Space Elevators: Strategies & Status

[@evodinoboy3285]

1 hour long? looks like i need a drink and snack for this

[@annoyed707]

Isaac has elevated his game for this one.

[@AutisticThinker]

Thanks for the ⚠️

[@oldered5663]

Issac gets a kickback from Big Drink and Big Snax

[@andrewruiz7894]

Helyea, more Isaac Arthur on KZbin! Bring it on

[@willy-mp5bm]

I miss the 90-120 min+ videos

[@aarondyer.pianist]

Space elevator episode from 8 years ago was my introduction to your wonderful channel.

[@andrewruiz7894]

Has it been that long? Time flies when your having fun!

[@StreetSurfersAlex]

Same here!

[@yourbuddyunit]

I would *LOVE* an episode on space first responders and emergency rescue infrastructure. I would imagine with an increasing population in space, we'd eventually need to develop response and rescue along side the expansion for safety and to ease the anxiety of space traveling. I'm curious to know what TTPs we have currently, and what is being developed for the future. Also, space firetrucks sound *really* cool.

[@friendlyspank4231]

There’s a start up that’s using torque to spin satellites into space. Imagine being in a gyro sphere to be launched within minutes to go to someone in need

[@AndreasPeters-r3e]

@@friendlyspank4231 If you are refering to spin launch: their method is not suitable for putting crew in orbit. They actually needed to develope their own microsatelite, because no 3rd party´s satelite would survive the 10.000 g of their centrifuge.

[@alexsiemers7898]

That sounds like it’d be helpful for a ship delivering Mouthwash that we lost contact with a couple months ago

[@dirremoire]

​@@AndreasPeters-r3eYou are exactly correct. Within a generation, we will see extreme miniaturization technology coming to satellites. If Spin Launch can hold out that long, they will finally achieve great success.

[@razorednight]

​@@dirremoireBreakthrough Starshot's nanocraft are also going to involve extreme miniaturisation of spacegoing technology. This stuff will work hand in hand.

[@juimymary9951]

I can hardly wait for when you delve back into the oribtal rings! They are the ultimate orbital launcher and decellerators! :3

[@martythemartian99]

I know this is silly, but I dream of a massive swarm of Ion Drive powered autonomous space vehicles, gathering and redirecting small asteroids, and connecting them in an ever lengthening ring around the planet. Then we can use the materials they contain to start constriction of the first orbital ring.😊

[@thomaswitherow350]

Good stuff🎉

[@sussyscylla3414]

Orbital rings are unstable due to the shell theorem and will drift into the earth as no net gravitational force is applied

[@Firepowered]

​@@sussyscylla3414 They're supposed to be active structures, subject to constant force to sustain and course correct them.

[@namewastaken360]

Regarding wanting a space elevator anchored at an existing city, I really don't think it needs to be an *existing* city, there's a reason most existing major cities happen to be in natural harbours after all!

[@Imagine_Beyond]

Using energy recovery methods, you could save a lot of power required for the carriers/crawlers/pod by storing the potential energy in another form when they are at the bottom of the elevator and then converting it back into potential when they are coming up. The potential energy could be converted into electricity when it comes back down, or you could have a counter weight that goes up when the carrier/crawler/pod goes down. A lot of options, but the basic idea is to store and reuse the potential energy

[@terricon4]

