<[email protected]> wrote:
> Actually what I had in mind was more something with just jet engines iso
> rocket
> engines, not something carried into the air on the back of a jet.
>
What is the typo "iso" supposed to be? Instead of? Inside of?
Anyway, you need both. The jet engines no longer work at high altitudes.
The piggyback method is used so that you can leave the jet engines behind
when they become useless for lack of air.
> Space elevators should never be built. Far too dangerous (read "Red
> Mars"?) and
> unstable (wind problems).
>
I read "Red Mars." That is an incorrect portrayal of the way a space
elevator would work, at least in the first implementation for the next
century or so. If you cut one at that ground it would simply drift up and
away. If you cut one at the space station terminal, or halfway down, it
would fall to earth with approximately as much force as a falling
newspaper, according to Edwards and Westling ("The Space Elevator.") The
cable is about as thick as a piece of paper and about a 20 cm wide at the
widest point, as I recall. It is 200 layers each 1 micron thick (0.2 mm).
This would support 20 tons:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/47/2
Of course if there were a 20-ton climber on the cable below where you cut
the cable, the climber would come crashing back to earth.
Wind is not a problem. The thing can stand up to far greater forces than
that. The total exposed surface in the atmosphere is smaller than the face
of a large building.
- Jed
