Elevator to the Moon to become reality in 8 years!

Even if they did develop the materials soon (they haven't yet -- graphine and carbon nanotubes are promising, but we do not yet have the ability to apply them large scale), the even bigger problem -- as others have pointed out -- is the connection between the Moon and Earth.

OK -- so they said they would connect the Moon to a space station, and then the space station would be connected to Earth. However, that space station would need to move with the moon and against the rotating Earth. I suppose you could theoretically have the space station become geostationary at times to connect to the Earth, but during those times it is connected to Earth, it cannot be connected to the moon (because the Moon moves relative to Earth).

Therefore, they would disconnect the space station from the elevator to the moon Moon, move the space station so it is geostationary, then connect to the Earth-to-space station elevator. After that, they would disconnect the space station from the elevator to Earth, then move the space station into position again to re-connect to the elevator to the moon.

All of this will motion would require tremendous amounts of fuel. Orbiting satellites normally do not go moving around on their own. They are put in a stable orbit where they spend all of their lives without firing their thrusters to move around (except occasions when they do small thrusts for to maintain the orbit). Even the space shuttle did not use it's thrusters to move all around in orbit to reach the ISS. It was usually placed in an orbit that naturally intersected with the ISS (with a few small thruster firings for minute orbital adjustments).

I suppose it would be theoretically possible to have an elevator from Earth to the Moon (with a space station in between) if they can overcome the materials issue, and the issue with the Moon's movement relative to earth, but there is no freakin' way it will be built in eight years. Thirty years, maybe (if they're lucky, and work really hard at it); Fifty years, possibly. But no way can it be done in eight.

Originally posted by severdsoul
My only question is... WHY!

even if it could be done, why the heck would the money be wasted to build it.
woo hoo so a few rich people get to see the moon up close and personal.

Even if the realization of that tether might not be feasible (?), there would be LOADS of advantages.

For once, it would eliminate the need for conventional rockets from Earth (say: satellites, etc.) you did not mention anything there about "what a waste of money that is"..although constantly all kinds of loads are brought into space. This COSTS AS WELL.

Such a tether could make it easy to bring people, freight, material etc. to the moon..and then from the moon launch stuff into space far easier than it would be from Earth. It would save a ton of fuel and other costs if we could get stuff easy and cheap to the moon and then launch from there into space.

>>
why the heck would the money be wasted to build it.
>>

And I could list about a zillion other things which are much more a waste than such a hypothetical elevator to the moon.

Surely the logical thing to do is to put the moon into geostationary orbit so you can connect directly to it? Maybe even bring it a bit closer to reduce installation costs. The cable might get in the way of passing space traffic so it would need to be illuminated. Maybe use rope light, kill two birds with one stone? Obviously it would have to be LED because you don't want to be replacing sections everytime a bulb blows. We could even pump water, gas and electricity up there! A new industry for the utility companies and tourism and if we had massive Solar PV installations on the moon, we could feed lunar electricity back into the grid and MAKE money.

OR

We could get real and think of a better idea. Silly humans.

No way you'd ever get me on that thing. Think what the winds would be like way up there swinging around on that elevator. I'd lose my sanity after 50 feet up.

reply to post by TheProphetMark


Oh yeah. I suppose the government will fund this fiasco with a grant of some kind. Did these people not pay attention in science class. I think the inventor should be the first one to try it out.

I imagine an earth quake could take this sucker down lickety split. Or maybe a terrorist group, or a tsunami. And i imagine there will be many elevators... Oh god this will be the leaning tower of Piza that goes all the way

Perhaps it would make more sense to create an elevator to the moon, i.e. space train, and then have a docking station at earth orbit. Then have a secondary elevator from earth to orbit. Then it would be a simple matter of transferring from one station to the other. I would assume that the docking station from the moon would be quite large and potentially could be a habitable station for space tourism, imports and exports from the moon etc.

Just a thought.

I'm not sure where the original article got the idea that the space station would be connected to Earth. As presented on the LiftPort web site, the idea is to have a station at the L1 Lagrange point. Cargo would launch from the Earth to the L1 point, and then be lowered to the moon on the space elevator. This requires quite a bit less energy than sending a ship from Earth to soft-land on the moon and return to the Earth.

Here are the graphics they have on their web site:

An Elevator to the moon...I dont believe it...
Where would you position it?The moon is moving all around the world,creating an elevator would mean the Moon would have to be stationary?No?
Doesn't seem possible....it'd be more practical to have private shuttles become available and affordable..
Also I wouldn't be able to handle hours upon hours of elevator music

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by jra

 

Yeah. The article sort of implied and Earth/Moon tether but that's not really what Liftport is on about.

It looks like Liftport wants their tether to pass through the L1 point (which would serve as the docking station) with the counterweight (sort of an anchor) set much farther out. That is one loonnnnnnng tether!