Another addition for cable safety in case of breaks, is the one from I think it was Gundam 00? The one where the orbital elevator gets hit. While most of that was less than realistic, the idea of auto ballancers was a good one. Basicly a series of weighted attachments hung at various points along the cable/station/ring, that can be purged. So if it loses weight on the bottom, instead of floating up into space it would purge some of these weights at the end station up top, keeping in ballance as those weights would now float off away from the station. On the other hand, if a major issue happens at that end counterweight station, and part of it goes missing, the weights at the lower ring or lift stations would be purged, and likely end up falling down and burning up in atmosphere but keeping the whole thing from falling now. Sure, having active engines that could maintain it in bad situations is also good, but a rough system of dumb weights you can just drop to ballance would be a nice addition to help keep the whole sysstem stable in case of major failure in any one part, short of the middle itself getting cut. Wich... actually was what partially happened, but even then it was the giant multi cable type so when it took major damage cutting like half of those the entire lift shell/tram system attached to the cables got purged, along with the weights at the end stations so as to just reduce the entire stress on the system so the remaining cables would be enough to keep the entire thing roughly intact and properly in orbit and it wouldn't just rip from overloading the remaining half of the cables that still were intact. Not fun for the people who were currently riding that elevator up/down as you might imagine, having their climbers and lift systems purged... though why the climbers/cars/trains didn't have emergency rockets to blast them free and then parachutes to make them at least slightly safer in that situation I don't know... Really a lot of that design/situation was highly unrealistic, but always fun seeing some still good or interesting solutions people come up wit for their various stories and settings. And then there's my favorite break in Schlock mercenaries. Where it breaks and the one guy shouts out about "Oh no! We're all going to die!" and the guy next to him just tells him to stop being dramatic and come help him rig up some makeshift fixes. First guy shouts how "we're falling to our deaths!" Second guy replies very very slowly... as they have like a few days before it would seriously become and actual issue, and with their tech and systems it really is pretty trivial to deal with the matter at that point.

[@lukewinter5153]

Please make an update video for orbital rings please please please please by far my favorite megastructure

[@UpperDarbyDetailing]

Me too!

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

Still think Orbital Rings are more realistic. We could start building one with the tech we have today, and their long term usefulness is also much higher.

[@fenilkheni9494]

cannot build with tec we have today.

[@kinngrimm]

Materials then needs to come from space i would assume, for which we need an industry up there, this may take a minute. To get there i would see space elevators as an intermediary. In the end, if we make it that long, we may have both.

[@kinngrimm]

Though i am not so sure Orbital Rings are the way to go,. I am kind of with Diogenes, i need sun not a structure blocking it. Maybe when we go for shellworlds a few thousand years down the line.

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

@@fenilkheni9494 Yes we can. There is no technical difficulty in getting it to work. There will be logistical and engineering difficulties, but we do not need any further scientific breakthroughs to construct one.

[@sussyscylla3414]

Orbital rings are impossible. They dont have an orbit as they are pulled evenly on all sides towards earth so they would simply drift into our atmosphere and break up. Additionally the structure would need to be incredibly strong beyond anything we could build. I also imagine it could have some issues on the ground when it eclipses the sun though this depends on the height at which it is placed

[@1KosovoJeSrbija1]

15:42 I remember he had a show about unexplained mysteries, and every episode opened with "and inventor of the communications satellite"

[@Comicsluvr]

I very much appreciate the fact that you post links on Facebook because even though I've been a subscriber for several years, I sometimes miss new episodes.

[@FourthRoot]

You made an error when discussing the orbital mechanics of space elevators at 16:00. An object released from a space elevator, but below geostationary would not necessarily reenter earth's atmosphere. Objects released from a space elevator beloelw geostationary orbit will have eliptical trajectories, if released low enough, those trajectories will intersect the atmosphere, but above some fraction of geostationary orbit, they will descend for a while before gaining so much tangential velocity that they miss the stmosphere. Another way to think about this is to consider the coriolis effect. As the object falls toward earth it will apparently start to pick up lateral velocity from the tether's perspective because the whole system is spinning.

[@alexsiemers7898]

I decided to do some number crunching, and the altitude on the elevator that your perigee would hit the atmosphere is around 23,500km above earth’s surface, or approximately 2/3 of the way to geostationary orbit

[@peterprovenzano9039]

Sounds like it would be not possible to sky dive from it

[@FourthRoot]

@@alexsiemers7898 Awesome! Great job doing the math on that, thanks. I'm going to double check your numbers with a spreadsheet, but that sounds about right based on my gut from years of KSP.

[@FourthRoot]

@@peterprovenzano9039 You totally could because you can jump from any altitude. But jumping from the Karman line would be pushing the limits of what a human could endure as far as G forces and could result in lethal spinning unless the skydiver remains conscious and can control any spinning by using his limbs for aerodynamic control. It would also require a special suit with a thermal protection system.

[@peterprovenzano9039]

@ for context: Felix Baumgartner who made three jumps in 2012 from 71,581 feet (21.818 km), 96,640 feet (29.46 km), and 128,000 feet (39 km), respectively. 60Km further seems like we have a long way to get before we can have someone official “space dive “

[@TucsonD1]

Very thorough examination of space elevator design!

