

How to Build a Space Elevator - JumpCrisscross
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/how-to-build-a-space-elevator/261405/

======
lutusp
The advocates of this idea clearly aren't thinking it through:

1\. A space elevator is necessarily located at the equator.

2\. A carbon nanotube is a conductor, indeed a rather good one.

3\. For practical reasons the tube needs to be as thin as possible consistent
with its other requirements.

4\. The structure will last until the first major thunderstorm, and
thunderstorms are common at the equator.

The same kind of analysis could have been offered about the Space Shuttle (on
which I worked), if anyone was willing to think deeply enough about the
system's vulnerabilities. But no one was.

~~~
tzs
Space elevator advocates have considered thunderstorms: <http://www.mill-
creek-systems.com/HighLift/chapter10.html>

~~~
lutusp
Yes -- they acknowledge that a lightning strike would destroy the cable. "One
possible event that would destroy the elevator cable would be a lightning
strike. Lightning has sufficient current and voltage potential in its arc to
heat and destroy any composite that we have been considering."

But this fact is rarely pointed out in widely read descriptions.

------
tanvach
What would happen when a space elevator cable breaks:

<http://gassend.net/spaceelevator/breaks/index.html>

------
tigrank
Nothing new, this idea has been around since the 60s, or was it 70s?

~~~
realize
The first I know of is "The Fountains of Paradise" by A.C. Clarke. Great book.

------
leishulang
space elevator again? oh...man... try launch loop next time.

