Easy way to get into orbit.

Here is how we do it. We fly to the moon and drill down and create some good points to anchor something to. We build a huge tunnel from pieces we fly up one at a time. On each end of this tunnel we create air locks. We anchor this to the moon and guide it toward earth. We allow enough cable out to anchor it so that a plane could fly up to it and open the air lock and fly in. Then we close the airlock and open the other side. The escaping air will propel you into space.

If we build this small ships can leave earth without having to carry more fuel than the ships themselves weigh.

Would it work ?
Would the tunnel burn up in our atmosphere?
Would the atmosphere get sucked off the planet if we left both airlocks open?


[edit on 15-12-2005 by IXRAZORXI321]

It would be easier (and is actually in the works) to build a "Space Elevator"
For information on this, check out the link below to space.com
www.space.com... _020327-1.html

hmm scratch my idea that one is cheaper.

The only thing i see wrong with it is keeping it stable. If you ride something up this cable it will accelerate as it reaches the end.(centrifical force) It may speed away uncontrollably. The cable should jerk or wobble as this energy is released. it seems like it would need to be tether to something to keep it stable.

I see a side effect to this. If we drag anything that is anchored to the earth we could actually slow the earth's rotation!! This could lead to increased gravity do to less centrifical force. Insects may no longer be able to fly. plants may not grow. I can see alot of bad effects from increased gravity.

Not if the end point is in a geosychronistic (spell?) orbit and there are control stations along the way.
I remember an old Asimov novel that had the Space Elevator as the way people reached the orbital satellite.
as for slowing the earth's orbit... not by any significant amount. probably less than the earthquake / tsuami(spell?) on boxer day this year.

Also the lift-craft will be mostly powered by a ground based laser and will have onboard breaks which it uses to recapture spent energy on the way back down if speeds become uncontrollable just step on the breaks for a bit.

Wobbling will not happen as the tether will be under tension from the artificial counterweight to the mobile platform its tethered to.

[edit on 15-12-2005 by sardion2000]

I can't see how you could attach it to the moon. The same side of the earth doesn't always face the moon - and so it'd be impossible to keep the cable attached to the moon. If you did, you'd either have to massively slow down the earth's rotation, or speed up the moon's speed around the earth (which would make it want to fly off, away from the earth)... which, could be countered by pulling the moon in closer... but I think we've already gone far enough into impossibilities for now (not to mention the tidal influences on having the moon always stay at one point above the earth).

The Space Elevator, however, has much plausibility.

Attach it to a Space Station that orbits at the same speed (it'd have to be further out than the ISS) as the earth's rotation, and you got something.

Didn't they say that what they would really need for a Space Evelator is Carbon Nano-tubes?

The Counterweight will have to be in Geo-Synchonis orbit which is 35,786 km out.


Yeah, it's quite necessary.

[edit on 15-12-2005 by sardion2000]

How strong are these nano tubes? How big can they be made theoretically?
Are they as strong as spider silk? What does it take to build them? What raw materials ?

A link to some info about them would be great. My mind is spinning with insane uses for them.

Single Walled Nanotubes tested at 63 GPa, high carbon steel tests at a paltry 1.2GPa for comparison.

en.wikipedia.org...



Any size ribbon can now be made. It was a recent breakthrough as well.

www.worldchanging.com...

www.eurekalert.org...



Theoretically much stronger.



See the first link I posted it gives a breakdown of the different methods of fabrication, the most mundane of which is in nature whenever a fire happens

The raw material need is simply Carbon. (And some might say a smidge of Hydrogen for bonds but I dunno, stronger bonds most likely will be developed and I think alreadry has will look for tha link)

The biggest refinement that needs to happen in the Fab process is a decent error correction to make even higher purity batches of high quality tubes or balls. Oh yeah there is something called a Buckyball or C60 atom which is related to a Buckytube, when they were first discovered they named them after Buckminster Fuller.

micro.magnet.fsu.edu...

en.wikipedia.org...



[edit on 18-12-2005 by sardion2000]

[edit on 18-12-2005 by sardion2000]

Carbon nanotubes are one of the strongest materials known. The largest ones ever built that I know of are about 2 to 3 meters long, but most are quite tiny, as in microscopically tiny. I'm pretty sure they are stronger than spider silk by quite a lot, but I don't know the exact figures offhand. They are made totally out of carbon, although the manufacturing process is quite laborious; to buy one gram of carbon nanotubes costs around $500 to $1000 or so.

They can now "spin" sheets/ribbons of multiwalled tubes at a rate of 7 meters per minute. See the links I posted above.

For comparision Wool I believe is spun at a rate of 21 meters per minute.

Mature vs Immature technology comparison.

[edit on 19-12-2005 by sardion2000]

That is quite likely the greatest breakthrough of the decade...

So many things have been "well, once we can quickly and cheaply produce CNTs (Carbon Nano Tubes), we will be able to fund all these amazing things!"

Guess what then, it's here now. It's a breakthrough which we will see the effects of almost immediately. I bet that within a year you'll hear about some crazy construction projects involving CNTS. The people who invented how to make this (at an incredible rate of 20 metres in a minute!) are going to be rich I tell you. Richer than oil companies.

We could be looking at every new building being totally earth-quake resistant, new super-sky-scrapers, solar sails, lightweight construction, space stations, THE SPACE ELEVATOR, and more! Anything that involves construction will be affected by this invention!

The future is looking up right now. Way... way up.

[edit on 19-12-2005 by Yarium]

Unfortunately the Production Problems remain allthough we are producing them in relatively large quantities the prices is still like 10 times more expensive then gold lol. The spinning process was a huge hurdle I agree, the next two BIG hurdles are Production and Error Correction. The latter could take some considerable time.