[@f_lawless7689]

A most thorough consideration of the subject indeed. How much time did this one take?

[@ianyboo]

I love that Isaac trusts us enough that he can upload a gargantuan video like this with the confidence that his audience will watch every single second of it. Always amuses me that in a couple of the earlier videos he talks about "making them shorter" before it had become clear how much all of us love long form content!

[@Captaintrippz]

1 hour of Isaac? Christmas came early.

[@cinhh]

Space Elevators are tech, so futuristic, once they are achievable, they will be obsolete.

[@chrism.1131]

They will be used for the infrastructure required for the next step.

[@thumb-ugly7518]

As far as material science, I think you may be right, but I'm sure it will continue to supplement strategies for some time after.

[@paxdriver]

How does that make sense if the tech used for elevators would also use whatever tech immediately supersedes it? If you had a material for a space elevator then developed transporters, you'd still need to physically get receivers far away to beam to without waiting thousands of years and 300x more costs carrying fuel... Then once you got them set up, when people do go to those far-off places they will also want to build infrastructure on the new worlds using space elevators to move heavy mined ore and resources around the new planet lest they wait millennia for lifetimes to grow the population just for the workforce needed to use all of the technology they had since arriving in the new Star system. It will always be the most fundamental material for life as we know it to thrive, even when the next discoveries are made immediately thereafter. Water filters, medical bandages, tether, skyscrapers, conveyors, safety systems, everything our lives depend on going forward will be related to the discovery that finally awards us space elevators. (re: commentary near 20 min mark)

[@undertow2142]

When we have a significant presence on the moon a space elevator there would make a lot of sense and be considerably easier to accomplish than on the earth. Once you have one on the moon, mars looks really appealing for one, and with the lessons learned could be feasible as well.

[@JasoTheRed48F2]

>1 hour long video on Space Elevators from Isaac Arthur Oh ho ho *fuck yea*

[@minekuchi]

one hour long??!!! hell yeah

[@lonjohnson5161]

Depending on how the cable is constructed, you won't just have a tether that doubles as a power cable for space based solar, but it could also be a giant capacitor that can store that power with room to spare.

[@Imagine_Beyond]

35:00 I think you accidentally said three instead of four. Methane is CH4, not CH3

[@richardhouser508]

Isaac, you and your space elevators have given us all a huge LIFT!

[@sussyscylla3414]

in Physics we uses metric. Or specifically the SI system. Never in my physics class have i been shown imperial or units from any other system.

[@robertadsett5273]

I have, but generally only as a unit conversion problem. OTOH, it’s been a few years since I took first year physics and I never used imperial units past first year that I recall

[@CanalTremocos]

My Physics I and II professor used to throw exotic unit curveballs. The only time I've ever heard of dynes.

[@partciudgam8478]

There are at least three metric systems, cgs, centimeter, gram, second, mks, meter, kilogram, second and tecnical, the same as mks, but considers kilogram an unit of force, and in some cases, the teacher made us use imperial when we missbehaved lol.

[@sussyscylla3414]

@ that’s so weird. I’ve only ever used the SI units. Never seen somebody use kilograms as a unit of force instead of units outside of misunderstanding its meaning

[@AtomcFish]

Thank you for using non-AI thumbnail for this, Isaac

[@mattmmilli8287]

It won’t be much longer you can tell anyways. Stop being an AI Luddite and let people use the required tools of the near future lol

[@AtomcFish]

@mattmmilli8287 i dont hate ai, its pictures are just ugly. Ai should be used as wide as possible, but it shouldnt replace humans.

[@mattmmilli8287]

@AtomcFish it’s going to though in a lot of fields. Better to embrace the inevitable and learn how it works than end up in the sewers. Will be a while before UBI appears because of it

[@jsbrads1]

My design for the space elevator cable cross section is a six pointed star. A hexagonal central core, with one side of each belt fully bonded to the vertices of the hex core and the six radially belts would have a thinner hex cable bonded to the outer edge of the belt for stability, redundency and the help the car stay on the belt. Also, the central core gets thicker at the point of max stress.

