Space Elevator Planned for the Moon

BallerX said:
Yes. This is a scam. Besides, we don't need an elevator to the moon. We need an elevator to space. Getting off the planet is the hard part. Once you are in space, getting to the moon is easy.
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Well duh an elevator from Earth to space, and an elevator from the Moon to Moonspace, then an elevator connecting the two..or maybe an escalator that's got to be some neat view!
 
sfsuphysics said:
oh good fucking hell, a kickstarter project? This will be interesting to watch, if anything see how many people "promise" to donate crazy amounts of money (that they don't have)
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The article explains that they were once a legitimate project funded by over 60 research college and university partners until the economy forced them all to abandon them and many other researches. They only want to finish what they started. I see nothing wrong with asking the general public to help restart their research funds. Perhaps their continuance in their project will turn some heads and land them with larger funds from serious investors again.

I think they can stand to gain a lot of support if they teamed up with SpaceX or Virgin.
 
carbon nanotubes will make way for real spaceships. Then at the point, it would be worth launching them into space and keeping them there. :D
 
awsiemieniec said:
Wow! I can really see a movie being made about this.
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Read the books Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars, they explore the space elevator (in this case built on Mars) and what happens when it come down.....
 
There probably aren't even enough carbon nanotubes on the entire planet for the structure itself. Producing carbon nanotubes themselves isn't the problem - it's the combining them into one massive clump of... carbon, that scales up the amazing properties of individual nanotubes from the micro to the macro. But I guess once that is figured out, production of the nanotubes themselves would increase a few orders of magnitude.
 
blade52x said:
There probably aren't even enough carbon nanotubes on the entire planet for the structure itself. Producing carbon nanotubes themselves isn't the problem - it's the combining them into one massive clump of... carbon, that scales up the amazing properties of individual nanotubes from the micro to the macro. But I guess once that is figured out, production of the nanotubes themselves would increase a few orders of magnitude.
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I don't think the problem is getting enough carbon to make such a structure, the problem is mass production. Currently, mass production of carbon nanotubes runs at a rate of 50 grams per hour at a cost of about $100/gram. Building a "space elevator" may lead to better, more efficient production of them, but they still lack the much needed consumer demand to get it rolling.
 
If this were viable, a single billionaire would be happy to pony up the $800 million. (Sorry Romney, you're too poor.)
 
wonderfield said:
Link to the actual Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaellaine/space-elevator-science-climb-to-the-sky-a-tethered
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BTW that's not it, that's only for their initial test

Azhar said:
The article explains that they were once a legitimate project funded by over 60 research college and university partners until the economy forced them all to abandon them and many other researches. They only want to finish what they started. I see nothing wrong with asking the general public to help restart their research funds. Perhaps their continuance in their project will turn some heads and land them with larger funds from serious investors again.

I think they can stand to gain a lot of support if they teamed up with SpaceX or Virgin.
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The problem is they're asking for $800 million on a technology that is not proven feasible, they even say in they have a test going to see if they can do a 2km climb. Maybe they should try the testing first before asking for $800m, add to that if they don't hit the $800m barrier they don't get any of it.
 
Its $8000 to send a balloon up in the air on a string.

$800M for a lunar elevator seems less of a rip off.
 
$800M won't do it.

If we had all the technology... it'd still be pushing things, the fact they need to invent/test/deploy all the technology nuh uh.
 
One thing that does stick out like a sore thumb, was how are they going to get around the fact that the Moon actually orbits around the Earth?
 
I'd rather they spend this money and time on portal tech instead of a fucking elevator.
 
Stuff like this is why kickstarter will have to police itself to maintain some degree of credibility or people will ignore kickstarter projects outright. Although they are circumventing it by really only asking for $8000 to send up a tethered balloon a few miles which itself is probably doable.
 
So, three pages of replies and only a hand full of people actually read the kickstarter proposal. They are NOT talking about building an elevator to the moon for 8k.
 
Meh, I already built it. It cut the number of turns required to build parts for my spaceship that's going to Alpha Centauri.
 
They are planning on building an elevator ON the moon to test the feasibility of building one ON earth. They are not building an elevator from the earth to the moon.
 
nutzo said:
Read the books Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars, they explore the space elevator (in this case built on Mars) and what happens when it come down.....
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My desktop is...

1gpz42.png

:D
 
More proof that most KickStarter projects are a fraud to begin with.
I really wonder about the accountability in these things because I have seen a lot of downright STUPID ideas that kickstarters want you to fund.
That being said there are some amazing and projects that are KickStarter I think will eventually become a market force like Oculous Rift.

Kickstarter is a great way for products to be developed without interference of bean counters and 5 layers of worthless middle managers killing it before it begins.
 
