Getting to Space Could Become a Lot Easier

Theories on how to build a space elevator have been around for decades. Scientists say not only would such technology change humanity, but that we could have built one by now.
#Space #Moonshot #BloombergQuicktake
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[@edwardgrigoryan3982]

The space based coverage by Bloomberg Quicktake lately has been outstanding.

[@business]

Which space-related topic areas interest you the most?

[@UltimateEntity]

@@business human importance

[@hansolowe19]

@James do you have some actual sources? Or is jesus telling you it is mean to space angels?

[@hansolowe19]

@@business - likely places to find (microbial) life - space mining (as touched on here) - space neutrality i.e. must we solve our small minded political bickering and come together as the single (1) planet we are *before* we do things like colonise the moon or mars or make space elevators, or can we do those things well through (hopefully) neutral science while the planet burns and just hope one doesn't spill over into the other? - future giga-spaceprojects like the James Webb or moon landings - results of James Webb - shortages of materials such as rare metals, helium, phosphates and how to fix or deal with the shortages - sustainability of space stuff in general, is it wise to go all in on these things while the planet is in a bad way and should we perhaps fix the only planet we will ever have before looking for other planets to ruin? Just some thoughts.

[@waseyrahimy6886]

Gravitational Lensing

[@onceuponatimeandspace]

Brad Edwards seems to dismiss most of the very real problems with space elevators very quickly. We can only make Carbon Nanotubes in the lab, it isn't really a question of commercialisation. Commercialisation does not promise the price will go down; it might be an investment that makes slow or little returns. And rocketry is undergoing a revolution thanks to companies like SpaceX that are making space far cheaper and with far larger payloads. For comparison, Edwards said 100 T on a space Elevator would be great, but that's the minimum planned weight of the Starship launch system. His counter-arguments concerning debris don't seem persuasive. I think space elevators would be great and wonderful, but there are serious engineering problems to be faced to get there. It's not just about the money and will.

[@vibol03]

Yeah he said in the video that he was HOPING some other researchers would take his study and make a corrections on it. His sad expression was kinda heart breaking for me to see. Of course, there are many engineering problems but people are just not interested enough. If there's a will, there's a way. But in this case, not enough.

[@danilegal8]

I agree 100%, Brad was very dismissive

[@AmigoSecular]

Your whole argument folds into itself, this is exactly the same argument people had used about rockets until Elon dumped Money and will on it.

[@AmigoSecular]

@James Pretty much my point.

[@TempleGuitars]

@James Don't feed the trolls. They want to live in fantasy land, let them.

[@infinitefreefall3532]

The fact that the japanese professor spoke about how the elevator could cause wars might have been the reason why the writers of Ace Combat 7 wrote their game's story around this concept. Either way it would be dope if we one day build something like this!

[@tokyo-ru]

should say to all the noobs out there, no watched Gundam 00 ? , if only oh well we can dream no ? but for energy could be

[@M1ggins]

yeah, my first thought was that whichever allied bloc built one would have such military advantage that the others couldn't possibly let them build it.

[@normhurd5859]

Every time I see one of these things it's always one cable stretched directly to space. With some sort of climbing apparatus attached to it. The problem with this is how would you ever repair it if it got torn or hit or scratched. If you had a giant pulley system where on the ground you had a giant real or spool the cable would go up to the space counterweight through a pulley and back to the ground to another giant real or spool. Then instead of having a climber you could just attach whatever you was sending into space to the cable and reel it up or down like a fishing pole. Then if something had to be done to repair the cable. It could be it done on land instead of 200 miles off the ground.

[@JM-us3fr]

Yeah that’s the obvious solution. Additionally, I would have multiple smaller cables, so you don’t need to repair them all at the same time

[@VRtechman]

But this Ribbon of Cable would be Electromagnetic. The Climber is more of a Maglev trane.

[@alvaroluffy1]

i would make the climber so each time it climbs up or down, its "repairing" the cable by adding more layers of carbon nanotube to the cable. I dont know how it would work, and you probably would have to stop adding layers at certain sections of the cable and then start adding layers again on another point of the cable, so you'd need an AI system capable of detecting the state of the near portions of the cable, and then a system that adds layers and can be activated and deactivated at will. I also dont know how would that work in the sense that i dont know if you can just "add a new layer" to the cable, but i had the idea because i saw that the cable they're talking about here is like a flat, wide cable, so i thought you could add more layers to it easily, but idk. If my idea is possible, that could repair the cable way faster than it is broken by micrometeorites, specially because, if a micrometeorite hits the cable "here", the next micrometeorite probably will hit the cable on another point 1000 km away from "here" ("here" is a random point of the cable), but it will not be on the same place, so youd need a super long time for the accumulated damage to finally cut it, so you have a very large window of time to repair it. The only problem would be a space debris that is large enough to cut the whole 3 feet of the cable at once. But as far as i know, debris that large is very very uncommon compared to micrometeorites, and even could be avoided at those scales. So i think it may be more feasible than we think, we just have to really explore the space of all possible solutions and paths

[@bertnorticus1662]

This presentation was absolutely beautiful. I really hope that we pull together as a species and colonise the stars 👍

[@MadHatter123456]

Have fun living on a nuclear reactor. Don't forget sunscreen level 2.000.000

[@LordOfLight]

The problem with that idea is that we can't run away from ourselves. It's mankind that's the problem. I suppose you could argue that we'd buy ourselves more time; but given that we'd port our technology, our industry, and our greed, with us, I doubt it'd be a very long time.