[@mnrvaprjct]

Hypothetically could you hang platforms off of the elevator to act as small towns or rest stops? Or is the infeasible because it's technically in orbit. Or is there something Im missing here

[@projectarduino2295]

Conceptually I found using a graphing ribbon as a tether to be dubious. “How could something so thin be so strong?” I would ask myself regularly. Then I thought to my experience with plastic cling wrap used for packaging. And in my case, how horrible it is trying to tear that stuff apart and off of pallets of water or boxes with my bare hands once it is bunched up and wrapped around itself. Then it dawned on me: in my hands was, conceptually, the future of humanity and a way to reach the stars.

[@kyhwana]

"we don't need standardisation!" *Crashes Mars orbiter into Mars due to imperial vs metric cockup* what was that?

[@patrickmchargue7122]

What a great in-depth exploration of this concept. Thank you, Isaac and friends.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Thaumogenesis]

Finally something to raise the spirits, among other things.

[@christophe5756]

This one is way up there. Your videos show us that there is a way forward. There was so much knowledge, so much enlightenment going on that you played “Red Giant” by Stellardrone, TWICE! Excellent video! 😎👍🏽👍🏽

[@MrQuantumInc]

A lot of the points made here is describing the difference between having a tensile material that is barely strong enough and a tensile material that is significantly more than strong enough. Any sort of feature built into the tether itself, from protective coatings to special rails to safety features gets multiplied by the immense length of the tether, 1 gram per meter means a total of 36 metric tons, which is why most people assume it wouldn't be possible. Of course one could imagine that the first elevator would be bare-bones and limited, and later elevators would be closer to what Isaac Arthur describes.

[@UrdnotChuckles]

I hear yah when it comes to thinking about things on the larger side. Usually when I'm contemplating space elevators I think of the cars like mobile multi-floor hotels. When in doubt, go big!

[@bigjermboktown6976]

I wouldn't be surprised if people in the future refer back to these videos to learn how to build some of this stuff!

[@zico739]

I always love a long watch. Great stuff!

[@lualdiz]

I think that the most efficient way a space elevator could be implemented is if it worked as a two-way vertical carroussel or pulley cycling cargo up and down at the same time as counterweights(it's an elevator after all) which could be more energy efficient, at least I think so.

[@PerfectAlibi1]

Personally I kinda prefer a full planetary ring instead of just a space elevator. As the ring essentially can hold itself up, with Earth's gravity. ^^

[@thomaskalbfus2005]

One idea that stuck is the idea of a hanging satellite. We could build a space elevator at a radius of 39,450 kilometers from the center of Venus and have it terminate at 6,400 kilometers from the center of Venus. Since Venus has a radius of 6,051.8 kilometers, that is 348.2 km above its surface and well above its atmosphere. Since Venus has a gravity of 0.904-g, that means at this altitude the gravity will be 0.808-g at this location, this orbit is a 24-hour orbit so a space station at the end of this cable will experience a 24-hour day with day lengths of 12 hours followed by 12 hour nights, as the Sun will be seen to be rising and setting at this schedule. This platform will be even more stable than a floating platform on a balloon in the atmosphere, it would not be subject to weather, and it will still allow easy access to the atmosphere of Venus and easy access back with a small rocket to launch back to the end of the tether. This platform will be moving at 1,675.5 km/hour, so it should be fairly easy for a single stage rocket to reach this from Venus' atmosphere.

[@cgarzs]

Can't wait for the alternatives video. Space elevators are great but all the other ones like launch loops and rings always sounded much better imo.

[@chadvanderlinden9548]

My concept of a space elevator doesn't have beamed energy or "climbers" clamped to the tether and climbing it under power. I'd build a complete loop and drive it with an engine on the ground. The tether would have regularly spaced brackets which passenger and cargo containers would be quickly attached to as they passed by. There would be great wheels on the ground, and at the space anchor. The tether would be continuously scanned for defects and repaired as it wrapped around the ground wheel.

[@VoidHalo]

I was reading that carbon nanotubes are usually curved, rather than straight, due to various flaws in the lattice structure you get in any lattice structure, vacancies, and such. Which is a detail nobody ever seems to mention. I would have questioned it if not for how much sense it makes. And nobody certainly ever said how they can even approach the problem of making a molecular lattice structure that's absolutely 100% perfect AND 30,000+ kilometers long. AND in a huge bundle, so make it infinitely repeatable.

