can we space elevator? should we space elevator?

I am so sorry but I don’t understand why anyone wants a space elevator.
Coffee and the problem Episode 1: The science fiction writer R. A. Heinlen describes a skyhook satellite that consists of a long rope placed in orbit at the equators, aligned along a radius from the center of the earth, and moving so that the rope appears suspended in space above a fixed point on the equator. The bottom of the rope hangs free just above the surface of the earth (radius R). Assuming that the rope has uniform mass per unit length (and that the rope is strong enough to resist breaking!), find the length of the rope.
Space Elevator Background from Nixeen’s Screenshot: steamcommunity... the Cryptic: / crackingthecryptic
Princeton Problems in Physics with Solutions: press.princeto...
3Blue1Brown (essence of calculus): • The essence of calculus
Tacoma Bridge footage: • Tacoma Bridge
Patreon (join for exclusive video each month): / acollierastro

[@BarackLesnar]

If we built a space escalator instead, then when it breaks down, it will simply be space stairs.

[@PeterStinklage]

Really makes me wonder

[@guillll]

It would be a litteral stairway to heaven !

[@asills]

"... sorry for the convenience"

[@jimgsewell]

I miss Mitch. The good thing is that he hasn't done hard drugs in 18 years. He used to do hard drugs, but he don't do them no more.

[@JimWitschey]

Thank you Barack Lesnar

[@SamNeedsCoffee]

I would watch the crap out of a 7 hour video on why leaf blowers shouldn't exist.

[@joelkeene1278]

Right? Leaf blower video coming when?

[@inafridge8573]

i want to see it too

[@marcogenovesi8570]

#LeafBlowersHate

[@Endofalaleado]

x10

[@buriedintime]

i would hook my laptop to a PA and put it outside and play the video at max decibels so everyone could hear it.

[@onionshark]

"calculus isn't that scary, just learn it, then this is fun" This is a woman who had to TA freshman. I applaud you

[@charleediaven6278]

I had two TA's, one spoke only Japanese, the other Italian. Neither could speak with the other or the small class, duplicating balls rolling down an incline, incredible precision and good data being the point not the learned lesson. This is how research is done. This is how peer review is done. This was back in the 60's. Today with pressures, many studies are spread out. Being immersed and expected to learn the math at the same time as the physics as the computer was daunting. Throw in 1 credit hour courses in Fortran ( turn in your punch cards and wait for the error stack from the one and only main frame ), and mandatory Saturday quiz sections we were immersed. Our failure rate freshman year soared to 60%. It was also an engineering school. Later taking computer science classes the cheating was rampant, my professor dealing with irate parents asking about bad grades. It became a party school. All games all the way up and down. Sad sad sad.

[@mikedubovs1574]

Calculus... Lol is awesome... It is just find the acceleration at any point of velocity at any point... Meaning... Let's do what any mortar or artillery or tank crew does.. lol

[@Sam_on_YouTube]

For context on the Hyatt disaster, it was caused by a smalll cost saving change made AFTER the engineering was done. They had two walkways. The engineer had them both anchored to the ceiling. They made the cost saving decision to anchor the bottom one to the top one. The anchors for the top one could not hold the weight of both and they failed.

[@indetigersscifireview4360]

The engineers had rods anchored to the roof and it ran through the beams that held up the walkways. But they hadn't designed a way to hold the upper beams to the rods (edit)that was constructible.. I am not assigning blame here. We do so far too easily these days. Ultimately it was small errors by a number of companies that lead to tragedy which is often the case. (end of edit)

[@xxtremetoastx]

@@indetigersscifireview4360 No, that's not correct, the upper beams were secured to the rods by nuts. OP is correct. Your comment only adds misinformation and confusion.

[@aidanwarren4980]

@@indetigersscifireview4360they had a way to do this, the complication was that because they would attach the it via nuts, the rods would have to be threaded their whole length. They were very long, and manufacturing a rod with that long of a thread and installing it without somehow damaging the threads was considered infeasible. So, they split the rod in two. This effectively meant that then nuts for the upper platform were supporting both the upper platform and the lower platform, which they were not designed to do.

[@walkerharris2043]

@@aidanwarren4980the issue with the threads seems like a callback to the video talking about making a rope for the elevator so long without breaking it. it’s an even more apt comparison than it already was, lol

[@FridgidIdgit]

Here's a >5min explanation with diagrams if anyone's interested kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJ_ZeKp8msyVeZosi=PGFmnM4QIm26kPAT

[@excrubulent]

I love cracking the cryptic! It's always such a chill time, but I do get a little stressed whenever he flies off the handle and says "bobbins". Also strong recommend for their The Witness playthrough.

[@Michael-kp4bd]

🎤 That’s 3 in the corner! 🕺

[@TerkanTyr]

I hate it when he says bobbins, sends shiver down my spine

[@excrubulent]

@@TerkanTyr That's when he truly shows his monstrous, violent side.

[@TerkanTyr]

@@excrubulent Yeah it's why I can't watch him anymore. I live next door to an English man and it fucking sucks. Like people think it's funny that some people can't handle that shit but it's really not and I wish they'd just stop.

[@hypersztoss3731]

I zoned out to a talk about space elevators and when i zoned back in, you were all of a sudden ranting about terabytes of fridge data. This is what im here for

[@BrennanYoung]

fridge data rant was a highlight for me

[@notmyname327]

It was so funny how you learned to play factorio and spent so many hours building a space elevator, definitely cool and worth it.

[@Jeremagpie]

I was surprised that the video was over 200 hours long and took 6 me hours to buffer, but then when it got the section of the video that was the footage of her playing factorio (real and true) it all made sense and added so much to the overall viewing experience.

[@tomiesz]

Satisfactory would've been a good candidate, you can get one there in a few hours easy.

[@najawin8348]

The factory must grow. (acollierastro plays gregtech when?)

[@fluffy_tail4365]

​@@najawin8348greg

[@wumi2419]

​@@najawin8348GTNH space elevator... In my case it is currently in a state of "possible after a week of crafting, during which power will definitely die at some point"

[@sixtsix6573]

I understand almost none of the science/math, but I find extreme comfort in knowing there are people passionate about this stuff. Makes me feel safer knowing there are tons of smarter people than me out in the world.