Building a space elevator on the moon, eh? Logistically that's not going to work with current technology. You need high-capacity cargo vehicles to carry the machinery there to build the thing and work crews to assemble it, which means you need to already have a fleet of space ships capable of reaching the moon and back on a regular basis. You would also need housing for the workers as well as storage and maintenance facilities for the equipment. That means either an orbital or surface station on the moon. By that point the concept would be cost ineffective as the space craft themselves will be more economical to operate and you'd already have permanent bases in place.
 
Phoenix333 said:
Building a space elevator on the moon, eh? Logistically that's not going to work with current technology. You need high-capacity cargo vehicles to carry the machinery there to build the thing and work crews to assemble it, which means you need to already have a fleet of space ships capable of reaching the moon and back on a regular basis. You would also need housing for the workers as well as storage and maintenance facilities for the equipment. That means either an orbital or surface station on the moon. By that point the concept would be cost ineffective as the space craft themselves will be more economical to operate and you'd already have permanent bases in place.
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Just from the moon to the tip of the Earth-bound elevator. If we build the Earth elevator first, materials could be shipped up on it and handed off to a waiting cargo ship.
 
Azhar said:
Just from the moon to the tip of the Earth-bound elevator. If we build the Earth elevator first, materials could be shipped up on it and handed off to a waiting cargo ship.
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Or just wrapped up carefully and blasted towards the moon from some sort of high pressure cannon, and caught somehow when they get there :p
 
$8,000 is for a test tether (elevator) 2 km high by a group ( Liftport ) that has the record for such elevators at around 460 meters. (Ballon and tether was higher at 1 mile, but robots failed around 460 meters on the test.) If they were sucessful, they'd go as high as baloons could get with the tether 30-100 km. So far this all sounds pretty cool, interesting, reasonable.

Then they'd talk about a very useful tether from the moon to space, which would need to be about 50,000 kilometers long and weigh 6,000 tonnes. hmmmm, which is about 140 Saturn V launches, so ........ yeah, good luck. Maybe if they can figure out a way to manufacture the tether on the moon from local materials......
 
I'm guessing we'll be using the standard approach for landing on the moon. On the other hand, maybe this tether stuff will make for really cool antenna's and communications towers etc.
 
That's laughable. If they can get us to the moon, then they can get us to Mars almost as easily. Let's just do an elevator to a station point in orbit first..... (which is almost conceivable... and I do emphasize the almost part).
 
I'm sure someone will say I'm wrong but don't the moon revolve around the earth? so wouldn't the cable get caught and wrapped around the earth?:confused::confused::confused:

Thats as funny as NASA wanting to have an elevator to space! after all what do you tie the other end to? :confused::confused::confused:
 
jackofalltrades said:
I'm sure someone will say I'm wrong but don't the moon revolve around the earth? so wouldn't the cable get caught and wrapped around the earth?:confused::confused::confused:

Thats as funny as NASA wanting to have an elevator to space! after all what do you tie the other end to? :confused::confused::confused:
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RTFA. Two elevators. One from Earth to space. Another from Moon to space. Ships between space to space points.
 
What do you tie the cable too? how would you pull weight off the planet without an anchor point? BTW how would you land on the moon without an attached anchor point in space? It seems you would be pushing a rope here. :D
 
jackofalltrades said:
What do you tie the cable too? how would you pull weight off the planet without an anchor point? BTW how would you land on the moon without an attached anchor point in space? It seems you would be pushing a rope here. :D
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The article explains this too. Helium balloons.
 
it wouldn't be an elevator to the moon, just space. And that crap will never work, some tiny nanotube cable...... airplane would never see it coming and be sliced like pizza, and severing the nanotube cable in the process.

All it would take is a high orbit spy plane to take it out and we'd never even know who done it!
 
jackofalltrades said:
What do you tie the cable too? how would you pull weight off the planet without an anchor point? BTW how would you land on the moon without an attached anchor point in space? It seems you would be pushing a rope here. :D
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*sigh* If you're going to try and argue against something, and there certainly is plenty to argue about I won't dispute that, at least try to know how the technology works, in this case a space elevator.

You don't need to "tie" to anything, you simply have enough mass beyond the geosyncronous location such that it creates tension (since it'll be an orbit that would move faster than it needs to stay in orbit at that location) and holds the whole thing up. You could tie to an asteroid and not go as far beyond the geosync orbit, but it's not absolutely necessary. The Moon would be a whole other ball game as you couldn't exactly use the speed of the rotating Moon since it takes nearly a month for it to rotate once, you'd have to get enough mass such that Earth's gravity is what is supplying the tension on the Moon based elevator.
 
I have read how it is proposed to work and it sounds worthless at best. I believe an more efficient engine for launch is needed for payloads and people to reach space. Like a working space Plane, one that has the scramjets to get up there an rockets to achieve orbit. This would be much more workable and attainable in the next 50 years or so.
Why not invest in something that can be done now instead of investing everywhere hoping for a break.
 
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