this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sure, if you can find a material strong enough

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I also am under the assumption that no material exists that could be stacked tall enough to build a space elevator.

[–] seaQueue 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You'd want tensile strength rather than compressive. The trick is to anchor a counterweight out beyond your target distance and let it pull the weight of the cable up rather than building a tower. Think of swinging a ball on a string rather than building a skyscraper. Assuming a sufficiently sized counterweight you can support the weight of the anchoring cable plus whatever else you want to hang off of it (space dock, elevator terminus, etc.)

[–] crystalmerchant 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

stacked tall enough...? The space elevator concept is a geostationary node orbiting earth directly above a fixed point, with cables running between them. Not a gigantic skyscraper up into the sky. What am I missing?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You probably haven't read 3001: the final odissey, in any case i think most ideas of space elevators are not like a lift, they are more like skyscrapers indeed.
Edit: i might be very wrong though, i'm not up to date on this

[–] Heggico 2 points 1 year ago

If you build it tall enough, centrifugal force will start pulling on it. Building it that way though... But yeah. Doubt the right material exist atm.

[–] seaQueue 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm thinking we're going to want either really big spiders or a whole lot of goats now that we've spliced the spider silk genes into goats milk.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Goats! For the love of God, stay away from the spiders!