[@Asiago9]

I know none of the science/math, but I'm passionate about learning the science/math

[@calebschroeder9450]

I often find myself saying, I like your funny words magic man

[@Benjamintf1]

Impressive run of Factorio! Less then 30 mins to space elevator is impressive.

[@Golinth]

Meanwhile my K2SE play through at 500 hours still hasn’t unlocked them.

[@CrackingTheCryptic]

Well I enjoyed watching that! Simon 🙂

[@acollierastro]

Ahhh, thanks for watching!

[@TheAwnman]

The basic idea to my understanding is generally that if you have a space elevator then the cost of getting stuff into space goes down. This allows you to do stuff in space that requires large amounts of stuff from earth like moon and mars colonies or enormous space stations for far less resources than using rockets. That is the dream of the space elevator after you hand wave away all the things that make it impossible, that it will allow for a space based future, not in a Star Trek instersteller way but in a neo-colonial solar system way. And depending on your views that’s either inspiring, troubling or both.

[@Blazo_Djurovic]

Also, what would happen before colonies, mining materials from space objects more cheaply and more easily getting it back to the ground to be turned into more things to mine shit in space. So basically capitalism again. Basically the only way to get capital interested in space development, other than as a pet project for someone unimaginably wealthy. Get one rock mostly made of incredibly rare metal here on Earth, tow or mine it on site and bring it back here. Then watch as quite a few countries IMPLODE as their economies are ANNHILATED because their economies were before forced to exclusively just mine this material. At least till the operations up there are developed enough to be mostly based on space based labour. IF we can transfer most of our production processes to work in near zero G.

[@Nope-tr8tr]

You really are a cancer man hug a tree and realize your whole worlds upside down idiot

[@Endofalaleado]

@@cancermcaids7688 if you think "neo-colonial" is an absurd concept think about the Beltalowda from The Expanse series. That's what we'll get if people like Bezos and Musk have it their way

[@MnemonicNex]

Also if your country wins the "build the space elevator race" it become the next super power because you can basically controll the economic flow of people/things to space

[@JulianDanzerHAL9001]

oh, it would be a colonial project eitehr way because you need at least three major places along the equator in the right spacing and the countries or companies most likely to build one currently have 0 land at the equator so someones gonna tell everyone near the equator to die except in a very friendly, brand safe way but still thats basically gonna be the message

[@quilan1]

While not strictly a structural failures channel, "Practical Engineering" does cover a number of disasters from time to time (among other equally excellent videos about various aspects of civ-eng). He actually does cover the Hyatt disaster in a shorter sub-video for Tom Scott's channel. It goes by the title 'The Disaster That Changed Engineering: The Hyatt Regency Collapse'. He also covers the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse in an earlier video.

[@tissuepaper9962]

You would love the channel "Building Integrity". The channel started after the surfside condo collapse, the creator is a licensed structural engineer and he does an *amazing* job of analyzing the evidence collected from engineering disasters.

[@yetanothercsstudent]

We need space elevators because I think it’s cool. Why doesn’t the world revolve around what I think looks cool?

[@boredlands3561]

Ok Elon

[@vincent78433]

this is obviously the only reason physics exists

[@LibertyMonk]

The "how would you power it?" feels flippant. If we're in Magical Christmas Land, and have a Space Elevator, the advantage of it is: we don't have to lift fuel, and the return trip's potential energy can be recycled. At worst, its electic, and we use regenerative breaking, it takes like a year to climb it, but its OK because its rhe equivalent of a container ship for space. Outside of Magical Christmas Land, its just a gigantic danger and waste.

[@JulianDanzerHAL9001]

um it would take about 64 megajoules per kilgoram to crawl up the cable batteries prettymuch go up to 0.7, perhaps 0.9 megajoules per kilogram a cable to the ground could work or thi nwires in the elevator cable or solar panels

[@tomweinstein]

@@JulianDanzerHAL9001 That's about 50kw/ton over two weeks. The much bigger problem is transmitting the power to the elevator over the tens of thousands of miles. Even copper doesn't conduct electricity that well. You'd need superconductors or some kind of beamed power.

[@JulianDanzerHAL9001]

@@tomweinstein how far you can take electricity in something always dependso n the voltage you put on it and how much power you actually wanna draw of course any cable would have to be reinforced to hold up over that length as well and you have to drag it with you from 80 tons of copper you could make wiring that long with a resistance of 2.5 megaohm there ar some plastics that are insulative enough to make an insulating sleeve that has a higher lateral resistance even over the whole sruface area over that length of course the currnet has to go both ways so you need 160 tons of copper and you get 5 megaohm rseistance that means with 1 megavolt (about hte highest voltage used for transmission lines) could get 0.02A through this wire at 90% efficiency thats 20000W or 125W/ton over the wieght of the copper wire enough to get a cabin twice as heavy as the wire up in 30 years thats kinda long but it would go down proportionally if you allow more inefficiency in the transmission and it would go down squared if you increase the voltage also thats still a somewhat inaccurate estiamte because most of the energy gets used in the first 10% of the way so overall on average you only need to transmit the power about 1/6 or so as far still an impractical concept overall but the idea of using cable pwoer isn't entirely implausible we can produce 25MV in a lab, transforming it that high would let you shorten the travel to about 2 weeks

[@tissuepaper9962]

@@JulianDanzerHAL9001 good comment, it's unfortunate how few people actually understand the theory behind AC transmission lines. The comment you're replying to is a classic example of a physicist thinking they know engineering.

[@chrisblake4198]

To answer 'why space elevator?' from what I've always understood, I think the point was we're generally better at converting energy into mechanical motion than we are at using the rocket formula. Sure a trip by rocket is pretty quick, but the fuel is always gonna be nasty stuff, and dangerous, and there are pretty hard limits on the amount of stuff you can lift at once (not to mention when you factor in the time it takes to stack, fuel, and load a rocket the time savings isn't that great). So for space elevator however it works it's a pretty simple transfer of electricity into climb/descent motion. It may take a while but it's efficient. Additionally, if designed correctly nothing would stop you from making it like a ski lift, just running car after car up one side and down the other as fast as you can slot them onto the cable. I absolutely agree from a materials standpoint it's impossible, but I never had trouble understanding why you'd want one.

