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Astrochemistry
Reactions: More details on space elevators needed
August 5, 2024
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 102, Issue 24
Letters to the editor
Space elevators
Credit: C&EN
The Periodic Graphics article in the July 1, 2024, issue of C&EN titled “The Science of Space Elevators” (page 25) is so oversimplified as to be tantamount to farce. The implication from the article is that the only major problem that needs to be solved is the tensile strength of the cable. This is far from the case.
I struck out in trying to find information about space elevators from NASA but did find a more serious discussion of the topic (even though incomplete) on Northeastern Global News.
Here I simply list important considerations. To discuss and explain them would require a longer message than is allowed in a C&EN letter to the editor. Other considerations are the following:
▸ The ground terminus must be in a geologically stable location.
▸ The ground terminus must rest on bedrock.
▸ The ground terminus must be at Earth’s equator.
These three conditions severely limit where the space elevator can be built.
Considered as a standard building construction, the terminus is an extension of the tallest buildings ever made. Wikipedia has one guide on tall buildings.
The current tallest building is 828 m tall, which is not high enough to worry about the change in gravity or the change of centripetal force with height, both of which are key considerations for a space elevator.
If you consider the elevator as a structure, all the material up to the geosynchronous height (about 36,000 km) will add to the weight and therefore the compressive forces on the parts of the structure below them, all the way down to the terminus. Only above the geosynchronous height does the centripetal force and gravity reduction give rise to tensional forces.
If you consider the elevator as a building, other important factors would include the effect of wind and other weather-related phenomena.
The natural shape of the tether would likely not be a straight line between Earth and the counterweight but curved so as to meet the counterweight tangentially to the counterweight’s orbit. This, of course, affects the shape of the entire tether.
Howard Mark
Suffern, New York
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society
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