[@bertnorticus1662]

@@LordOfLight I think our problems will be solved when quantum computed AI's create new technologies and possibly new ideologies, most of which humans today would have trouble comprehending.

[@MadHatter123456]

@@LordOfLight problem is that a star isn't a planet.

[@LordOfLight]

@@bertnorticus1662 Is that meant to be serious? If so, your naivety is touching.

[@deepfreeze1001]

This is great. The next space-related video should be about potential ways to clean up space.

[@pleaseenteranamelol711]

I think cleaning up all the high-velocity junk up there will prove to be even harder.

[@imperator_odin]

Lol.. brain .. washed

[@physicswcccd]

Exactly what I thought. As long as debris can hit the cable, it's a non-starter. In LEO vehicles often need to move to get out of the way. The problem here is that the elevator would be in a fixed location, so if the debris is junk (not a controlled vehicle) it would not steer around it. If anything cut the cable, the elevator would be a rock in a slingshot.

[@Davethreshold]

Yes, humankind pollutes everything we touch!

[@Siferis]

There's an anime about this very process; they have teams sent up there dedicated to cleaning up space debris. It's called Planetes.

[@rockstar3840]

From a risk/reward perspective, all it takes is 1 big or small space debris and you can say sayonara to your Space Elevator

[@zollen123]

You can say the same about the ISS station.

[@rockstar3840]

@@zollen123 ISS is maneuverable. Elevator is static.

[@zollen123]

@@rockstar3840 It doesn't necessary to be stationary.

[@vinayakgupta6105]

@@zollen123 explain how would you move that thing

[@zollen123]

@@vinayakgupta6105 like a satellite

[@jimmyryan5880]

He lost me when he said they didnt even have to think about collisions because there are companies tracking things.

[@williamodey9833]

He did come across as a bit delusional with a few things, that and when he's talking about the carbon nanotubes "we have them right here", no you don't, that looks like a bag of dust, not a ribbon O_o

[@MaryFilkins]

That's exactly what we all thought. Just a pull for investors to shuffle money around.

[@Gregorius421]

He might think the space elevator will just make an evasive maneuver... /s Another false claim was that losing the counterweight would increase tension at the bottom and break there too, so that the ribbon flies away. Quite the opposite, the counterweight was balancing gravity, without it gravity wins and pulls down the ribbon. Even if it breaks, only the part above GEO has the orbital velocity to stay up.

[@robertlefou]

getting stuck and waiting for the repair team to climb the 32324409883847232833882393921 ladder rungs..

[@theoneed2051]

Seriously! The only "Space Elevator" content I've enjoyed watching, I'm literally looking for more. Credit to the who ever put this together, editor, and writter.

[@westifer8838]

A team within Google looked at this idea, and it was quickly dismissed after discussing the physics between the Earth's rotation and space, it would shatter before even being completed

[@islamonlysolution461]

the solar based engines will keep the platform at same place where it needed than all will be ok

[@joegoddard9661]

What I was thinking, and to be in orbit you need a lot of speed, like the space station orbits every 90 minutes, so how would you have something in orbit, but orbiting at the same speed as the earth? That’s literally not possible so to connect the bottom of the cable wouldn’t be possible? And wouldn’t lowering a cable into atmosphere while orbiting cause drag and maybe start spinning the elevator, while slowing it down and basically aero-braking ? Then causing the top to start falling back out of orbit

[@joegoddard9661]

@@islamonlysolution461 how? To stay in the same place in terms of the earth below, gravity would be pulling you in, you need to be going AROUND the planet to stay in orbit, it’s not just a matter of going up then you start floating there

[@islamonlysolution461]

@@joegoddard9661 he gave some theory platfomr is far away from earth in space which results in torque to maintain it same pace with earth and it will be all ok

[@anthonyellis6831]

@@joegoddard9661 When you are at the right height, the orbital period will exactly match the rotation rate of the earth, so it appears to stay directly above a fixed location on earth. From there, you build the ribbon down to earth and also balance forces by building the ribbon up attached to the counterweight.

[@davidgill2592]

Arthur C, Clarke fired my imagination many decades ago with the mention of a space elevator, and set me thinking about the mechanical problems to be solved. The cable was my initial stumbling block, but that could now be well on the way to being solved. Unfortunately, there was no mention of how they propose to cope with the lateral forces created by the rotation of the Earth and the inertia of the "climber" and its load. At the Earth's surface, the equatorial peripheral speed is about 1000 mph, whilst at just the height for a stable orbit (escape velocity) it needs to be travelling at 17,500 mph. The higher it goes, the faster it needs to go. This could pull the cable seriously out of plumb and even cause "whiplash" effects and uncontrolled oscillations.

[@Quickshot0]

That was actually calculated in the original work. But basically it causes the cable to bend a bit, but because the cable is being kept taught, this means this bending causes an extra force trying to straighten it out again. Now of course there is a limit one shouldn't exceed, to much of a bend and the cable won't hold up. But well that's like for any equipment, using it out of spec will be ruinous. As for where the energy for this all ultimate comes from, that would be Earth's rotation, but the total energy in Earth's rotation is so stupidly high it won't particularly matter. But basically if one launched an incredible amount via an elevator, then the length of a day might eventually be a second longer.