[@fernandoterra4108]

Impossible is too much, no?

[@chrisblake4198]

@@fernandoterra4108 the materials needed to handle the stresses involved over the distances required don't exist and aren't even hinted at from what we know about chemistry and physics. Existing manufacturing isn't close to the scale required. So yes, impossible in any timescale less than centuries.

[@fernandoterra4108]

"Impossible in any time scale less than centuries". Better said.

[@rodlavery509]

Came here looking for kinda this comment. To me the most obvious answer is - burning fuel is bad, we have to stop. At the rate we're going space elevators will be impossible because we will have starved and flooded ourselves to death by burning so many petrochemicals. If we're dreaming of some bright future where it's important to maximise the efficiency of getting people and goods to/from space, then it is a necessary condition that we have solved climate change in order even to reach that future alive. That means part of the point of the elevator is to get to space without rocket fuel. (But realistically an elevator is impossible, so probably if we want to keep going to space, using rocket fuel will have to be one of the few irreplaceable carbon burns we keep doing, which only makes turning the rest of the economy carbon negative more important.)

[@MrAmalasan]

What is elevator? Should we elevator? If so, how much? Should we do it should we do it should we do it should we do it?

[@UliTroyo]

Tick-ticky-tick-ticky-tick-ticky-ticky-ticky-tick

[@IdeoLogs]

What is this referencing? I remember this songs rythm but cannot remember the original and it's killing me

[@HoneyBadgerLikesYou]

@@IdeoLogs The dark matter rap

[@hokiturmix]

It is not a moon. It is a list of scientific observations.

[@doubtingtom92]

Throw the Pentagon budget at it. Convince them it's for Space Force logistics lol. Build the sky screen!!

[@qarsiseer]

I’m so so glad to hear you’re a Cracking the Cryptic enjoyer! I love them!

[@rancidmarshmallow4468]

Some notes about solving the practical issues with space elevators (other than the tether material) - impact shielding from micrometeorites is probably feasible when you can also create the tether material. For larger objects like satellites, tracking them and predicting a collision, then sending out a satellite-hunting satellite to change thier course if the object cannot itself maneuver could be reasonably practical. The tether itself, like modern ropeways on earth, could likely have multiple redundant cables, allowing one to be damaged and repaired while the other(s) held the load. For what it's worth, modern ropeways on earth have possibly the best safety record of any form of transit, with well-maintained systems that aren't hit by a plane having a flawless record. - similar to some of the buildings you mention, the tether could have active mass dampers at regular intervals ro counter vibrations. - the car could be hauled or powered by the cable, from the ground, which is sort of the main advantage of the cable system. - finally, i think the best practical use case in the nearish term for a space elevator would be resource gathering from space. Not sure if it would ever be competitive, but if equipment can be brought to space and raw materials available in asteroids and the moon can be brought down for a small fraction of what that would currently cost in terms of money, pollution, and land, it could be worth it, especially in a future world where we incresingly care about the impacts of resouce extraction on earth.

[@matthewjohnson3656]

Problem with powering stuff via cable is that electricity has transmission loss over a distance

[@rancidmarshmallow4468]

@@matthewjohnson3656 yep, that's why 'hauled by' the cable probably makes more sense. if you can make the cable, you can also make another cable that can pull the car up. that can be powered from whichever stationary end is more practical.

[@matthewjohnson3656]

@@rancidmarshmallow4468 even if we had some magic indestructible cable- it doesn’t solve the rotational inertia problem. To get an object from the surface of earth to a satellite space station thingy you need to apply tangential force to accelerate it. On earth at the equator it’s moving at 1000 mph by a geostationary satellite is moving at tens of thousands of miles per hour. A cable can’t provide the sideways force needed to do this.

[@Fred2-123]

@@rancidmarshmallow4468 This haul cable is going to have to be as long and strong as the space elevator cable. That's not a solution

[@Fred2-123]

A car climbing up the cable is equivalent to it PULLING DOWN on the cable. The dynamics would be incredibly difficult. And it takes a certain amount of energy to lift a mass up a few thousand miles, whether it is lifted by a rocket or by a cable or by a magical electric motor.

[@annbeez]

I would like a space escalator.

[@nefariousyawn]

Honestly take the space stairs if you are physically able, it's good exercise.

[@TheMarkoSeke]

Space escalator can never break, it just becomes space stairs.

[@UliTroyo]

And he’s buuuying a motorized staaaairway to heaaaaven

[@doyouwanttogivemelekiss3097]

@@nefariousyawn also, the further up you are, the easier it becomes 😂😂

[@NegHead]

That would be a fun follow up, if you were to assume that the space escalator travels at a 45 degree angle, how much sorry material would be required to reach space?

[@jtw-r]

The channel “Plainly Difficult” is probably my favourite (for lack of a better term) youtuber that takes a very fact based approach to structural failures and general engineering incompetence. They do a lot of UK based things, but cover some larger north american events too

[@dragonmoffon3969]

I'm surprised the Red, Geen, Blue Mars book series wasn't mentioned. It has a pretty strong case against (and kinda for) space elevators.

[@derekkingston3867]

I think in a different video she talks about finding that series boring. For those interested, the ending of Red Mars includes a vivid description of a space elevator collapse.

[@ruffshots]

Grant (3Blue1Brown) is pretty awesome. I wished all math was taught in his style--would take so much stigma out of it.

[@registeredjademark]

Seconded, he is absolutely incredible! I can credit Khan Academy for getting me from "confused math-illiterate adult going back to college" to Calc III-ish, and then 3Blue1Brown helped me finish the Calc IV and linear algebra for my EE degree. I'm so grateful for all the work these guys put into making math more accessible.

[@lixxark47]

​@@registeredjademarkI didnt know calc went all the way to four 😢 what is calc 4?

[@JonathanHafner]

@@lixxark47 It depends; for some schools on the quarter system, it's Calc 3, more or less, since the calculus sequence gets sliced up into four parts instead of three. For others, especially those on semesters, it's just another name for what's more commonly called Ordinary Differential Equations (a.k.a. ODEs or DiffEq). None of the universities or colleges I've taught at had a course named Calc 4, though; names vary, check the descriptions/syllabi.

[@Gongtopia]

"Engineering is real shit." I love it. You really know how to drop a truth bomb in the middle of someone else's fantasy idea. Keep it up!

[@notruehippie]

Being a depressed old man, I'd like to thank influencer Dr. Collier for consistently raising my spirits. She is the future as I imagined it. Oh brave new world...

[@zarowny]

Excellent video! I'm an engineer myself and thank you for bringing some more insight into what we do into the greater "stem limelight" I guess, for lack of a better term. The Hyatt Regency fiasco is infamous at least in Canadian engineering circles, and there isn't one undergrad who will escape the field without understanding the importance of the lessons that must be learned from, honestly, criminal negligence. Safety, ethics and integrity are absolutely paramount in engineering. It can be easy to sidestep these principles for profit.

[@MultiSteveB]

8:42 *Thank you so much* for not using implicit multiplication. So many people on the internet don't seem to understand it. :)

[@QualityRecord]

Love it. As an engineer whose has worked with many physicists (I have a masters in Physics), there comes a time when you have to take the project away from the physicists and give it to the engineers. Yeah, we know we don't know everything about the problem, but we also know there are things we have no idea about just waiting for us around the corner and until we start stumbling our way down the path, we will never find out what problems we don't know exists.

[@tissuepaper9962]

Plenty of people stumbling down the path already. We're going to need to see lots of radical changes in technology before a space elevator or tethered ring is considered feasible, and it will likely *never* be considered safe enough to actually build.

[@miketrebert7788]

My new favourite KZbin channel. Smart AF and completely hilarious.

[@foobargorch]

the US chemical safety board is not exactly about structural failures but *super* interesting if a bit grim, after major incidents they often release videos to accompany their reports. lots of engineering youtube channels dabble in structural failure post mortems though. looking forward to the leaf blower essay!

[@kdawg2468]

It's like the Folding Ideas video about the metaverse where the proponents are too hyped to even think about if it would be any good in practice.

[@0dWHOHWb0]

Some kind of active support structure makes more sense, once there's enough demand for traffic in and out of space for the economies of scale to make sense... Like a launch loop or something like that at first, eventually an orbital ring -- but we have a long way to go towards setting up proper industry in space before we get there.

[@nos9784]

Yes! Launch loops (even smaller ones that might be used to replace first stages or intercontinental flights) seem much more sensible. I just think it's something the avereage decision maker is unlikely to wrap their heads around. Also, i think we don't need demand first- basically having a conveyor belt will make it so cheap that demand will come on its own. Also, i don't think we should ever make any of those big decisions purely by asking "will it earn money".

[@0dWHOHWb0]

@@nos9784 Every sort of big sea-change in industry faces this same kind of chicken and egg problem. You have to bootstrap with small proofs of concept and build the demand as you go. I dislike framing things in capitalist terms, but the principle is the same even if you just look at allocating raw resources. We don't currently have enough things going on in space for it to make sense to allocate so much into building orbital rings and such, but as we inch our way forward and find out more things we can do in space (fabricating better optic fibers, collecting solar power, mining asteroids, moving polluting stuff out there where it's already an irradiated hellscape instead of our biosphere, whatever), slowly there'll be more and more reason to build bigger and leverage economies of scale. Basically, with or without money, you have to move in smaller increments, have pilot projects and trials and small scale experiments, get your foot in the door first and then slowly lever it open.

[@goliathsteinbeisser3547]

I struggled with the math part, went into exile to study integrals in a lonely mountain cave near the dead sea, and can now finally say that my stubborness paid of and now I know how to use integrals. Interstingly, I was not the first to use this cave: I found some bleached, dusty scrolls in Greek and Hebrew I thought could use for my notes but they crumbled away when I tried. I hope these weren't important in some way.

[@burstofsanity]

My favorite structural failure channel is Practical Engineering. They don't have a Hyatt walkway video, but they do have a video on space elevators and a lot of other disasters. Ok I lied, it's more of an infrastructure channel that talks about failures in dams, bridges, and buildings from time to time.

[@w13storageroomB]

Practical Engineering actually covered the Hyatt disaster in a guest video on Tom Scott’s channel.

[@burstofsanity]

@@w13storageroomB Ok, I thought I remembered seeing it but couldn't find it on his channel.

[@srabbelier]

He has a great playlist with structural failure (and adjacent topics): kzbin.info/aero/PLTZM4MrZKfW_kLNg2HZxzCBEF-2AuR_vP

[@renxula]

Wait, would it cost only 17 billion dollars? So, less than half a Twitter? That sounds cheap actually!

[@bejanbosc3695]

i think she just chose a random number, it'd more likely be in the trillions

[@DaLiJeIOvoImeZauzeto]

@@bejanbosc3695 Imagine starting a New New Deal planned around a space elevator to jump start the US economy should it crash due to the debt.

[@personzorz]

​@@DaLiJeIOvoImeZauzetoGreat way to make a couple real estate moguls rich and accomplish nothing else

[@fmdj]

​​@@bejanbosc3695 Twitter valuation is also random, stock crashes anytime Musk opens his mouth. If he has a cold then he may be able to purchase a space elevator company. He sure is dumb enough to at least.

[@DaLiJeIOvoImeZauzeto]

@@personzorz That's idea behind the comment. Cynical to the end.

[@brody3166]

Well the problem is that I'm not a physicist or an engineer. So I WAS into the idea of space elevators, because I didn't realize all the problems that would happen trying to build one. From my perspective a lot of inventions and technology are crazy things that work due to really complicated math and laws of physics, so I just figured that someone smart had proposed a space elevator as a concept a long time ago and done the math to say it is possible, why else would everyone be assuming it would work? I thought now we were just waiting on strong cables to make it actually happen. But you going into detail about how it's impossible to make that rope and why rockets are actually just better clears that up. I've never heard the opposing argument and a physicist saying "NO. It won't work."

