Climbing to the moon

Has anyone heard this… Nasa is working on a elivator that will take you to space. It will be a rope anchored to the earth going streight up to outterspace, and an elevator will shoot you up. This blew my mind. How will they get it up there?

There was a multi-million dollar reward for anyone who could figure it out. No one did. Right now they do not know “How will they get it up there?” Though they are starting to give up.

It sounds like a cool idea, but its so simple sounding for space travel.

It isn’t simple at all. No known material is strong enough to take the stress that the elevator cable will encounter. I think the only material that’s even feasible is carbon nanorods (or something like that), and those are so expensive to produce that it’s impossible to make enough.

As an engineer in training, I guess it’s gonna become my life’s work to solve problems like these…

Sorry, but this idea just doesn’t sound…well. Feasable.
How would they be able to make it effiecent and make the benefits outway the costs.

If it’s a challenge they want, set up some greenhouses or something on other planets! :content:

I have heard about space elevators before, in the book “The science of discworld” by Terry Pratchhet, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen (first published 1999)

Here is the quote:

interesting…

Kava do you have a link about the NASA elevator, is it something THEY said openly ?

(they meaning nasa)

I heard that they were thinking of finding a way to use spider silk as a meterial.
It would take a lonnnngggg time though

I heard about this in a Scientific America magazine… at least 5 years ago? I don’t think they ever figured it out. I don’t think NASA has much time left as anything but a research facility. Space travel will be taken up by private parties. Much like tourism.

it’s bloody impossible. guys? the moon moves around, yes? :tongue: you can’t bloody tie the moon to Arkansas, that just doesn’t make any sense! i would even go on about how elevators are a limited technology and there’s just to many metres you can make an elevator climb — after which pressure + gravity make it physically impossible in three different aspects to make it keep climbing. but really, it’s even more basic: one cannot bloody tie the moon to Terra!..

Who said anything about using the moon as the counterweight? I think the planned counterweight was a small asteroid.

EDIT: oh, the title…well, that was probably just a metaphor.

Asteroids orbit as well, you know. :tongue: Bruno’s right; it’s not possible - even if you made a counter-weight, it would orbit. Maybe in several thousand/hundred years, someone will develop a technology to get around that, but certainly not any time soon.

ignore the counterweight, I think the cables would be the trouble not the orbit another quote from the same book as before

I think that may be called geostationary orbit.

Yeah i heard about this on Late night with Conan. It sounds interesting.
kcspacepirates.com/

I heard about that project some time ago .
the biggest challenge (apart from fixing it in place :razz: ) is the development of suitable materials which combine extremely low weight with very high flexibility and duration … so far those prerequisites haven’t been met and i doubt they will be anytime soon.

Ya, I’m pretty sure no one will figure out how that will work. Even if they did end up getting it to work I would never go there.

They should borrow Willy Wonka’s elevator, it works well enough.

And that’s a good source of information. :tongue: