acting on skyscrapers is the need to develop more support structures at the base in order to increase height. It is entirely within steel's structural capabilities to build something 10s of kilometers high, it just isn't practical because of the cost of support, the amount of space taken up by interior elevators, life support at higher heights, wind resistance, etc.

With the development of better materials and transport systems this will change and we will most likely build much higher, especially with the gradual shift of the human species towards urban centers. Constructing 'arcology'-like structures will likely start happening within the next forty years, imo.

As far as the space elevator is concerned, it is of considerably different structural design and concept to a conventional building where the structure is not supported by the bottom, but by the tensile strength of the cable attaching Earth to the space station.

It's hard to wrap your head around, but if you think about much our infrastructure and our technology has changed since, say, the year 1995, the exponential progress of the modern era permits things once only possible in science fiction.

[Anonymous No.4789998]

I don't think anything you build it out of could make it survive a tornado. I mean, even nuking a tornado wouldn't do shit to it. Nasa has some info on their site about it.

[Anonymous No.4790001]

>>4789986
Not related to much, but I remember reading an interesting novel where in the future they used nanomachines and buckyballs to create a space elavator/cable
Then there was a terrorist attack, using nanomachines that ate away at the base of the cable in space causing the 45 thousand kilometer cable to fall back down to earth. Afterwards the religious right banned all nanomachines on earth (the cause of the cable collapse was never found out since the cable end was deep under water where it fell)

It really was a cool story.

[Nuka-Cola No.4790238]

>>4789067
i feel like this should be animated, but it isn't

>>4788947
i believe an important aspect of the design is to keep it not perfectly straight, and indeed, the offset from the ground station to the counterweight acts as something for the lift vehicle to "climb against"

[Anonymous No.4790246]

>>4781499
If it's so easy why don't you become a structural engineer and design it, faggot?