[@bubbathedm]

Of all the cool ideas that Robert Heinlein had,lets be honest, Power Armor is the most likely to actually ever work like it does in his books

[@AzaleaJane]

His description of power armor is one of the things I remember most from Starship Troopers

[@aidanwarren4980]

@@AzaleaJaneStarship troopers was genuinely the most disappointing science fiction book I ever read. I thought it would be a fun adventure romp with power armor and aliens, and it was like 80% an argument for fascism

[@bubbathedm]

@@aidanwarren4980 Thanks for telling us you don't know what fascism actually entails but you do you...

[@Bookofshavings]

@@aidanwarren4980 not an argument for, but a 'realistic' depiction of how society works under it. its more of a "how would the world work under these conditions" less "this is how the world ought to be".

[@tissuepaper9962]

@@aidanwarren4980 dude, you should have paid more attention in English class if you can't identify the satire in Starship Troopers. Heinlein's stories are intended to be provocative and morally ambiguous. If anything, Starship Troopers is a *criticism* of militarism and the unholy union of corporate and government interests.

[@caejones2792]

I like launch assist concepts like skyhooks, launch loops, orbital rings ... but the space elevator always seemed horribly impractical and underwhelming for what it wants to achieve. Maybe on Phobos, Deimos, Neso, or Samathy, it would make sense, though I'd think it more like a vertical runway for spaceships than an elevator in those cases. My guess for why space elevators are so popular? People want epic launch assist structures, and for some reason, the space elevator got the most attention early, and has just kinda stuck in the popular mindset. A much shorter, more mobile skyhook would still be a collision hazard, but would functionally be a space station with a catch-a-ma-jig to let it trade momentum with regular rockets designed to dock with the catch-a-ma-jig. The cable could be a few hundred km instead of a thousand times that, so the station can power it, maybe spin it but that's harder... and you can stake your rockets slightly less insane, and the station can slowly regenerate its momentum with more efficient thrusters like ion propulsion between encounters. Still dangerous if it breaks and falls, but way, way more manageable. (When I use terms like "catch-a-ma-jig," it's because I don't want to pretend I understand it on a pro level. Which is why dark-matter should be called "that weird galaxy thing that looks like invisible mass".)

[@bill_and_amanda]

I've actually always heard a "skyhook" described as a much shorter cable, sometimes rotating, that would bridge between lower and higher orbits, with the idea being you would only need to catch up to the bottom of the cable and then either climb up it and let go again, or if it's rotating be yeeted into space at the far end of the rotation. I think the advantage is it takes a much smaller cablr so tensile strength isn't a problem, and you can use solar panels to electrically push against the Earth's magnetic field to keep the rope from deorbiting. But idk whether that's feasible in physics, I'm a cybersecurity engineer.

[@deyesed]

Conservation of angular momentum and intermediate axis theorem might be issues.

[@guptaamey]

@@deyesed There's a great skyhook video by the channel Kurzgesagt in a nutshell. The main idea to maintain angular momentum is to balance outgoing and incoming payload. so to send up some passengers, an equivalent weight of materials would need to be sent down in the near future. Small chemical engines or ion thrusters, potentially fueled by solar power, could handle minor deviations.

[@gaaalavant]

just when I thought you couldn't get any cooler, it turns out you watch cracking the cryptic

[@sadrien]

Space elevators are only efficient if you have successive rings (possible but way too expensive to manufacture) already manufactured, and super strong materials that do exist but that we can't manufacture in the necessary quantities yet and a lot of electricity already powering the ring to allow it to support structures via magnetics. This is way too brief for the rigorous nature of debugging the engineering problems but it's certainly not something happening any time soon because they are practically infinite. It does work in theory though, so it works as sci-fi. It's probably easier to make self-replicating machines (or organisms?) that build a dyson swarm.

[@jonathandurbin5534]

Well There's Your Problem, the best engineering failures podcast with slides

[@phyphor]

Hi, it's me phyphor, I'm the person commenting right now, and my pronouns are it/it, yay liam

[@andrewweirny]

This video brings the total number of times a physicist has said “we gotta get the engineers in here” to… …one.

[@tomkelley4119]

Let’s be real - I’m surprised the physicists actually knew the engineers existed in the first place.

[@benshort9071]

@@tomkelley4119oh they knew, but it was easier to just assume they rounded to zero

[@Lembo101]

We're just physicists who multiply our results by this unitless constant that cannot be derived from physics and math fundamentals called a "Safety Factor".

[@TheJunmengo]

Dr. Collier is not your everyday Physicist

[@Pepino_Leonardo]

my favourite structure engineering failure channel is humble pie by matt parker, i know that's a book about maths mistakes, but the hyatt disaster does feature in it. i don't think he talked about it on his youtube channel

[@tsswope]

I think part of the appeal of space elevators is that it’s more fun to imagine a Big Thing than a Good Process. Like, the current system of using rockets works fine and is sensible and all that, but you can’t *look* at it the way you’d be able to look at a big macro-engineering project that reaches all the way into space, and I think that affects how people react to it emotionally

[@ticthak]

Of course, almost no-one reacts emotionally to how unsustainable chemical rocketry is, ESPECIALLY on Earth, but it is, EVERYWHERE.

[@nos9784]

@@ticthak yeah... with all that rocket money, we could propably build a launch loop. (something that actually works with current materials)

[@hobozero]

It's been linked a bunch, but the "well there's your problem" episode on the Hyatt disaster is pretty good. You'd be a good guest on that show.

[@dcmayo]

I think that the Hyatt Regency thing is one of the central examples in the book "To Engineer is Human" about engineering failures. I remember looking at the diagram that explained the error and being shocked that something so seemingly unimportant could be deadly. Engineering is hard stuff, man.

[@ethorii]

I love that book. I think it should be a mandatory read for all high school students. It illustrates to any lay reader how and why experts can make major mistakes and to always double check everything and don't be complacent.

[@Weiszklee]

I think every science interested teenager has this moment where they learn why rockets are so expensive (need to go crazy fast and carry their own fuel), but also learning that technically space isn't that far away, and next thing you know they're dreaming about space elevators. I think the people who are into space elevators as adults have still not thought about it harder than this teenager.

[@jkid1134]

This, and also a lifetime of safe and effiecient elevators leading non-engineers to think "the elevator part" would be trivial.

