Weren't some of you talking about this the other day?

https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-if-a-space-elevator-breaks/

Noel

Yep, in regard to a tower block hanging from an asteroid. 

Until we can mass produce single crystal graphene, or carbon nanotubes we will have to wait. 

We need to develop bots that can "spin/weave the cable using nanotubes" as they slowly descend from the geostationary anchor, whether asteroid or space platform.

If it could be done and the lower portion reached into the atmosphere wouldn't that cause a drag that would slow the anchor satellite down until it could no longer remain in orbit?

Noel

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

If it could be done and the lower portion reached into the atmosphere wouldn't that cause a drag that would slow the anchor satellite down until it could no longer remain in orbit?

Here are a couple of excerpts from a report published in 2003, I think:

http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/472Edwards.pdf

"Our anchor is located on a mobile, ocean-going platform in the
Pacific 1000 miles west of the Galapagos Islands. The reason for this is severalfold. It turns out
we can avoid the lightning and wind problems by locating our anchor at this specific point on
Earth and by making the anchor mobile we can avoid collisions with satellites and debris in
orbit."

"The simplest cable design is round. Our cable design is a curved ribbon. The
reason for not choosing the simplest design is that the round cable would be destroyed quickly by
meteors where as the curved ribbon is more robust."

"The first modification we suggest is to reduce the ratio of the width to
thickness from 10,000 (10 cm by 1 micron) down to 200 (2 cm by 5 microns) at altitudes below
about 7 kilometers (figure 2.3). This keeps the cross sectional area and strength of the cable the
same but reduces the wind drag for the part of the cable in the Earth’s atmosphere by a factor of
five"

Edited January 26, 20224 yr by dmwalker