[@albeit1]

To accelerate that car horizontally as it goes up the cable is the real problem with this idea. A rocket on the car or at the top of the elevator would be required. And it would require fuel. And, since it would be very slow compared to a regular rocket ride to space, that rocket has to work days. So, what are advantages again?

[@Quickshot0]

@@albeit1 That's not how things like slings work, the cable itself would accelerate the cargo. Due to this at geostationary orbit you could just release a payload and it remain in orbit there. The energy for this acceleration would come from the Earths rotation.

[@zazethe6553]

@@albeit1 it's like a regular elevator in an apartment building, just higher. It doesn't need to go fast, the fastest elevator is about 75km/h. The height of geostationary is 35000km. So it could take 19 days to get to the top, with a small electrical motor pulling itself up slowly along the cable.

[@albeit1]

@@zazethe6553 don’t things stay in orbit because of the speed they’re traveling around the Earth? Anything that goes out to such an object also has to achieve that speed. How is its orbital velocity increased? By what force?

[@DemonSkySnow]

BBG Quicktake truly is a little gem amongst all the **** on youtube

[@I-l-l-l-l-l]

a tension based space elevator is impossible and cable strength isn’t the problem. Your big counterweight simply stores angular momentum needed for accelerating loads laterally as they climb. you’d need rockets to accelerate the counterweight laterally to set up the elevator in the first place and each load needs rockets to accelerate them laterally as well or your be taking angular momentum from the counterweight…ie crashing your pretty space elevator. You could only do this with a stiff elevator that takes angular momentum from the earth as loads are raised or build a stiff elevator at the poles which don’t add angular momentum.

[@Adyen11234]

Why can't you just have something "crawl" on the cable instead? As long as the load doesn't exceed a certain weight based on the counterweight placed in space, it shouldn't be possible for the counterweight to be "pulled" down.

[@Davethreshold]

From what I have seen elsewhere on YT here, the longest nanotube created so far is about a few centimeters. It is under 2 inches. 😨

[@JM-us3fr]

I’m pretty sure the record is longer than that by now, plus you don’t need every nanotube to be the length of the entire cable. This is because the tubes have friction between them, and the longer they are, the greater the friction. So we may only need the individual nanotubes to be a few meters long.

[@Davethreshold]

@@JM-us3fr Oh, o.k. Thank you J M! I DO think this can happen though. Would that be the coolest thing or what? Like Fusion reactors and the ultimate A.I. it is only a matter of time.

[@apex9806]

I have to say, this video is exceptionally well produced.

[@bobshakor8184]

Space elevator could be employed in precision sampling or mining from asteroids. Landing on asteroids is very challenging, due to its low mass.

[@kedrednael]

So how could space elevator help then?

[@I-l-l-l-l-l]

assuming your cable is strong enough to maintain tension without breaking you still have deal with adding the angular momentum to the stuff you’re lifting which will pull the cable sideways. You’re not just lifting, you’re accelerating laterality...sideways.

[@Quickshot0]

The side ways effect is understood in such systems. You see that in slings if you move an object along it. So long as the outward force is strong enough it will only get pushed sideways a bit.

[@MarksmanSpecialist]

im getting ready for gundam 00 live action

[@falloutmule]

We will use our Carbon Nanotubes (*coming soon at scale... maybe) and move up to a 100 tons a day or couple days. SpaceX's Starship (if it works) would make any risk of building a space elevator not worth it anytime soon, but it would make it easier to build one.

[@kengollon9537]

While a huge fan of SpaceX, the requirement of 7-9 refuelings to reach either the moon or Mars is dampening the hopes of starship opening up space. A space elevator could be used to bring up fuel without the risks of multiple flights needed to provide propellant to starship thereby allowing more "starships" and less "tankers".

[@pewterhacker]

SpaceX is currently charging NASA around $70000 per/kg to deliver payload to the ISS. Starship, when it works, will not be 700X cheaper. It might be 2X cheaper, but even that's a stretch. Starship's innovations just don't make it significantly more cost effective than Falcon9.

[@onelegd1]

Seems like somebody was watching Apples version of Asimov’s Foundation.

[@chrism.1131]

If it is built as a modular stage system, it eliminates most of the problems brought up in this video. With the added benefit of being deployed in smaller sections as opposed to one single ridiculously long tether. With multiple tethers at GEO where there is virtually zero weight penalty and fewer tethers as you move out from center, you also eliminate the need for tapering.

[@joshv06]

When I think about space elevators, I think about the potential for terrorist attacks.

[@phill2065]

But as you’ve seen in the video, the damage done would be tiny

[@taith2]

If you approach problem to reverse pyramid, you can already build such cable using existing materials. Trick is that it would get thicker the higher you go. With regular carbon fiber or zylon you would achieve same effect much easier, thing is you need start building from top to bottom.