[@Kestrel-lp8ho]

I'm an engineer, and while a space elevator might not be feasible, I'm accustomed to naysayers being completely incorrect. Challenges like "megastructure terrorist attacks" are there to be overcome.

[@zuthalsoraniz6764]

@@Kestrel-lp8ho TBH the problem with the space elevator is not just that it is difficult, but also that there are better options. Atmosphere-skimming skyhooks combined with hypersonic planes are a much lower-investment method, while for the full non-rocket approach a launch loop or an orbital ring is going to give you more utility (can easily boost payloads up to escape velocity if the rotor is rotating fast enough), without getting in the way of most Earth orbits. And both could be built with materials that are currently available in bulk amounts, rather than requiring nanomaterials like a space elevator.

[@3N4N]

> I think the people who are into space elevators as adults have still not thought about it harder than this teenager. If by "this teenager" you meant the creator of this video, I would be surprised if she is a teenager considering she has a doctorate.

[@SRHtheHedgehog]

​@@3N4N"this teenager" seems to be referring to the hypothetical teenager referenced at the beginning of OP's comment

[@radykal6601]

"wait, google has an X? ...does he know?" Now this is content.

[@hagus42]

Anyone else thinking of Kim Stanley Robinson‘s “Red Mars”? Can’t wait to dive into the video, because I’m sure we’ll talk about the rather spectacular manner in which space elevators fail …

[@mfratus2001]

Possible future headlines: "Crisis in electronics because Space Elevator project uses up half of the refined copper on Earth!"

[@Kokreaker]

I just realized I don't remember a lick of calculus and it's only been a couple of years since I last used it! Guess us computer engineers aren't solving much physics problems after school.

[@roberteltze4850]

I think one of the attractions of a space elevator is if it can be powered from the ground (or the top) it becomes far more efficient because you don't have to lift your fuel and can avoid the rocket equation.

[@BrianKelsay]

The Hyatt disaster is one of those events that are taught in mechanical, civil engineering and architecture classes. This is how your designs can save or cost lives. Plainly Difficult channel went over this one and so did Practical Engineering channel. I live just a few miles from where it happened. I was maybe 10 or 12 and the skywalk fell on New Years Eve. Years later, my high school prom was held in that hotel and I walked on the redesigned, rebuilt walkway. It was no longer 3 levels.

[@titastotas1416]

Two simple reasons for a space elevator: If we have two cable cars on the elevator at once, one going up the other going down, we would not pay the cost of gravity (only once ever) just keep them both at the same weight . It is very reusable.

[@xWood4000]

I learned to integrate in high school, and it's still daunting to do. It's not a learn it once and have it in your brain thing for everyone

[@markkalsbeek5883]

Another proposal that seems marginally more realistic and significantly less dangerous (you can stick it in the ocean) is the launch loop. Isaac Arthur has a nice video about it. Things like propulsion up are worked out better. I think one part of why people are so excited is induced demand. If the price goes down the amount of sats would go up like crazy, justifying the project. This would make things like astroid mining on a large scale a lot more feasible, because rockets don't really scale great. That way we wouldn't have to have all the industrial waste associated with mining on earth. Something closer on the horizon is a single stage to orbit spaceplane by DAWN Aerospace. They want to fly something (small) to space twice in one day with the same plane.

[@piotrd.4850]

Isaac Arthur avoids maths as Musk avoids accountability. As much as I appreciate work put into, conceptcs etc. and fantastic way he built community and worked on speech impediment...

[@markkalsbeek5883]

@@piotrd.4850 yea but that's because math videos that actually contain math usually bomb. Like, there's no audience for them on youtube. Like, I used the term 'marginally more realistic' because I know it's still pretty half baked. If you have a a link to a nice paper working out the math and disproving it's possibility I'm all eyes though.

[@petersmythe6462]

"What would happen if it snapped?" Anything from burning up in the atmosphere to floating away into space to levitating there to slicing countries in half in a giant linear explosion depending on the design and size of the thing and the location of the break.

[@JTheoryScience]

I love Cracking the Cryptic! the weird rules in some of them he does are really hard.

[@RustyJoe]

If the structural issues are solved, I would assume it would be powered by electricity and electro magnetic drive. If we get practical superconducting worked out, a mag lev could handle the lifting. But we then we could just use the mag lev to launch lifting bodies into LEO

[@emessar]

And another thing ... If you want to build a space elevator in a game, do it in Satisfactory. It happens fairly early in the game and it's a first person game so you actually get to watch the full animation, including the descending skyhook and attachment. And it's a fun game. Also, I'd love to see you do a series of structural failure videos ... if Kyle Hill's radiation disaster series is any indication, I think it could do well for the channel too.

[@matiasmartin8387]

I would recommend using a different pallet of colors. Like yellow and a black background, something with more contrast. Thank you, the radio is really good

[@snailmap2656]

The moment i heard "space elevator" i thought of that one horror story where a woman gets stuck in a cursed elevator that wouldn't stop going down and she couldn't get out, so she eventually starves to death, so. yeah.

[@alexanderwolf-reber4585]

It is simply amazing how I could watch Angela talk to herself for hours ranting about whatever.

[@Milan_Openfeint]

I went through quite a lot of comments but couldn't find these: 1) The cable doesn't need constant width. In that case you can build it from real materials. 2) You can use it to power the entire Earth, I think you need about 300 tons per second from orbit to surface which is a lot but not that much really if we're talking about making 15TW of clean electricity.

[@matthewjohnson3656]

Yeah but you somehow gotta transmit all of that energy across the globe without significant transmission loss.

[@ethanomcbride]

Why do I want a space elevator? To get stuck in it with Tom Holland for several months while we wait for NASA & Elon to build a second MAINTENANCE space elevator with which to rescue us and the crew.

[@Elleh42]

Just mentioning that I love the pedantic mention that centrifugal force is a fictitious force. Also thought I would mention that under special relativity gravity is also a fictitious force.

[@lloydwoodward9053]

Couldn’t you send electricity through a cable attached to your elevator cable? Sort of like a metro line power rail. I’m at 30 min in, maybe you address it later. I’m not saying they are possible- I just don’t understand why power would be an issue. Edit: Tom Scott has a Hyatt video- kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJ_ZeKp8msyVeZo

[@vind302]

I thought of this idea about twenty years ago for a sci-fi story I wanted to make and knew it wasn’t realistic. I’ve been both surprised that I’m seeing this concept on KZbin and relieved that I’m not the first one to think of it.

