Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer
They can’t help themselves, really. They live in a world so divorced from reality that anything that pops into their mind seems plausible. There isn’t a paragraph in this piece that sounds like it came from the mind of a full grown human being. It’s stunning to behold the sheer magnitude of hubris that exists in our current era.
Lunar Elevator Could Trigger Moon Mining Race
Rare earth elements and helium are just some of the resources scientists believe are abundant on the Moon. The problem is how to get them here. Rockets are not cost-efficient, otherwise, we would have already colonized our natural satellite. Yet there is an alternative to rockets and it might have just got doable: a lunar elevator.
Two astronomy students from the University of Cambridge and Columbia University recently published a paper on an invention dubbed Spaceline—a space elevator they say could be built with existing technology and would cost only about $1 billion. And it would be easy to build.
“By extending a line, anchored on the moon, to deep within Earth’s gravity well, we can construct a stable, traversable cable allowing free movement from the vicinity of Earth to the Moon’s surface. With current materials, it is feasible to build a cable extending to close to the height of geostationary orbit, allowing easy traversal and construction between the Earth and the Moon,” Zephyr Penoyre and Emily Sandford write in the abstract of their paper.
A cable to the Moon may sound like something out of a cartoon, but Penoyre and Sandford are not joking. According to their idea, travellers to the Moon would fly to the end of the cable on spacecraft and then transfer to solar-powered autonomous vehicles that would climb the cable to the Moon. The cable itself could be no thicker than the lead of a pencil and made from Kevlar, which is much cheaper than other materials considered for a space elevator.
Of course, the question everyone would ask is, why bother building a space elevator to the Moon. True, there are potentially valuable minerals on the Moon, but we have yet to determine if their mining is commercially viable. But there is another reason a cheap enough space elevator could make sense: helium-3.
Helium-3, many believe, is the solution to the nuclear fusion problem, that is, how to make it work. The element is scarce on Earth but thought to be abundant on the Moon, with several governments eyeing lunar mining to get their hands on it. The reason is helium-3 is a potentially much more efficient fuel for nuclear fusion reactors than what researchers currently have access to on Earth. Combined with deuterium—already used in nuclear fusion reactors—it turns into regular helium with a single proton as a by-product, meaning a lot less energy waste than other elements. What’s more, a deuterium-helium-3 fusion reaction would be much easier to contain. Related: Big Tobacco Just Can’t Catch A Break
Yet not everybody shares the enthusiasm about helium-3. One critic, planetary science and astrobiology professor Ian Crawford, for example, has likened helium-3 to fossil fuels.
“It’s a fossil fuel reserve. Like mining all the coal or mining all the oil, once you’ve mined it … it’s gone,” Crawford told Space.com a few years ago. According to him, mining helium-3 on the Moon would require massive investments that do not justify the whole endeavor. With technology moving relentlessly forward and previously expensive infrastructure becoming cheaper thanks to this fact, the investment in helium-3 mining may not need to be that massive.
However, the Spaceline has yet to prove its viability.
“A space elevator is like a railroad — you don’t build it unless you expect a lot of railroad traffic,” physicist Marshall Eubanks told NBC News. And that’s just a commercial concern. A much more serious one has to do with safety: satellites orbiting the Earth could collide with the cable.
These are just a couple of potential problems with the Spaceline and other lunar elevator ideas. Because of these problems, it’s no wonder space agencies have not been all too enthusiastic about the whole idea of linking the Earth with the Moon via an elevator. It seems despite the promise of such ideas, it will be a while before we get our hands on the lunar helium-3.
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My guess is that since this is so easy, Bezos,Musk or Gates will build the elevator with their pocket change (just a billion dollars). Then they will donate the profits to humanity with no strings attached because they have the best interests of the human race at heart. I do as well. Since the sea level is rising, I have beach front property for sale in Kansas.
Sorry, the sea is not rising; some places like south Louisiana are sinking…….Is the Moon Elevator some kind of NYC Wall Street Shyster’s scheme for a new IPO rip-off of stupid Exploiters (they call themselves Investors)? A modern Magic Science Brooklyn Bridge Ponzi Scheme? Such a cable could not be attached to Earth and the Moon for an obvious reason (name a spot that stays equidistant to the Moon); if unattached in the middle, what keeps one end from falling to the Earth and the other to the Moon? Maybe I should ask the Science Guy, the renown Scientist in Liberal Circles….
The physics of it works — assuming that the cable is strong enough, not vulnerable to solar radiation or cosmic rays, doesn’t get hit by something whizzing past, and might even get enough electricity from the difference in electric field between the moon and deep space to run the cable-cars. You are right, there’s no way to attach it to Earth, but the Moon shows us roughly the same face all the time, so anchor one end to the Moon. What holds the cable up? Make the cable about 200,000 miles long. Tie the other end of the cable to a good sized asteroid or space station which will be hanging about 40,000 miles above the Earth. That asteroid will be circling the planet at once per month, not nearly fast enough to be in a stable orbit, so it will be trying to drop down to Earth. If the asteroid has a mass of 10,000 tons, it will be pulling on the cable with about 100 tons of tension.
As for the billion dollar price tag — that’s where the fantasy comes in.
Ever hear of magnetic tethering?
I like the concept but actually doing it will be really hard. We reeled out a 1 mile HF cable behind Air Force 1 and had a hand full of problems until we released it and let it fall wherever. I hope you’re around when they try a 200,000 mile cable.
I want some of what they are drinking/sniffing/smoking.
People used to down me for writing that we in the US live in a cartoon, if that is not becoming painfully clear to you, you are using better shit than the the billionaire boys club.
Just Fantastic.