Long, yes, but it probably a lot less stress on it than an Earth-based space elevator (even when you include tidal forces from then sun, which would be substantial - the end would have quite a dangle!).

Thinking aloud...
An Earth elevator's counterweight could be used to launch payloads... Hmmm, my initial thought was that you could launch to the low-station of the lunar tether, but really, if you have the Earth tether you could just CW-launch straight to the Moon. If one had the infrastructure to build the lunar tether, would you really need the damn thing? It's primary purpose would be to send materials to Earth (or to earth-orbit), and you could do that with a solar-powered EM catapult...
ponder-ponder...

reply to post by nataylor


Thank you for that. That makes much more sense than what the article in the OP was suggesting (a space station connected to both Earth and the Moon).

While this arrangement of a space station tethered to the moon from the L1 Lagrange point would save the fuel required for a soft Moon landing, it would still require a launch vehicle to get cargo/people to the Lagrange point. I suppose this could work in tandem with an earth-to-orbit space elevator, but again, I can't see any of this becoming a reality in only eight years time.

So perhaps one or more space stations in Earth orbit would receive cargo from the Earth (I have heard ideas about cargo being launched with high powered lasers. If that works out this could work quite well) and then shuttles, or ferries, or whatever you want to call them would move cargo to and from the L1 station?

reply to post by TheProphetMark


I still think this is a horrible idea....

For some reason i see a giant thread dangling away from the earth as an electrical hazard.

reply to post by TheProphetMark

I don't think it's possilbe to be connected from the earth to the moon without breaks. It would wrap around hte earth or vice versa like a ball of yarn. However, it might work if they build an elevator from the earth's equator to a satellite in orbit around it. And then from there the cargo or passengers could be shuttled to another station where it's connect to the moon. I'm unsure if a cable could run from the moon to low earht orbit, though. But it seems feasible to me?

reply to post by nataylor

Doesn't it make further sense to have a fuel station in low earth orbit and to move the cargo or passengers to low earth orbit on an elevator? Launching even from the best sites on earth is still enormously expensive. An elevator would reduce costs substantially, right? So couldn't there be two elevators? One on earth and one on the moon? Of course, there'd have to be a shuttle craft that can move between the two elevator stations and perhaps a fuel station somewhere in there to refuel.

Also... might it be more practical to put an elevator on the moon as opposed to earth since the earth's gravity is higher and its atmosphere more dense?

Another thing worth considering is that even after it was built, there would essentially be only one primary "port" for entering the Moon. Who is going to own it? The company and its investors? Yeah, according to most treaties, the Moon can't be owned outright by anybody. But supposedly you can still own the facilities you build there. And I suppose they're going to charge huge tariffs for the use of their elevator. That's going to drive the price of Helium-3 or other resources from there through the roof.

Additionally, the the elevator could quickly become an incredibly valuable strategic national security asset. You could see the larger nations of the world jockeying to take it over for "protection."

Yes I can see it now......




On a serious note, not in 8 years.

100,000KM is a lot of elevator, and what if it breaks / snaps? Does it get dragged off into space? If it fell to Earth, it's longer than the Earth is round, it would be like a stick balanced on an egg, not to mention the potential damage it could cause.

It's a nice idea, but there has to be a far easier option.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by TheProphetMark

 

I still think this is a horrible idea....

For some reason i see a giant thread dangling away from the earth as an electrical hazard.

No kidding - the electrical potential between space and the earth's surface is huge. Carbon nano-tubes are electrically conductive, BTW.

How about rings, (similar to most video games, sorry for no other way to explain it) that offer some sort of magnetic propulsion system, somewhat like those hotwheels ramps that keep the cars going, that can then be passed through to keep up to speed, or potentially reduce speed...

Any engineers in here think that'd be possible?

Potentially these could be magnetically powered, or be lengths of pass through tubing.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
reply to post by nataylor

 

Thank you for that. That makes much more sense than what the article in the OP was suggesting (a space station connected to both Earth and the Moon).

While this arrangement of a space station tethered to the moon from the L1 Lagrange point would save the fuel required for a soft Moon landing, it would still require a launch vehicle to get cargo/people to the Lagrange point. I suppose this could work in tandem with an earth-to-orbit space elevator, but again, I can't see any of this becoming a reality in only eight years time.

It seems their idea is that a lunar elevator is much easier to built. Due to the moon's lower gravity, the stresses on the tether are significantly less, even though the actual tether has to be longer. The operational logistics are also easier, as you don't have to deal with all the existing satellites and space junk in Earth orbit that would require an Earth-based tether to moveable.

Their proposal seems to indicate they would use conventional chemical rockets to launch payloads in LEO. Then, using low-thrust solar-powered ion-engine based tugs, they would slowly transfer the payloads to the L1 station. It would obviously take a lot longer to go that than with a direct chemical rocket, but they claim the ion tugs only need 10% of their mass to be fuel. Compare that to something like the Saturn V that was ~90% fuel by mass.