[@AndrewBrotram]

I wasnt ready for the Faith Hill sound 💀

[@mqb3gofjzkko7nzx38]

If anyone ever invents a material with the properties needed to make a space elevator, we could just use it to make a really good spaceship.

[@davidbrisbane7206]

This video was hilariously funny whilst at the same time being super informative 👍

[@frankgonzalez607]

Your description of this video can easily be said about almost all of her videos.

[@duckrutt]

In one of the Mekton campaign books they put an elevator on Mars. It kinda gets blowed up and now Mars has a line around its equator. I don't think that's how it would work but it's a fun background detail.

[@matthewjohnson3656]

I think it would because the like algae angular momentum but as it falls towards earth, the angular speed becomes much greater- think of how if you are spinning in circles with your arms outstretched, and then you pull them in, you speed up. Same thing here except the planet doesn’t speed up cause it’s so big, so the space elevator wraps around

[@DrJovince]

The Hyatt Regency collapse was a bit more complicated than a greedy corp cutting corners (though admittedly that's usually the issue lol). It was the design engineers' combined negligence that led to the structural weakness in the final design. I agree with the broader point you're making but the Hyatt disaster isn't a great example of why we should consult engineers.

[@kezia8027]

This is incorrect - the design was changed after the fact as it was deemed 'impractical' to use the original design, and as such the second walkway was attached to the underside of the first walkway, instead of splitting the load as it was designed initially. The initial design, was not a 'good' design, as yes, it was impractical - but if they had followed the design, instead of cutting corners to save time/money then it is unlikely the accident would have occurred. The first design however, actually took the loads into account and dispersal of that load. Unlike the last minute modification to the design which ended up being the explicit reason FOR the collapse.

[@tissuepaper9962]

So much misinformation about the Hyatt Regency collapse in this comments section. Yes, the original design was not practical, that is *no excuse* for the people at the jobsite to change the structural design without consulting the structural engineer who created the original design. In fact, they could have manufactured rods that only had threads where they were needed and avoided the whole "impracticality" situation. It's really not that hard, just slightly more expensive because it's a custom component instead of a jellybean.

[@kezia8027]

@@tissuepaper9962 yeah, but the truth doesn't generate as much outrage-bait as 'ENGENEARS R SO DUM'

[@DrJovince]

Read "To Engineer is Human" by Henry Petroski instead of downplaying engineering oopsies in a KZbin comment section. Here's a hint: both the engineers and manufacturers are responsible for over 100 lost lives.

[@kezia8027]

@@DrJovince I like how you're trying to play all high and mighty when i'm trying to actually lay the fault at the feet of those responsible, and you're saying: "Jovince replied: "Awful sensitive aren't we." Seems like you don't actually give a fuck about the lives or respect and you're actually just trying to look good to randoms on the internet. Absolutely abhorrent, disgusting behaviour. You ought to be ashamed of yourself using real peoples lives as a prop in your vindictive quips because you got called out for being patently incorrect about a real life tragedy.

[@NScherdin]

The fictional force is just inertia. Note the spinning the bucket of water thing isnt the water pressing on the bucket bottom. Its the bucket bottom and pressing into the water. It is literally accelerating towards the water. The water is just trying to keep moving in a straight line.

[@ryanamendt8363]

My favorite structural failure is the lack of universal healthcare in the United States.

[@Guishan_Lingyou]

Ouch. I suspect that you hate freedom.

[@RayAtchley]

@@Guishan_Lingyouah yes. The freedom to be forced to make billionaires richer while barely being able to make rent and having to neglect your physical and mental health in order to do it. ‘Mercia

[@sideways5153]

Space elevator is a fun idea because if we can figure out a way to make it work we can replace the explode-ourselves transportation with something more like trains. A reliable, sturdy way to move freight into space would make it reasonable to develop an extra-planetary economy and civilization. Space elevators are kinda like mecha robots, though. The hypothetical advantages almost definitely won’t outweigh the difficulty of even constructing such a thing, let alone operating it

[@scarpfish]

Title: "Can we space elevator?" Laws of physics: "You humans are too funny! Let me get a camera! Epicfailapalooza in 3, 2, 1..." 😂

[@lakeberatan1339]

I always wanted a space elevator when I was a kid/teenager and since you asked why: get a bunch of projects all over the solar system getting more detail about planets, moons, asteroids, asteroid belts, the sun, you name it. Get bigger, better space telescopes up. Throw some of them on big multi decade/century journeys to observe stuff you can't observe from Earth/orbit. Try and build habitats. Maybe generational ships. I've since understood it's at best implausible and impractical but yeah. It's all based on the promises, not the practical reality. Less energy/cost to get stuff into space. Which would mean more science, more exploration, more testing boundaries.

[@emikochan13]

apparently most of the space garbage de-orbits after a few months so it's not going to be a problem unless higher orbits get full of junk, but we don't really use those much.

[@rantandroll7583]

There is a proposed system for spinning, at high velocity, a rocket and flinging it into space. This thing is indoors and would be released up a tunnel, the timing of which would be crucial. Imagine what a failure would be like, this thing spinning at supersonic speeds and not quite making it up that tunnel. I wouldn't want to live within 100 miles of it.

[@btrenninger1]

The scariest thing about the Hyett disaster is that it highlights the disjunction between the engineering (which was fine) and construction and inspection (which was not fine).

[@mark.fedorov]

I like the idea of space elevator because it can be powered by anything, including solar (or fusion) = more green than rockets. And why would anyone need them - to build factories in space for more interesting materials. But to me it is a futuristic idea, the one that requires invention of super-strong material and also probably energy storage and also probably fusion. I didn't know there were scammers nowadays who act like they could build it in the nearest future.