[@4124V4TA-SNPCA-x]

11:20 That's why I need Viennese Fuß and Rute for length measurements, please. And other Viennese units. (Don't bother I convert them as the video goes. 😊)

[@Kargoneth]

A superior video. Among your best in recent memory.

[@Kargoneth]

Thank you, Issac. Space elevators make me optimistic for space accessibility.

[@TheWeatherbuff]

Hi Isaac. Thank you for the brain-stretching stimulus this morning. Great vid, and a mind-expanding lesson in imagination and innovation. Oh, and if we build some of these, hopefully we can get better tasting coffee than we get from the airlines.

[@thumb-ugly7518]

I recall some experiment with a balloon floating a wire to take advantage of electrical difference from the ground and higher in the atmosphere. Aside from lightning strikes, I'm curious about that electrical difference along a space elevator cable and utilizing it. Probably not much relative to the entire facilities but a penny saved is a penny earned.

[@theCodyReeder]

This got me thinking, what if instead of climbing the tether things get clamped on and the tether itself moved like a really big clothes line? If the top was far enough from the planet it might even be able to use the planets rotation as a power source.

[@theCodyReeder]

Ah... after sleeping on it I realized this would only work if there was no need for a taper in the cable since it would have to be the same thickness throuout. maybe for smaller planets it would work.

[@sussyscylla3414]

I think there are much bigger issues to think about before this. I haven’t gotten much past the intro but 10kg per km sounds obsurd and y achievable. I recommend watching a very informative video from angels collier on the topic. She is a professional physicist (phd) and has a great video on this topic.

[@tomrobingray]

One thing not mentioned it seems, is that as the car climbs it will require extra orbital momentum. This means that it will tend to lag behind the space station tether, slow it down and pull it from orbit. Conversely as the car descends it will need to shed this momentum. Perhaps there will be a cyclic operation were the SST is successively pulled from orbit then pulled back up again?

[@greggweber9967]

29:25 If two cables can be connected end-to-end in orbit without losing strength or increasing the diameter, then you can rocket sections up to form a ring (hard to keep stable) in orbit. Then, one end would go up while the other would fall down to be captured by the anchorage.

[@MidwitObservations]

Let's gooooo! Its Athrursday yet again!

[@CODENAMEDERPY]

Thanks for the vid, team!

[@sadist71]

I wonder what sort of atmospheric charge a space elevator would acumilate and how it would be dealt with

[@jonathanrobinson319]

Cam the principle of a space elevator be used to build a floating city?

[@UpperDarbyDetailing]

Indeed

[@malcolm_in_the_middle]

No, but the principle of orbital rings can.

[@j-pbelliveau4439]

Or a floating hotel just above the atmosphere.

[@UpperDarbyDetailing]

@@malcolm_in_the_middle it depends upon the size of your “city”

[@UpperDarbyDetailing]

@@j-pbelliveau4439 space elevator, no. That really would require being mounted on an orbital ring. Orbital speeds are too high for a geocentric orbit and the line tension would be INSANE

[@keithplymale2374]

The amazing, wonderful short film Wanderers has a short segment showing a space elevator on Mars. I would like to see episodes on all the options you mentioned Isaac.

[@Eveseptir]

Idk, the 36,000 kms needed just to be geostationary at the equator seems like a tall order... a very very tall order.

[@kevin9218]

I like the idea of active support for allowing the construction of a space elevator/tower without the need for magical materials that do not currently and may never actually exist. It wouldn't be difficult to build enormous fans along the tower in order to provide active thrust to pull up on the tower, taking much of the compression stress off the structure. These fans could be powered by solar collected by the tower itself. Instead of fans or thrusters, bouyancy could be exploited to help lighten the load too. You could attach balloons filled with something lighter than air, potentially filled with vacuum, if the balloon structure could avoid collapse. These only work on the sections of the tower still in atmosphere of course. Above significant atmosphere, you could use laser sails with ground based lasers pointed at them. This greatly increases the energy requirement for maintaining the tower, but, if built to a large enough scale, solar power collectors at the end of the tower could provide well more than enough. If we really wanted to build something like this, i think we have the technology and engineering prowess to do it already. But it would be an absolutely massive undertaking and economically questionable at best. Security for something like this is extremely concerning.. it wouldn't be difficult to intentionally damage it and end up with a devastating collapse.

