Electric Monk said:I think we're looking at carbon nanotubes for strength. So cost is a major factor. But let's set cost aside.
See a space elevator by itself is not the most useful thing in the world. You need a reason, and heck just the infrastructure needed to hook it up and build down from it's asteroid anchor alone is pretty substantial.
So before we're looking at a space elevator we need at least one major space station in orbit. Plus probably a heck of a lot more stuff going on, to hit the kind of critical mass you'd need to for a sufficient reason for one. This probably requires either fairly large mining operations on the Moon or via capture and drag/mass driver from the belt, or a very large exploratory arm, or O'Neill colonies and other colonization projects.
I could a space elevator on the Moon first for a couple of reasons; it would be much cheaper and more useful at early stages if you're conducting mining operations, and is probably as close to ideal as you get without going to Mars to test out the space elevator basics.
Anaxagoras said:What happens is that no one is willing to pay for it.
When a space elevator gets built in my "Superpower Empire" TL, probably around the 2020s or so, the two major contenders for location will be Brazil and Malaysia.Max Sinister said:Where to put it? It has to be at the equator, so you have to decide between South America, Africa and SE Asia. At the moment, Africa's a bit unstable, South America has elected left governments, and SE Asia has many Muslims. I feel the current US government at least won't like either...
Max Sinister said:The material is the main problem. I wouldn't fund it until I knew that such a material existed, and I like the idea very much.
Then there's the question: Where to put it? It has to be at the equator, so you have to decide between South America, Africa and SE Asia. At the moment, Africa's a bit unstable, South America has elected left governments, and SE Asia has many Muslims. I feel the current US government at least won't like either...
I find it surprising that a sea-based touchdown spot would be prefered to a land-based one. After all the point of a space elevator is to handle large amounts of traffic to and from space; it's going to be a hindrance if everything has to be carried by boat to the elevator. One will have to install docking areas, warehouses, passenger terminals, etc., all on floating platforms. Plus no ship, no matter how large, will be as stable as solid ground, especially in the equatorial region; just because there hasn't been a storm in that particular spot hardly means there will never be any, and tropical storms in the open sea can be nasty indeed.Aldroud said:The idea is the ribbon (it's a paper thin ribbon, not a cable) is affixed to an aircraft carrier sized base ship. This allows the ribbon to flex a bit and the ship can compensate. US Navy would be tasked with defending the platform.
Flocculencio said:I, too, think Singapore would be the best place to build a Space Elevator. The Singaporean government would probably be very willing to participate in such a project.
PMN1 said:I cant see Europe or the US being happy to rely on another country for the cheap access to space an elevator shoudl give - they will build their own on territory they control.
Flocculencio said:Why not?
Singapore's politically stable, an extremely good US ally (we built them a naval base), wealthy and already a global trade centre. Plus it's just one degree above the Equator and in a geologically stable region.
Besides it needn't be in association with the US or Europe. I could easily see, say, the Japanese, Singaporean, Australian and Indian governments working together on this. We'd have the money, the skills and (with India and the Aussies on board) the resources to do it.
By definition, if it's built in international waters, it won't be on any country's territory, and short of the US annexing Ecuador there's no way around the fact that the Americans don't have anywhere remotely close enough to the equator to build it on.PMN1 said:I cant see Europe or the US being happy to rely on another country for the cheap access to space an elevator shoudl give - they will build their own on territory they control.