[@jumpsplat120]

So, there's a bunch of reasons why space elevators aren't solved, but some of the problems you mentioned do have solutions. The power would come from ground based stations, so you wouldn't need to carry your fuel, which is one of the biggest issues with rockets, since you can't just keep giving it more fuel (because it'll just get heavier and heavier). Also, as far as descent goes, you can use the Hall effect to offset the power costs for slowing it down. As for why we'd want a space elevator? Mostly it's just more cost effective. The reusability of the tower, plus not having to account for fuel costs on ascent/descent make it cheaper than a rocket. That being said, yea, there's tons of issues that don't seem super solvable. Like, maybe we find a metamaterial that allows us to build the cables, but if it were to fail, it would fail in a BIG way. like, the cable coming down would be one of the biggest disasters of human history. And there's no good solution for that, because like, you can't ever guarantee that it won't fail. At best, you can put in a million redundancies. But unlike a rocket, where if all the redundancies fail, you lose the astronauts, if the space elevator failed, you'd take out huge populations centers. The top of the cable would effectively turn into a Rod from God on some random city/cities. Ultimately, the downsides are bigger than the upsides.

[@atkvin]

It's not architecture-related, but I enjoy a ton of Disaster Breakdown's coverage of plane crash incidents and their insights into the process and intricacies of flight!

[@guillermoleon0216]

I think the appeal of the space elevator is that to someone that doesn't know about all the issues that it would have and how much it'd cost (you don't know what you don't know), it might seem really intuitive and straightforward. In contrast, you don't have to know anything about rockets to know that it is expensive, dangerous and a huge hassle. It's easy to think that it would end up being like going up an elevator in a building, that once it is in place you just use it. And you could go up to see space, and then go down and that's it. No fancy astronaut training.

[@MarkWeisbach]

Since the elevator goes through the ionosphere, there will be a voltage difference at the surface of the earth of more than 100,00 volts. So, maybe you don't need the reactor. It might even be a net power producer.

[@aukword6255]

Begins => Hey kids, Integral maths is cool! Ends => [existential dread and capitalisynicism] Results => "Perfect entertainment."

[@ІванДжиніч]

Steel,I would prefer to see the problem solved analytically, without the integration. Not the power role is a problem, but how so very convenient integration do appear in the first place.

[@sherlockehekatl467]

23:43 I feel like you got a lot of satisfaction from the part in Red Mars where the collapsing cable destroys everything

[@jackcochran2581]

In the Arthur C. Clarke 2001 fictional universe, the space elevator is not built until 3001. That's Arthur C. Clarke's estimation of the technological readiness level.

[@birkett83]

You power it with electric cables inside the elevator cable itself. Maybe you need superconductors for this. Since most of the cable is above the atmosphere, if you can shield the power cable from the sun somehow, maybe you don't even need high temperature superconductors. I've never seen anyone ask or attempt to answer this. You use regenerative breaking on the way down to recover energy, so if you're bringing down more mass than you bring up (steel mined from asteroids or water, or whatever) it helps power itself. I found the article you showed on screen and it did not explain this, but that's why it said all without fuel. The article was so dumb it didn't even mention the tyranny of the rocket equation. You ask why you would want such a thing in the first place. If you have cities on the moon and mars and you've put all the world's manufacturing in the asteroid belt to avoid polluting the earth, and you have the materials required to build it, at some point the cost of all the rocket fuel you need outweighs the cost of building the space elevator. It seems highly unlikely that either the materials or the demand will be there in our lifetime, but if we're still here in a few centuries it might be both technologically and economically possible. I highly recommend Isaac Arthur's video on the subject. He thinks carbon nanotubes would be strong enough if you could manufacture them in bulk nearly flawlessly and if you also taper the cable so it's wider at the top than the bottom. He also explains why cable failures are not (quite) as catastrophic as you might expect. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpSbkHSrr8qMgac

[@LowByteProductions]

I know this is an older video and there's already almost 4k comments, but: Have you read Delta-V and Critical Mass by Daniel Suarez? There's no space elevator, but it makes a fairly compelling case for how we *could* get to actually building large scale stuff in orbit, using materials mined in the solar system. It definitely grasps at some sci-fi straws - the idea of flawlessly "printing" out huge structures using chemical vapor deposition felt like a bit of a stretch - but I really enjoyed it! I'd happily listen to you - a proper scientist - break it down good or bad, for an hour or five.

[@MultiSteveB]

37:47 "A mile! OMG!" Well, the first airplane flight was only 120 feet. But the sound barrier was broken only 44 years later. And 22 years later still... the Concorde.

[@Milan_Openfeint]

Yeah she's a bit like Thunderf00t on this one. Way outside her expertise.

[@Serastrasz]

@@Milan_Openfeint So is everyone currently "working" on it, imo. It doesn't matter how precise the requirement calculations are, an engineer will just slap a +50% safety margin on it anyway to cover for material faults and unexpected stresses. Speaking of, people seem to forget that the atmosphere isn't (near) geostationary all the way up. At high altitudes there are supersonic windshears relative to a geostationary position. The vibrations on the cables alone would be beyond manageable.

[@sideways5153]

A proof of concept for a space elevator isn’t possible. You either build a space elevator or you haven’t demonstrated that space elevators are feasible. Idk what part of dangling a mile-long string out of a plane or whatever makes you think we can start building a cable car from the earth to space. When someone builds a cable car that travels straight up into the sky maybe we can talk about space elevators more

[@freya4184]

My astronomy professor brought up the space elevator in one of our first lectures. We had a mini debate over it and a lot of the students had high hopes for it. At the end of the semester (after never mentioning it after the first debate) he asked us again and most of the students who thought it was feasible in the beginning changed their minds 😂

[@gytux0258]

well... what i imagine it could get you is that instead of needing a lot of propelant on your spacecraft, you could just power the elevator with a powerstation on earth. But thats probably not viable.

[@PHHE1]

Well the whole point in the idea of an elevator compared to vehicles would be having a physical connection to the ground, thus not needing an autonomous energy source. Putting electricity lines inside the rope of course doesn't make the strength thing more feasible.

[@whowhenhowwhy]

The end credits bit bit deserves more recognition. ❤

[@rogers4760]

The reason people like space elevators is because there cool. They'll show a few minutes of attention, maybe throw a few dollars at it because its cool and interesting.

[@DonoGaming]

i can’t believe i got tricked into watching calculus homework

[@watsonwrote]

I love Cracking the Cryptic! Glad to see them get a shout out