[@jabarigraham]

First time I’m actually early for a video🔥

[@evolved9541]

Please remake the graphene video. I really want to know how it’s going to change my life (I’m in my 20s) in the future. In general, I love your videos that focus on tech advances I could see in my lifetime, as they give me hope for the future when with current events it’s all too easy to feel despair. I also love the general prediction videos for the near future for the same reasons. Excited to see the predictions video end of this year.

[@johnthomasriley2741]

To orbit, you must provide energy in 2 vectors. (1) up to reach orbit. (2) delta V to achieve orbital velocity. Elevators do (1) well, but (2) badly. That is why rockets go up then Transition over. How do you propose to add this velocity? 🎉

[@robertadsett5273]

Once you reach the station at geostationary orbit you’re going orbital speed. As you go past that you exceed orbital speed. It’s inherent in the design. That probably does mean you need some sort of orbit keeping on the station in orbit to keep it from drifting as modules go up and down. How much you need for station keeping and lift will depend on the mass balance to/from the station.

[@johnthomasriley2741]

@ yes you do! But how do provide the energy at right angles to the cable on the way up?

[@greggweber9967]

33:00 Does the flow of electricity have an effect on trying to change its orbit or pulling too hard? Remember that Italian experiment with the Space Shuttle?

[@mattparker9726]

8:04 Why not a graphite strengthened concrete space RAMP? In an earthquake free area, such that you could use a modified diesel electric train to move material up into space??

[@tiagotiagot]

During a break, wouldn't the loose tip of the ground-attached length gain significant speed on the way down due to a combination of the whip effect and by having the length bellow it open a path thru the air as it goes down, letting it hit the ground significantly faster than normal terminal velocity?

[@dadacp4]

Would it be useful if a base at the top of the tether had apparent 1g gravity in the opposite direction, and at what distance would that be?

[@projectarduino2295]

This is exactly the kind of thing I like to learn about!

[@KRhetor]

Coincidentally, I just finished reading Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Paradise, probably his last great novel. I've never Charles Sheffield's Web Between Worlds, but I've loved so many of his other works, especially the McAndrew stories.

[@VoltCruelerz]

What about collision avoidance? They're basically just giant obstacles for any satellite up to geo. Even if the tether could survive an impact, the satellite won't, spraying out into tons of tiny shards that might do more damage on the next pass.

[@tiagotiagot]

How would a huge cable of a material as conductive as carbon nanotubes of the scales we are talking about here react to a geomagnetic storm?

[@kennickel878]

Off topic but, I'm still stuck on the effect hyper-relativistic acceleration has on the materials being accelerated. I'm assuming a craft can't carry enough fuel so, energy is applied externally. No material object can reach light speed and things like doppler shift, time dialation, etc are based on frame of reference. I'm fine up to that point. Where I'm getting lost is the energy applied to the system is invariant. A joule is a joule so, at what decimal place does additional energy simply start adding mass and what effect does approaching that have on material properties? Is the effect gradual or does the craft collapse into a singularity near instantaneously at some ill defined limit? Does the singularity maintain the craft's velocity or is kinetic energy transformed into mass as well or is velocity shed through something like a gamma ray burst? What effect does the mass energy interchangeability have on the early universe? Are supermassive black holes the result of a phase change shortly after the big bang when the speed of light was set, so to speak? That is: did the energy travelling faster than c simply precipitate directly into matter the moment the brakes were pumped? An even more 'direct' direct collapse if you will.

[@mrjumbly2338]

How would you ground something like this? Would it built up static electricity?

[@fanOmry]

What about segmented? a 10 km segments. each connected by a station that has floatation gas. Like a Mix of Helium and Nitrogen. *Warmed...* (you know, like a hot air baloon?) some solar power coating to charge the cable for electric tethering... Seem to me to allow better repairs, and less actual need for both tensile and compression strength.

[@bill29-g3b]

One very important fact that you're ignoring is the electrical aspect. We live on one plate of an enormous electro magnetic capacitor/battery. If you've ever heard of Benjamin Franklin and his kite, you'd know about lightning grounding to earth. Anything connecting the earth and space will be a direct short to ground⚡

[@paperburn]

So current flow or an exploitable source of energy

[@bill29-g3b]

@@paperburn Hahaha. Exploit lightning. Good luck. Hahahahaha.

