Spacescraper

[3blake7]

I am a member of the school of hardknocks, I hope that's okay.

 

For my homework assignment, I have to design a means to move 2 billion people into space per year. What I came up with is an octagonal spacescraper with 8 StarTrams.

 

Height 200 km Width 38.63 km Weight 3.15 exagrams Floors 54,681 Floor Area

41,994,750 km^2

 

I just used the Burj Khalifa and scaled it. I am thinking I oversimplified the problem. I decided to build it in Antarctic and remove the same amount of weight of ice. I also made it a little wider to be on the safe side. I was also thinking that I would need airlocks every so many floors. That's about all I got.

 

Any pointers would be awesome.

[imatfaal]

5 orders of magnitude larger (more massive) than the largest current building. What sort of material do you think can support that sort of weight at the bottom?

[3blake7]

5 orders of magnitude larger (more massive) than the largest current building. What sort of material do you think can support that sort of weight at the bottom?

 

Actually it's like 200 times, lol, the largest building is nearly a kilometer. I watched a documentary on the construction of the Burj Khalifa, they built it out of concrete and rebar.

 

I am no expert and this isn't really something you can research. If you could link me some articles or suggest some concepts to look up, I'd appreciate it.

 

From what I read, you can go as high as you want as long as you keep spreading out the load onto a wider and wider base.

Edited July 3, 2015 by 3blake7

[studiot]

Think about Mt Everest as a self supporting skyscraper of height just under 9km.

 

The mountain is basically solid (ie has no internal rooms).

 

But to 'stand up' it sinks into the crust of the Earth many km.

 

Many being 5.6 times its height

 

http://geoscience.wisc.edu/~chuck/Classes/Mtn_and_Plates/mtn_roots.html

 

see the section marked implications for mountain ranges.

[3blake7]

Think about Mt Everest as a self supporting skyscraper of height just under 9km.

 

The mountain is basically solid (ie has no internal rooms).

 

But to 'stand up' it sinks into the crust of the Earth many km.

 

Many being 5.6 times its height

 

http://geoscience.wisc.edu/~chuck/Classes/Mtn_and_Plates/mtn_roots.html

 

see the section marked implications for mountain ranges.

 

I actually considered that. I read about ice melting in Antarctica and the tectonic plate rising so I built it in Antarctica and removed the same weight of ice. I basically did a jewel heist, lol

I can't find anything that says it's impossible. The biggest limiting factor I keep seeing pop up is elevator shafts, because their cables can only be so long, so you can't take one elevator trip to the top, you'll have to get off and get on another every 500 meters.

[imatfaal]

 

Actually it's like 200 times, lol, the largest building is nearly a kilometer. I watched a documentary on the construction of the Burj Khalifa, they built it out of concrete and rebar.

 

I am no expert and this isn't really something you can research. If you could link me some articles or suggest some concepts to look up, I'd appreciate it.

 

From what I read, you can go as high as you want as long as you keep spreading out the load onto a wider and wider base.

 

 

I actually clarified that I meant more massive - and it is 4 orders of magnitude heavier than the largest structure on earth at present (the three gorges dam)

[swansont]

 

Actually it's like 200 times, lol, the largest building is nearly a kilometer.

 

An order of magnitude is a factor of 10. 200x taller (had the previous response been to height instead of weight) would be two orders of magnitude (10 x 10)

[3blake7]

 

An order of magnitude is a factor of 10. 200x taller (had the previous response been to height instead of weight) would be two orders of magnitude (10 x 10)

Good to know, thanks.

[fiveworlds]

The main problem is

1 gravity on such a large build the bottom of the structure may not be able to bear the weight.

2 the building will sway in the wind

3 wind shear can destroy most aircraft

4 little to no earthquake resistance

5 the wind in the jetstream can move really fast

Edited July 3, 2015 by fiveworlds

[3blake7]

The more I think about it, it just seems so impractical even if it was possible. People would have to live on the spacescraper, they would NEVER be able to evacuate for a fire drill. There would have to be like escape pods. The elevator ride to the top would take 6 hours. The star trams being pretty much vertical would need boosters to reach 8 km/s in the right vector. 660 million people living in there.. Not to mention all the other problems, like hurricanes or the 200 mph winds at higher altitudes, the actual construction and repair.

 

It might be possible but I don't think it would ever be practical enough to be done at any point in the future. I decided just to build a bunch of StarTrams in Antarctica since there is room for them, being 1900 km long and all.

 

I don't know, I think this should be under Speculation if someone wants to move it.

[Endy0816]

I'm thinking something involving lighter than air transport for part of the trip would be the way to go. Could take better advantage of available resources including anyone/thing returning to the surface.

[Harold Squared]

Materials science continues to progress and the human desire seems to compel us to build ever higher. Maybe an evolutionary thing, we like being able to see far away, spit predators(or prey) from far away.

 

Have you seen drawings of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Mile High City"? He wasn't going to just put it in Denver, Colorado.

 

A dynamic approach might be the Space Fountain, as described elsewhere on this site and better yet Wikipedia.

 

Keep thinking big.

The main problem is

1 gravity on such a large build the bottom of the structure may not be able to bear the weight.

2 the building will sway in the wind

3 wind shear can destroy most aircraft

4 little to no earthquake resistance

5 the wind in the jetstream can move really fast

All important factors to consider, most certainly. Swaying in tall buildings today can be counteracted with motion dampeners, perhaps a network of these integrated by computer over the height of the structure would be of some merit?

[pavelcherepan]

Just out of curiosity, why did you decide to build the thing in Antarctica? If you're supposed to use it to transport people into space then starting in Antarctica you'll end up with people on some orbit around Earth with an inclination close to 90^o. Where are they supposed to go afterwards? Other planets? Just stay in orbit?

 

If it's the former then such an orbit is quite awful as most other planets' orbits are close to ecliptic and inclination change maneuvers of this magnitude are extremely costly, for example for a circular low-earth orbit with a velocity of 7700 m/s the delta-v required to change inclination by 90^o is approximately 10889 m/s which is more than required to get from LEO (zero inclination) to orbit around Neptune (approx. 8560 m/s).