The Space Elevator

budzossays...

It's totally doable. At some point the entire equator of the earth might be lined with space elevators, making the planet resemble a giant rimless bicycle wheel when viewed from above or below the poles. I think you can do it within a few degrees above or below the equator as well.

Further along we will probably build an orbiting ring around the entire earth, with dozens of towers rising up to it..

bamdrewsays...

you guys should bust out your calculators. for the elevator end to pull against earth's gravity it has to pretty incredibly far out there. and last time I checked 'advanced carbon nanotube composite materials' don't grow on trees.

choggiesays...

This will happen in our liftime-Nano technology will change everything, mates....let's just hope the paradigm of power in the hands of a few changes with it....cause the potential is freekin' non-linear!!!

ultimateforcesays...

It's been brought up in this thread thread already, but there's just no way to make the cables thin or strong enough, and it looks impossible to ever do so. You just can't thread the carbon that thin and have it strong enough. There's a limit to how many times you can twist the cable to keep increasing it's strength, you run into diminishing returns pretty fast at such a large scale.

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