Anekto Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 Hello science forum and thanks in advance for the help I want to design in principle and test if a space elevator design could be possible already today I was thinking about the space elevator design and saw that its shortcomings was that the cables used to connect earth with the satelite in orbit were not strong enough today. Then i came to the conclusion that to solve this with today technologies one would ve to make breaks for the cable so it doesnt break under its own weight. This i thought about doing with helium filled balloon or stations that would carry the weight of the previous branch of cable and relieve the weight of the above section. What kind of problems would i be running into to realize such a project ? Here is also a drawing of the idea. I would really appreciate criticism why this wouldnt work out and what the short comings are. For example, that in the future there will be materials that are strong enough to make due without breaks in the connection
Janus Posted February 1, 2015 Posted February 1, 2015 A cable for a space elevator has to hang from the altitude of 35,786 km, the highest a balloon has every reached is 53 km. This leaves 35733 km of cable that still has to bear its own weight.
Anekto Posted February 1, 2015 Author Posted February 1, 2015 A cable for a space elevator has to hang from the altitude of 35,786 km, the highest a balloon has every reached is 53 km. This leaves 35733 km of cable that still has to bear its own weight. I was thinking about helium based structures and i vent figured out yet how high they could be built but what you point out seems to let this idea evaporate. Thank you for the response
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