[@SapioiT]

Active-support space-towers? Yes, they're getting closer to reality. Mass-drivers to get a spaceship into orbit without using fuel? Yes, they're also getting closer to reality (especially to get cargo in orbit, since you need a much shorter track and can get a much higher acceleration than humans can survive, which makes it cheaper). And no, the space tower won't have a counterweight to keep it straight, it will be pushed up and into place using active support. Whether that active support is from lasers, or from something like water being circulated through the system, is irrelevant. The space-tower could even be telescopic, so you can retract it when the weather is bad, to minimize the possible damage, or when it's not in use for long periods of time, to do maintenance and reduce the cost of operation. It doesn't even need to get far enough into orbit for space junk to hit it, since most of that would burn in the atmosphere before reaching the top of the active-support space-tower. We could even have landing strips on which spaceships to land on the tower, or even entire cities, and get solar power by using power satellites which then beam the energy with infrared rays up to infrared antennas which to then deliver it back to earth and use some of it to keep the tower up, and it would also allow for spaceships to be built into reduced gravity, so people could carry more weight around. And that would be prime real estate for building rotating habitats like O'Neil cylinders, in which to have living people and even grow food. You can even make a launch-loop by having two or three active support space towers connected with eachother, or having different places connected to them. This could lead to going to the other side of the planet taking a mere 1 hour. And once the tech is advanced enough, people could finally start colonizing the space, starting with staying in space and orbiting Earth, then orbiting the moon, then orbiting other planets while scanning for the right places to colonize, then colonizing the planets themselves, then maybe even tethering a few hundreds to a few thousands of rotating habitats at 1g (the same acceleration as Earth's gravity) to the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) located at 4.37 lightyears would take around 4 years or less for the travelers and 6 or more years for those left on Earth. This means that they have to use very large antennas with laser-based communication back-and-forth to trade science done on board in exchange for new science from Earth, so the new colony doesn't get so outdated that the next wave of ships would completely dominate the first wave of ships sent. It also means that enough people have to be sent there to ensure humanity can spread even if something happens to Earth and even if the radiation from space were to make most people sterile, which will likely require using artificial wombs like scientists already used to birth animals without the need of parents, from frozen baby batter and eggs, but using the baby-batter and eggs the people on those ships collected before leaving the solar system (to minimize the risk of contagion). This would likely require entire websites (like youtube) to have almost-full physical backups on those space-ships, allowing people to consume content from them even when away from Earth. This would also require both digital and physical books being carried. And not only that, but the convoy will likely become legally it's own country, including having new people join the convoy using rotating habitats moving at 3g, which would only take 1.7 years for the travelers or 5 ears on Earth to get to the same star. In fact, with that kind of acceleration, the rotating habitats would likely not even rotate for humans, maybe only for growing plants and animals in higher gravity, if doing so is advantageous. Instead, the rotating habitats would only be rotating once coasting inside the solar system at the right distance from the star, while studying the planets to choose for resource-harvesting and later habitation. Mass-drivers would likely be pre-fabricated, for exchanging data caches with Earth at speeds much faster than humans can afford (like 20g, which would take a data cache to the star in 5.2 months for the data-cache, or 4.6 years for the people who are left on Earth). This What I mentioned is the perceived time for the travelers (how much time passes for them, and how much they age thanks to that), and the time perceived on Earth.

[@jmuench420]

I don't think you're gonna to use water to support anything in space, remember if you want your active support structure in orbit whatever you're using for support will need to exceed orbital speeds. The active structures I've seen proposed by serious people generally have a solid metallic ring in a vacuum tube accelerated and stabilized by magnets. There's three basic formats for the same technology: launch loops (basically a pair of arches/elevated causeways to support mass drivers), space fountains (a horizontal loop on the ground transitioning to vertical and back down again, often shown bundled to support an elevated structure and/or mass drivers) and the big daddy, orbital rings (a bundle of those same tubes but built around the planet in orbit, forming a massive platform for structures and/or mass drivers).

[@simonbenn5340]

I want what your smoking.... gotta be some strong sh!t. Lol 😆 🤣

[@donquique1]

You have mastered idiocy. Congrats.

[@SapioiT]

​@@jmuench420 Space fountains can use water (thanks to strong-enough walls to resist the pressure) to push an updraft tower (a space fountain, if you will) to be taller than we can build with conventional methods. Laser or a liquid metal or other particles can be used to get even taller, for a higher price. Launch loops are like space fountains, but sideways and connecting two places or more. The orbital ring is like a looping active-support space-tower around a celestial body (can even be around the sun, or around a black hole, or around an asteroid). For example, you can reach double the height of the tallest building on Earth with active-support using water, especially if you use a pump to push the water down faster, which in turn pushes the top of the structure up a bit more. Since the water would be looping, you only need pipes which to survive the water moving fast and stopping abruptly, and the energy to move it fast enough to keep the structure up, because the water not moving (ignoring that the tower would fall if that happened) would act like the counterweight of an elevator.

[@SapioiT]

​@@simonbenn5340 Just because you don't know enough physics _(quick-edit: and technology)_ to know what is possible with current tech, doesn't mean that what I'm saying is not possible and cheaper than sending ships in space conventionally.

[@martylawson1638]

It was glossed over, but we still don't have the tech to build the cable for a practical orbital elevator. If we do ever get the tech to make cables for orbital elevators, we will see it coming decades in advance because the wonder material will already be revolutionizing industry.

[@Quickshot0]

Technically to an extent it already is, but yeah, carbon nanotubes still need more work.

[@willshumway1627]

Any problem with this kind of space elevator where the tether is extremely lightweight, strong and thin is what happens when a micrometeorite hits it? The space station is able to detect and use its thrusters to avoid micrometeorites from hitting its systems, what kind of space elevator do to stop its tether from being ripped apart by a very quickly moving object? I'm sure there are ways that could be solved, but how practical are they and are those defensive methods feasible yet?

