[USMA:30221] Space Elevator

[Bill Hooper]

In today's newspaper there was an article from Associated Press (AP) about NASA studies related to a "Space elevator". It was accompanied by a graphic that was quite well done in SI (not perfect, but good). However, the accompanying article was did not have any metric at all; all was Ye Olde English measures.

The good graphic specified the power of the power laser beam to be "2.4 MW" and the tensile strength of the ribbon or cable connecting the orbiting space station to the surface of the earth
as "1.3 x 10^11 n/m^2". The proposed altitude was given as "100,000 km" with "62,000 miles" following, in parentheses. There was also a reference to the elevator transporter weighing 20 tons with no indication of whose tons or what kind of tons they were.

The article repeated the 62,000 mile altitude with no reference to kilometres at all. It referred to the cable as being three feet wide (and paper thin) and able to support a weight of 13 tons, with no indication of what kind of tons (and no explanation of why this 13 tons is different from the 20 tons mentioned in the graphic.

Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
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Make it simple; Make it Metric
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