A few shrooms over the line, Sweet Jesus.
Led Zeppelin already tried.
For an elevator to work it must have the ability of going up and then coming down, correct? And the cable- made of Kevlar and “no thicker than a lead pencil” (okay, graphite, but I’m picking nits) must, a priori, be fixed to both points at either end of an axis.
I thought that the Moon was in an orbit around the Earth? And the Earth is spinning on it’s own axis at a speed of roughly a thousand miles per hour while the Moon spins on it’s own axis at the coincidental speed of…a thousand miles per hour.
How is this going to work?
Good news, according to the article it’s going to be both cheap and “easy to build”, so get to work fellas, there’s helium balloons to fill.
According to my vague memory, the centripetal force will counteract the gravitational pull. Having several threads with several elevators, or weights, can be used to keep the two forces in sync so the total package stays in place. The fun part was keeping the threads from developing vibrations that could turn into a destructive feedback loop.
Forgive me, HSF. This may be a bit off topic. Before we get to the elevator….what about surviving 5G? Can you comment on this man’s physiognomy. He looks a little anxious to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4TdY344Now
Spinning balls… Details, details…
(You knew this was coming.)
Genesis 11:4 KJB… “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
Dr. Robert Forward wrote about this in the late 80’s in his book “Future Magic”. The title is sort of a reference to Arthur C. Clarke who said something like any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Hope their shit doesn’t have any conductiveness built into it. Otherwise it’ll blow apart like this little tether did. Charge separation is a bitch.
Does anyone remember the idea of such an elevator or “rope to space” from twenty years back? The idea was to build a tether out of Nanotubes made from what I don’t recall and allow moving things up and down to the space station or whatever else. Some proposed tethering massive solar arrays in space which are orders of magnitude more efficient outside the atmosphere. The electricity would then be transmitted across a microwave to earth and the entire planet could then enjoy electricity for one cent per kilowatt hour. Still a great idea if it could be done. Maybe our grandkids will do it if the Democrats and all the other shitheads don’t ruin the place first.
“Does anyone remember the idea of such an elevator or “rope to space” from twenty years back?”
The space elevator failed I think because of turbulence from earth’s atmosphere but now that they plan on hitching it to the moon instead of earth, it might work.
What is NASA or whoever going to do, hire Russia to build it.
This Country can not even get to the space-station.
No need. It is cheap and easy. remember? Should be done in 2 or 3 years at most.
Elon needs something new to do; attempting to build it ought to be worth at least a $700-800 billion subsidy.
Carbon/carbon fiber nanotubes
The core idea isn’t wrong. It’s really an engineering problem of insane difficultly.
Think of it this way. If you can build a building 2000 feet tall. Why not 4000, why not 10000, etc. If it’s tall enough, it’s basically into space. The problem is that the taller it is, the thinner it needs to be to work. Too get to space it has to be as thin as pencil lead, which is simply not a realistic.
HSF, you clearly don’t understand modern academia. Just think of how many $billions (if not $trillions) in govt cheese you could get for “research” before anyone has to finally admit that it just won’t work.
TC, you obviously don’t know the difference between billions and trillions. Damn Millies, you think money grows on trees.
Fusion energy anyone?
You commies wouldn’t know the moon if it bit you in the bee-hind.
Look, I had lunch yesterday with two (2) engineers who are making this happen. The Kevlar monger (wedding soup) said the material thinners are working overtime getting the stuff to Ticonderoga #2 standard thin. This takes multiple thinnings that none of you have experience with.
The button engineer (Cobb salad) said his company will have SPACE READY up and down arrow, LED lit, NASA/RASA approved buttons ready by 2025, so the wheels are more than in motion, they’re hurtling forward toward a glorious helium-3 filled fusion utopia.
Bow to Science, rubes.
Viva la RASA, as Ginger might say.
Will the manual be printed in Spanish or English? At this time only Ginger knows for certain.
Read _The moon is a harsh mistress_ by Robert A. Heinlein. Using a catapult concept (linear accelerator) to ship cargo from the moon to earth (mostly crops), and considering how to build one on Earth.
Isn’t a rocket motor a catapult of sorts since it gives an object enough propulsion to escape earth’s gravity? Thereafter, the flying object depends on inertia to keep traveling through space.
Let’s not forget that we are smarter now than most science fiction writers of that time. What they provided was a vision, we have seen their visions come to pass. Alas, utopia is still far away in another galaxy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMPM0-k40G8
Astronomy students? Columbia? Cambridge for the love of Christ?? These seem the infantile dreams of persons who have played too many video games; watched to much Harry Potter; and sniffed too much glue.
Unless they want to bring down a shitload of satellites already in orbit — duh.
Maybe they want all that helium for making their voices match their imbecile idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31pHdEbdgXg
How about these jeenyus scientists designing a fucking Earthbound refrigerator that doesn’t stop working after five years?
The only thing the cable will be attached to is our collective wallets.
They started talking about carbon fiber space elevators more than ten years ago. Canned idea because entire planet would be contaminated from failure. It was in discover magazine.
I’ve already built several of these in the game, “Civilization.”
Nearing $200 trillion dollars in debt roll overs and unfunded mandates and these egg heads want more money to now literally piss up a rope to the moon .
Our Republic is circling the drain so maybe you could come up with a Kevlar cable to rescue the nation rather than lasso the moon
Space elevators, moon mining are lifted directly from T.A. Heppenheimer’s ‘Colonies in Space’ 1977/78 and a few dozen old copies of Analog or Azimov’s too. Like most 70s & 80s sci-fi/fantasy there is no budget to show how or why people might do what they propose. Think about it, no Star Trek episode has ever shown you a budget.