[@andriusdi]

"The space station is able to detect and use its thrusters to avoid micrometeorites from hitting its systems" I think you are mixing up something, micro meteorites are very small and undetectable by any systems on space station. Then only thing is they do little damage and are very rare to hit anything. Space station is able to avoid large debris, either it's a space junk or some other larger object.

[@willshumway1627]

@@andriusdi I am more specifically talking about micrometeorites, what happens when objects that are too small to be detected keep hitting this super thin 3 ft long ribbon? The space station uses essentially spaced armor to slow down and eventually stop those kinds of objects from puncturing the station, but what about the elevator? Practically speaking my guess is they would have to continually repair and replace the tether. It's not like it's impossible, but I would certainly want to know how, and for how much money, repairs would be done.

[@andriusdi]

@@willshumway1627 Well you stated this "The space station is able to detect and use its thrusters to avoid micrometeorites from hitting its systems" it's wrong and I just corrected you, nothing to worry about.

[@omerahmed3959]

Thanks for this Bloomberg, I always wondered if an elevator to space was possible

[@hans-joachimbierwirth4727]

It isn't. Don't tkank them for lying to you!

[@KrampusVsChristmas]

Build 3 elevators at one location. 2 of the 3 are for maintenance/repairs, emergencies, and can shield payloads with synchronous movements.

[@kedrednael]

You can let many cables down to different places on earth from one counterweight. Then if one cable breaks the counterweight would not fly away, and you'd have multiple space elevator ground access ports.

[@arthurthomasware5004]

I can vaguely remember a Science Fiction concept in a kids' comic in the 1940's called, "The Black Beam." Things placed into the beam could then leave earth and journey into space. Haven't a clue what the "Black Beam," was, but it was obviously an idea. It's from ideas that everything else comes.

[@damongnojek3912]

The space elevator could double as a debris cleanup station if equipped sufficiently. Nets, chaff launcher, harpoons, magnets, etc.

[@tomservo5007]

there's no way a space elevator could work

[@Mrbfgray]

@@tomservo5007 Only material strength gets in the way of it fundamentally working. Whether or not it could *last* with orbital debris is another thing.

[@bambitakesflight7345]

Unfortunately although nanotubes are incredibly strong, that strength does not carry as the fibres get longer, such as in strands needed to construct a space elevator, hopefully they find a way to overcome this....

[@neelamshukla1144]

If this becomes a reality, I'll be very happy as not only it's better or cooler, but also because we won't be destroying the earth with all those gases

[@mattm597]

A space elevator of some sort is the ONLY way we are going to achieve space exploration and colonization of any significance scale. Rocketry is just to economically and operationally inefficient---not to mention dangerous.

[@PushyPawn]

No one seems to discuss the effect of imparting angular momentum to the mass that is being raised. (if the elevetor already exists) Any load must accelerate from 0.46 km/s at ground (equator) to orbital velocity, ~7.4 km/s at low Earth orbit height, as it ascsends. The force needed to accelerate this ascending mass will pull on the cable sideways and tilt the counterwight off it's starting perpendicular angle in reference to Earth. To correct for this you would need to accelerate the counterweight back in the direction of Earth's rotation with rockets. This is *just one* of the reasons why the answer to the this video's title is a firm "No".

[@_Teo_Dor]

This is the real problem. No one is even considering it. Why do you think that rockets mostly spend energy on gaining lateral velocity?

[@andore7596]

The repercussions the Japanese professor said sounded like a plot from the Gundam series.

[@aujulon]

Gundum 00 a classic lol

[@ElbowShouldersen]

These projections of the extreme efficiency of a "space elevator" sound similar to the claims that were originally made for NASA's Space Shuttle program... and that program turned out to be an order of magnitude less efficient (i.e., more expensive) than assumed, and an order of magnitude more dangerous than had been assumed...

[@JM-us3fr]

Both of these problems were due to the Nixon administration cutting funds to the development of the Shuttle. By taking a cheaper route, they made it less effective and more dangerous

[@eddybrevet6816]

Question, a wheel, big , going around earth, also spinning at or near orbit velocity?

[@amandaburns5421]

The lack of scientific knowledge and the lack of media scrutiny is amazing. This concept was debunked many many times. We do not have technology to do this. “He couldn’t find a reason why we cannot do it”??? What type of search did he do? High school library??

[@michaelcjakob]

I genuinely hope you find an investor or entrepreneur taking this on! Thank you Bloomberg for bringing attention to that and accelerating human progress!

[@bhawanisinghindia2287]

Really amazing ideas....🙏🤝🗺🌍👽👽👽

[@Killngo]

Space elevators are in my opinion a bad idea. I see it like the stone wheel, where we try to use new technology with old thinking processes. This space elevator is the same thing.

[@lemonrand1]

The year Kessler effect happened.. we will know if space elevator can be built.. lol

[@0XYGENgone]

No way that Space Elevator would only cost 8 billion lol.... More like 800 billion. crazy idea.

