Los Alamos Wants To Build A Space Elevator
from the going-way-way-up dept
Los Alamos Labs has been facing lots of questions about scandals and whether or not they're relevant any more, so here they come with a high profile project idea. They're recommending that the US build a 62,000 mile high space elevator that can launch items into space at a much lower cost than our current space shuttle system. They quote someone at the lab saying that "the first country that owns the space elevator will own space." The Los Alamos researchers are so focused on the idea, that many are working on it on their own time. Of course, there are a ton of technical questions to get around before building such a system - as well as the potential ramifications of a failure. We mentioned this last year when we wondered what happens if the system breaks.
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space elevator
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This idea is good and should be promoted
details (especially the faqs) it discusses clearly the breakage question.
Lifting out of the gravity well with reaction mass (ie rockets) is simply a non-rational way to get into space. Materials science will soon support the required elements to construct safely the space elevator (see recent nanotube research) and this should be a high priority for any space accessing nation to develop.
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