[@paperburn]

@bill29-g3b not lighting,a difference in potential,I would bet my EE that it is possible. What do you have to put on the table? A high school diploma?

[@FO-RIZZLE]

I'm still listening and you might cover this topic ahead but before I forget, wouldn't an equatorial elevator gain some centripetal acceleration boost for the climbers?

[@buildbackbetter6875]

There will be many substations along the line in order to better adjust the tension between and maintenance. This whole structure would be more like a spine with high strength but low weight to it. Space elevator would be a step forward for construction of earth orbit Dyson’s sphere.

[@blindlemonpledge2556]

I have an idea for producing cable for the space elevator. I need to talk with someone about my idea for getting the material made. Any leads?

[@TAJ1977]

Great Video thanks a lot 😎🖖 greetings from Germany

[@edwardalfing6760]

?At (40:00) What about a Nuclear powered Climber that is augmented by Nuclear Power?

[@pcheintz7264]

I've always liked the concepts depicted in these videos for orbital infrastructure, including the space elevator. Though one of the two that is my favorite that can connect to space elevators is orbital rings. The other favorite is the Bernal Sphere (as shown specifically here, not so much the standard model art we see when looking it up, but the silver and grey one here with all the space craft flying around it and docked to it on a zero g ring, with multiple alternating rotating bands for gravity). For some reason while there is more mention of O'Neill Cylinders (probably due to popularity from being used in Babylon 5), I prefer the look and depiction of Bernal Spheres. The original size makes sense for space habitats or civilian stations, and a smaller one makes sense to my as either a military station or way point. Now, if we DID have artificial gravity, what makes more sense to me is some of the stations from Star Trek... the mushroom type structures seen, with the main mushroom/dome area at top, and the power/gravity/atmosphere generators and food storage areas below, with up to six smaller domes on struts from a central ring coming out of the middle, each dome perhaps having different purposes or uses. By varying the size and dome purpose, they could serve nearly any purpose: research station, office station, defense station, mining station, ship yard, deep space station, or colony.

[@Perrirodan1]

For the actual location of the space elevator I can see a couple of possibilities for countries. Indonesia and Brazil strike me as the most likely. The project would involve shipping a lot of thing and these two countries probably have the best infrastructure of any equatorial country. Both are also pretty neutral countries having good relation with most of the world. If Europe really wants one French Guyana is also pretty good. I think a Brazilian and Indonesian one existing would actually make a lot of sense, one for Asia and one for West Europe/ America. Maybe we could fit a space elevator in Singapore as well but i'm not sure they have the space for even more traffic their way

[@keesdevos4816]

Alternative?; a zipper between two sturdy arms made of connected parts. if the arms are stretshed both ways, the zipper could turn this concept around the "Lagrange point". Every time the lower arm is on its lowest point, it can pick up freight. The zipper has to control the power balance.

[@peterallen5575]

An alternative to siting them in major cities would be to put them near major maritime trade routes, since a city will likely build up around a space elevator ground port anyway. Panama or French Guiana would be good for the western hemisphere, although it might be more efficient to put it in Ecuador. Somalia would be perfect for this if not for the geopolitical turmoil, since it's both on the equator and is near two shipping lanes vital for global commerce (which is why piracy is so endemic in the region, as there's a lot of fat targets and the owners of those ships would rather pay the ransom than station armed security aboard). As for the Pacific, I'm sure there's some island in the area that wouldn't mind becoming a major port of call for a new booming space economy.

[@sandeeschaeffer3300]

Peter Robinson was mentioned in the video, but not in the credits. (00:40:44 to 00:42:24) Also from 00:55:44 to 00:55:06 with John Knapman.

[@StreetSurfersAlex]

Has it really been 8 years since the last space elevator episode? Time really flies

[@fjuedes]

Would mass, transported along a space elevator from the ground to the orbit not slow down the earths rotation, thus slowly increase the length of days/nights?

[@chrisregister8021]

A craft that could extend "hooks" into our atmosphere and catch stratospheric aircraft seems like the best approach...