[@NoInterleaving]

thanks for your video and hard work

[@hailsatan6227]

I can’t wait to see the first people break down on it

[@PrayitnoAshuri]

There is electrical energy in the atmosphere with a very high potential. connect the atmosphere above and the earth will cause a lightning bolt that melts the wires

[@Quickshot0]

There is some electrical gradation, but it's not really enough for such an effect. Especially not if the tether isn't particular conductive. They were more concerned in the design with the actual fairly realistic risk of just getting hit by lightning in a lightning storm instead. But they had a solution for that as well.

[@PacoOtis]

Knowing humans as we do, sabotage would certainly be a concern.

[@PacoOtis]

Testosterone and religion would soon destroy cooperation! Best of luck to all of us!

[@denelson83]

Betteridge's Law of Headlines strikes again.

[@SkullTraill]

TRANTOR INCOMING!! PRAISE EMPIRE.

[@Nilcha-2]

Instead of building an elevator, is it possible to just lay an electric cable and let the satellites draw energy from it (like a train cable)? Basically, an electric satellite.

[@kedrednael]

There is still gravity in space. To stay in space low above earth the satellites are moving at 8km/s sideways. 20 times faster than a bullet. They are going around the earth 16 times a day. So no, you can't connect a cable to a satellite. Btw satellites are already electric, they were a driving force behind solar power. Exactly because you can't refuel them or connect them to a cable easily. Also because there are no clouds in space.

[@leafrika6520]

I think everything that takes us to space will change how we interact with space

[@Jaybearno]

12:30 suprised he admitted that as a risk. If the cable broke, the top of the elevator could be fitted with control rockets.. it would just be repositioned in orbit as a space station.

[@denelson83]

No, it would be jettisoned into space.

[@kedrednael]

The top of the elevator is beyond geosynchronous orbit, but going one orbit per day (so it is too fast for its height (because it has to be able to keep the cable up)). So if the cable broke, the top would enter an orbit that goes even higher than that. Or it could even escape the earth-moon system.

[@Jaybearno]

@@kedrednael thanks for the response. I'm not sure i understand completely. It seems like you think it would *not* be jettisoned as well. Doesn't feel intuitive that it would be, because once the counterweight becomes 'weightless', there's nothing to jettison (?)

[@kedrednael]

​@@Jaybearno It would probably not escape earth-moon system, but it would enter an elliptical orbit, with the low point being where it broke, the high point being higher than that. If you stood in the counterweight, where would your feeting be pointing? I think you think you'd stand with your feet toward earth, like we do on the ground. But that's not the case. if you were to stand in the counterweight, you'd be standing with your feet away from earth (with very low G). It's like water in a swinging bucket. The water stays on the bottom of the bucket because of "centrifugal force" (it wants to go straighter, but it is being pushed into a circle motion by the bucket). Even above your head the water is kept in the bucket. you let the bucket go, it is now weightless, flying away from you. But if the counterweight is close enough to geostationary orbit, that means it is not fast enough to escape earth-moon system.

[@stjepangorera941]

This will be the great thing to improve look of people to space that we closend people that they differently look at life that they deepend new horizon and phylosophy of life you must think that every child visit that station on space it will open the space interest for whole world that will inspired the world. Pozdrav iz Hrvatske🇪🇺🇭🇷

[@visions91]

This is the best space elevator content I have seen on KZbin.

[@IllusiveDude]

look up Isaac arthurs video on the same topic.

[@lightsone2]

I've seen quite a few articles on this. It's very interesting and has been used a some scifi books I've read. However, I never see anything on how to keep it safe from terrorists. Airplanes, explosives in cargo shipments, dissatisfied employees, ect. Carbon nanotube isn't invulnerable.

[@andreylukyanov2179]

Equatorial orbit, zero inclination orbit, is not that interesting for many space applications.

[@davidmedlin8562]

We do not have the materials or technology yet!!!!!

[@JM-us3fr]

I think he’s a little more optimistic than he should be, but I’m certainly optimistic. One thing critics like to point out is that the cable would need to be a perfect crystalline molecular structure of carbon nanotubes, but this is not true. You only need the molecules to be long enough to create enough friction between them (via Van der Waals forces) to match their tensile strength, which may only be a few meters. Space debris can be cleaned up, and so too can the Van Allen radiation belts, both for which there has been plans but no one has gotten around to actually doing it. The elevator would also make a lot of satellites obsolete, since we could bounce signals off of the elevator instead (at least, half the planet could). There is still inevitable damage caused by material fatigue, micrometeorites, or other natural sources, so I think the best solution is to have multiple cables which loop around a pulley at the counterweight. This allows us to replace damaged sections of the cable by reeling them down to earth, and also allows for flexibility in the length of the cable as it may be affected by the Moon or the Sun. Safety mechanisms like retrorockets on the counterweight or a severing device on Earth would be a given. And let’s remember the payoff: you will be able to get anywhere in the solar system just by letting go of the cable at a desired length; no rocket fuel required. And if you aim at Jupiter, you can even leave the solar system.

[@danilegal8]

I've found this video very cool, but scientifically not very accurate I believe, brad was very dismissive with some real problems

[@csasza76]

After someone bulild it, many others will follows. At the end each country will have at least one space elevator. I can't imagine, what will happen than...

[@zarfmouse]

There is so much unquestioned hand waving in this video! How can you possibly think that if the raw materials for the cable were $1bn that the whole project would only be $8bn? That's absurd given the amount of extremely sophisticated R&D work, construction work deployment work, and ongoing maintenance that would be required. Generating enough nanotube fibers is one thing. Engineering them into a workable and cable and actually getting that cable deployed is a whole other thing. $8bn is a laughably low cost for this given the fact that it would be an unprecedented megaproject. If it could be done for $8bn we would have 100 of them by now. So his willingness to grift on the cost makes me suspicious of every other thing he had to say about how "easy" it would be. Does not pass the laugh test. Just another grifter offering science fiction promises in order to raise capital from overly credulous investors.

[@cadekachelmeier7251]

Just the launch cost of getting 1,000 tons of nanotubes to geostationary orbit is $11 billion.

[@Fahnder99]

I don't like it, whe the video doesn't answer it's own question. We still miss 2 parts: the cable and the climber. Other than that, it's great.

[@jamesjones2212]

They should call it a space railroad. You could build an abort system within this system with redundant rolls on the anchor station. Also you could have an abort system built into the lift vehicle. When they were first building rail roads if they would've stopped because "something might disrupt the track" we would've never had commerce and trade the way we did

[@gregkiepal7682]

With basic force field technology(since we are already entertaining one science fiction concept), couldn't that help deflect most debris on the path to the elevator shaft/ribbon?

[@roycepeniston5012]

A space elevator would simply snap due to inertia, plus there would be a difference in wind drag. For the same reason Neptune has rings that elevator would snap.

[@jintzie1950jth]

The Tower of Babel 2.0

[@modernpirate]

I wonder if this would have any kind of impact on Earth's rotation/orbit?

[@n1mbusmusic606]

for sure Obital rings, which I argue we should build first.

[@danielschmidt2186]

Space tethers are much more achievable. Rotovators are another potentially superior option to assist transitioning from suborbital trajectories to orbit

[@johnl.7754]

If not Space Elevator I think still need a spaceport for arrival & departure passengers for space ships (if the don’t need to make repairs on earth) since it cost so much energy to takeoff from Earth 🌎. A small spaceship to take passengers, energy and other stuff to the spaceport is much lighter than the spaceship that needs to transport them long distances.

[@vermicelledecheval5219]

Space elevators could become a solution assisted alongside by mass drivers to send things to space for the moon and maybe mars in the far future. Rotovators for earth and venus in a bright future seems much more feasible and cost effective due to gravity and atmospheric issues.

[@dhayes907]

I wonder what kind of shadow it would cast when it becomes the subsolar point

[@frostman9661]

It might be large, but it would go past in a matter of seconds as the earth rotates. Think about a solar eclipse. The moon is infinitely larger than this and many times further and it only lasts 7 minutes when in totality.

[@dhayes907]

@@frostman9661 I would expect it to happen at local apparent solar noon twice a year and last for about a minute just like Lahaina noon. Should be a trippy shadow though.

[@frostman9661]

@@dhayes907 maybe! But I think it would last maybe a couple seconds. Think how fast a plane shadow goes by which is a fraction of a second. It's traveling at 800mph. The earth rotates at 1000mph.

[@dhayes907]

@@frostman9661 now I'm really curious.

[@glsapp23]

Sold. Let's do it.

[@arthurthomasware5004]

Is it possible to 'focus' gravity? We know the Moon ceaselessly draws billions of tons of water towards it. If a miniscule fraction of this could be focused on a small area on the earth's surface..."lift off' could be done by the gentlest of pushes.

[@supamatta9207]

The other video estimated it would save 3quadrillion and 10000 years. Its easily worth 20 trillion hours and doable under 4 for a 200km building . Saving 200 trillion in maintenance ,land etc..

[@supamatta9207]

Is that the radius of earth , did they think of 10 foot wall balloons and core. Did they think of graphene rubber gluing weaved tubes. Did they think of a solar plant on its side.

[@LI-pm3mh]

How many do you need to build to give the world internet?

[@jayobee]

Has Thunderfoot made a debunk video yet?

[@johngablesmith4671]

But didn't this thing get taken down easily in "Foundation"?

[@justtheory8233]

I think that the idea behind needing such a strong material might not be as big of a deal as mentioned. What if you made a tube within a tube. The inner tube holds water from the ocean being shot up with a pump. The outer tube is the water returning. If the water would have such a high velocity it would essentially give it strength. Like how if you fall to water from high points. The water, when hit, acts more like concrete. Then we could use the movement as the power to move the "elevator". Then also use the hydrogen for fuel to power a station and space vehicles. But I'm no Dr. Or Scientist. So who knows if this would work?

[@juha369]

most likely and artificial ring around the earth, where satalites and stations can latch onto maintaining an orbi is a better bet then an elevator. allso the ring would get rid of the all the clutter in orbit.

[@TheIvyLens]

This is awesome. Can you imagine harvesting space for raw materials, like asteroids. Like how humans use to, and in some places still do, capture rain water and purify it to make it drinkable. We could do something similar to asteroids!

[@Guyverman01]

Could their be homes in an orbital elevator?

[@willpulera7303]

If we connected a physical tether to the moon it would cause the moon to be pulled towards earth at least a few hundred feet in which the tidal pull from the moon would increase to where there would be no land on earth that wouldn't be under water at least some point during a 24 hour period.