[@mattparker9726]

YAY!! AN HOUR LONG VIDEO FROM MY FAVORITE CHANNEL!!!!!!! @Isaac Arthur I am hoping to build up a show like you and John Michael Godier. Would you be willing to do a skype interview for it next friday at 12pm? You'd be my very first interview, and feather in my cap.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Shoot me an email with details but I couldn't do that time slot

[@martythemartian99]

32:57 I love how the structure is made of tiny little Earths. 😊

[@SirHeinzbond]

i am here only for the pop quiz at the end, and i am disappointed....

[@neekanor42]

The whale guns image made me lol, well done adding that in!

[@Whooopsnobodybusinessactually]

I love this channel.

[@AaronVoght]

Why don't they do it in stages? Like up some tower structure on a mountain up to some sort of hot air balloon ish platform to a low earth orbit platform up to another in geocentric orbit. Wouldn't that allow for shorter cables?

[@AuntyProton]

I wonder what kind of strength you'd get with kevlar and zylon braided together?

[@AutisticThinker]

What about all the stuff in closer orbits impacting the elevator or cable/ribbon? I don’t think this will ever be feasible because of space junk.

[@_Teo_Dor]

Please calculate the kinetic and potential energy needed to be added to every Kg lifted to the geostationary orbit. Then explain how you do that

[@t.kersten7695]

one thing Isaac mentioned here seems a bit odd to me: using the elevator as a method to travel via glider or "plane" across the earths surface just acccelerated by the free fall. it might seem pretty decent to reach speeds of 4 km/s or more, but this will not reduce the travel time of any person or cargo that much. if you consider that probably takes multiple hours to climb that elevator. this would only be of use for transporting people and cargo (back) to earth after they arrived at the elevator from outer space.

[@injunsun]

I got a little queasy @14:10 or so. That Earth is tilted way off our actual axis with regard to the sunlight. I literally had a moment of vertigo, till I realised why it looked wrong. It **is** wrong. AI needs some Elementary School primers, as they used to call them a century ago. Btw, your "accent" with your issues, I understand. That said, your pronunciation of "cable cars" just keeps making me smile. Smiling with you, not laughing at you. It sounded a few times like, "cable cows," and I got unfairly and immodestly tickled, thinking about the poor cows, tethered on their way up to space. Hey, if you are going to have a problem, as you and I both do (different issues), it should at least be able to help us make other people smile, right?

[@greggweber9967]

7:45 You still have to go horizontally at an orbital or escape velocity before you fall back down.

[@Seventeen_Syllables]

I want them to be called GNOB. That probably stands for something, not sure what. Maybe Graphene Noodle Orbital Bouncer.

[@ArgonZavious]

Dont current carrying wires make electromagnetic fields? if the tether got used for a power cable it might be able to be used as a mass driver / rail gun

[@markhuebner7580]

Seems like you would want two cables, one for going up, and one for going down. And an apparatus at the top, removing the climber from the up cable to the down cable.

[@ЕвгенийБагрянов-н9э]

Lately I've been thinking about a magley train that could give you 1.2 km/s, plus two more for skipping the atmosphere. But hey, that's cool too.

[@Yoel_Mizrachi]

Can we have bolo warheads on ICBMs for space elevator cable cutting job?

[@ChaptermasterPedroKantor-kv5yw]

Methinks if a space elevator were technically possible it would also have to be negotiated politically. The country where it gets build would have to be politically neutral, with access to the rest of the world to be unrestricted, not to be subject to sanctions, lest we get a world war over who gets to use the space elevator.

[@AndreasPeters-r3e]

And the country needs to be on the equator. Most of those tend to be politically unstable.

[@tippyc2]

If a space elevator were techincally possible, every powerful nation is going to build their own. If the tech came available right now, the US, Russia, and China would each build their own for sure. Probably also the UK, India, maybe France and Japan... And no it doesnt need to be on the equator, but your cable is going to be at a steeper angle the farther you get from the equator.

[@JustinWestbrook-be1mp]

China needs to hurry up and take over the planet so mankind can move forward with space colonization.

[@jmcenanly1]

You may have to build it in the ocean, like an oversized oil platform

[@JustinWestbrook-be1mp]

@ChaptermasterPedroKantor-kv5yw some engineering projects are just too big to build. Once we have humanoid robots capable of mimicking every possible human task, then we will build it.