[@xeridea]

They keep implying we can build it today, which is a huge lie. We can only make them a few inches at best. And they need to be made as one continuous, perfect string. You can't just make a bunch of short pieces and glue them together, that is not how they work. About the moon, the atmosphere has nothing to do with needed strength. It is the extreme length, and any material that we can reliably make would snap under it's own weight. I haven't checked, but the moon could be feasible, it has much lower gravity, and thus a much shorter cable would be needed. Not really practical though, since a massive cable would need transported there first.

[@ph11p3540]

Going to take a lot of magic beans to grow a beanstalk to space

[@atticus2581]

This is the first step to building a dyson sphere and advancing the human species to its next stage in civilization.

[@MarkHajdari-qs1tl]

Why don’t they just build a huge duty printer and it prints the nano tube and as the tube is being printed out for its size and length it didn’t it put in the atmospheric pressure that it’s going out so for example, helium and below that and below that and below that and basically atmosphere to race to atmosphere

[@mortkebab2849]

The space elevator has to orbit with the same period as the body its attached to rotates - for example, geosynchronous orbit in the case of the Earth. But the Moon rotates once per month, tha same as its orbital period around the Earth, which is why we see the same face of the Moon continuously. That means that a "lunasynchronous" orbit for a space elevator on the Moon would be the Earth-Moon distance, which isn't going to work because such an elevator would whack into the Earth. Instead, Mars would be a better choice.

[@Baby1245]

Space elevators may be the right solution to mankind's quest to habitate and explore planet Mars in the future. To build a space elevator in Mars should be a priority in the future.

[@AshNonokPlays]

One loop hole with the space elevator if it connects to a space station orbiting earth then the cables should also move with accordance with the orbit of the station!

[@Juhrmee]

8 billion dollars... is he shopping his space elevator at Walmart? That's ridiculous. Nobody mentioned how much the manufacturing robots would cost to build and program. I would like to talk with Brad, I have many questions

[@Quickshot0]

He did write an extensive paper on it, I actually read that back in the day it was a pretty interesting read. But part of the reason on cost is probably because there isn't actually that much to construct, all you need is a single cable/ribbon and a ground base to attach it to. Ground bases have a known kind of cost depending on how big you make them, so it depends what you want to do, but for instance you can buy up oil platforms in the hundreds of millions range I thought, plus costs to rebuild. A lot of the rest of the cost is the ribbon and the cost to get it at orbital speed because obviously you can't just throw it from the Earth in to the sky. Well it probably helps to realize the entire ribbon only might way a few hundred tons as well, a construction involving that scale of weight obviously changes the cost pictures a bit. Still, the original paper had a bit more details and ideas on how you might do it.

[@DLWELD]

Interesting stuff, though I'd like to see an explanation of how the elevator cargo being lifted would accelerate from 1000mph West to East (with Earth's surface rotation) to the required 8000 mph or so West to East at 22,000 miles altitude. Also, the cable would (at 300 miles low earth orbit altitude) be going about 1000 mph W to E, while the orbiting space junk and satellites would be going by (W to E) at 17,000 mph. Sketchy. Also some discussion on Van Allen radiation affecting carbon tubes would be useful.

[@Quickshot0]

It works via the same principle of a sling accelerating something as you let something move to the tip. But basically the string/ribbon gets a bend and at the base you have to handle some of the force coming down the cable/ribbon to you. The numbers are bigger, but it's the same principles otherwise.

[@JM-us3fr]

Also, there have been plans to clean up the Van Allen belts ever since they were first discovered, and it probably wouldn’t be too difficult; we have just never needed to.

[@elocnor]

if the strength is enuf, titanium shield the cable

[@BnORailFan]

I see the biggest concern is the sheer number of satellites orbiting the earth. The ISS crosses the equator multiple times per day. How is this ribbon going to avoid hundreds of potential collisions often? What the researchers should do is go to the equator, or wherever the elevator would be based and point a telescope straight up and see how long it would be before an object crosses its path.

[@pritorld]

For real? Obviously you guys didn’t consult any real physicists

[@deepdude4719]

Explain yourself more please.

[@tonywalker8030]

What about launching a rocket from a electric propeller ?

[@fazer9]

A space elevator would make it easier to get facility up in space to deal with space junk

[@WandaDeeBackroads]

Is anybody working on the possibility of launching a small, steerable satellite which can deploy a large ball of tough, sticky foam. Send it through the thickest clouds of paint chips, nuts, screws, etc. and then plunge into an ocean. It wouldn't take care of all the dead satellites but they are much easier to track.

[@flaviusnita6008]

In my opinion, a construction 40 miles high would be a nice platform in rocket launching. I did some calculus and it saves 80% of rocket contained fuel.

[@kedrednael]

Do you know how orbital mechanics work? Gravity only decreases slowly, on the ISS gravity strength is still 90% compared to on earths' surface. If you launch from 40 miles high to 250 (ISS altitude) and you reach a stop there, you just fall back down in a couple minutes. To stay in space you need to go sideways so quickly that you fall around the earth instead of toward it. 90% of rocket fuel is used to get this sideways velocity, only 10% is used to get up outside the atmosphere. So if your upward fuel saving calculation is correct, then you save 80% of that 10%. So you still need 92% of the fuel. But now you also need to lift your heavy rocket to a ludicrously high altitude somehow. A space elevator goes so high (way higher than it seems in the graphic 3:00 (while the ISS is way lower)), that you also get more sideways speed, and gravity does become less powerful so you have to go sideways less fast too.