Polar Corkscrew Space Elevator

[PJay_A]

Here's a crazy idea that just might work....

A space elevator located at Antarctica at the center of Earth's southern pole shaped as a corkscrew. The spin of the earth would "power" vehicles up or down the path of the corkscrew.

Either this is the dumbest thing I've ever thought of, or it could be the basis of something far more complex that may actually use my idea of somehow utilizing the power of Earth's rotation and other sources for space propulsion....

 

[Zipi]

A space elevator located at Antarctica at the center of Earth's southern pole shaped as a corkscrew. The spin of the earth would "power" vehicles up or down the path of the corkscrew.

Either this is the dumbest thing I've ever thought of, or it could be the basis of something far more complex that may actually use my idea of somehow utilizing the power of Earth's rotation and other sources for space propulsion....

Sorry to say, but I vote for the first option....

You cannot utilize earth rotation for powering the corkscrew "ship" since the ship is already spinning with the earth. Also there are structural constraints, because at the spinning axel of the earth you cannot have any "fixed" upper point to connect with. Equatorial elevator can have fixed upper point by launching some mass to the orbit which have been synchronized with earth rotation (centrifugal force will keep it there when you attach the elevator to it if the mass of the upperpoint is large enough). You cannot have similar setup at pole and the structure has to be much stronger.

And for utilizing earth rotation you can try to jump up and hope that you will land slighty other place related to earths rotation if your consept works. To make it more obivious you can jump inside moving train or bus to see your concept is not working.

 

[PJay_A]

A space elevator located at Antarctica at the center of Earth's southern pole shaped as a corkscrew. The spin of the earth would "power" vehicles up or down the path of the corkscrew.

Either this is the dumbest thing I've ever thought of, or it could be the basis of something far more complex that may actually use my idea of somehow utilizing the power of Earth's rotation and other sources for space propulsion....

Sorry to say, but I vote for the first option....

That's what I thought... lol... At least there's comedic value there...

 

[conan1975]

actualy I think the corkscrew idea would be rather odd, but the idea of placing the space elevator at the south pole is actually the best one, were it to fail, snap and or smash like a whip across the face of the earth it wouldn't cause any damage whatsoever... except to the odd penguin.. most people equate space launches with the equator, due to the free intertial energy of an equatorial launch, but a space elevator would have no such need

 

[rockett]

Precession would make a mess of it even if it could work. As for the polar space elevator idea, that wouldn't work without orbiting the earth top to bottom. If I recall correctly, the orbital velocity of being geo-stationary is what keeps them in the air.

 

[conan1975]

you could use a Sun-synchronous orbit

 

[MeteorWayne]

How does that help? That's basically a polar orbit (i.e. near 90 degrees inclination) so is never fixed over any point on the earth.

 

[Couerl]

How about we plant 3 magic beans and let them grow and just climb up? :lol:

 

[conan1975]

it works because the only way anything like that will ever be bulit is if it never kills anyone. If we invented airplanes now, or cars, almost everything they'd be banned because they'd be "dangerous" and never get off the drawing board. I guess you could use the Sahara though. On the same principle. But if the elevator ever came down it'd be like the world biggest disaster, and it would be vulnerable to terrorist attack.

also you could tether the "sun-sychronous" satelite to a twin on yet another enormous tether and they could orbit each other every 365 days thus remain stationary. Or use motors to keep it stable. Getting good and working with cables will have to be a piece of cake to anyone willing to attempt a space elevator anyway.

the south pole remains the best option that I can think of. Extreme environments (deep sea, polar habitation) are going to have to become less of a big deal if we are to hang out in space, who knows, it might teach us a thing or two.

 

[MeteorWayne]

You do realize a 365 day orbit around the earth is a bit over 10 million km, or about 26 times the distance to the moon, right? That would be some cable! And of course, for a sun synchronous orbit, the earth would be in the middle.

 

[conan1975]

..thanks for the input, but.. it's not orbiting the earth it's rotating around a fixed point.. it can be as slow or as fast as you need it to be

 

[conan1975]

I've not done much working but from guestimation i would suspect the two tethered captured asteroids would have to be about 8,000miles from each other and spinning like a bolas at a rate of once every 365 days and the one that was "attached" to the pole would be 22,000 miles above the pole and the "center" of the bolas of captured asteroids would be orbiting the sun..

this is all rather mute anyway because you could nudge a single captured asteroid with far less hassle than you might think (after all the IIS is always in decay, and is always being nudged) if it was a space elevator terminal propellant could be easily sent up.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Boy are you confused...

Very little in that post makes any sense.

Nudging an asteroid to capture it in earth orbit would be extremely difficult. Any that come close are moving many kilometers per second. Do you realize how much energy would be involved to capture it? So it's not a mute (sic) point.

Second, the reason the IIS (sic) needs to be nudged is because it is interacting with the atmpsphere, so without the reboosts it would enter the atmosphere and burn up. Propellant must be constantly brought up to accomplish that.

 

[CAllenDoudna]

Conan, I'm not an engineer, so there may be something I'm missing, but I can't figure out how an orbit of 22,000 miles above the South Pole could be geo stationary. You see, a polar orbit cuts across Earth's rotation rather than keeping up with it.

If you want a desolate location for a Space Elevator I would suggest either Baker Island or Tarawa. Both are in the Pacific on the Equator near the International Date Line.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Conan, I'm not an engineer, so there may be something I'm missing, but I can't figure out how an orbit of 22,000 miles above the South Pole could be geo stationary. You see, a polar orbit cuts across Earth's rotation rather than keeping up with it.

See what I meant about his confusion...?

 

[Valcan]

See what I meant about his confusion...?

That also ignores the fact that the southpole is probably the most difficult and isolated place on earth your not gonna put a elevator their.

Space elevevators are WAY in the future.

We are stuck with rockets and space stations for awhile yet

Though i've never understood why so many are obsessed with colonizing mars and the moon when we know places like say cerces have enormous amounts of water and a far smaller atmo which means less hastle landing.

 

[sftommy]

The "cork-screw" concept is common in micro-biology; viral membrane penetrations, etc.,

An inventory of techniques natures employs on the micro-level might yield some insight into innovative architectures that could help solve this macro-level problem.

 

[SteveCNC]

It is an interesting thought , for some reason my brain hasn't thrown it out yet hmmm .

 

[conan1975]

i'm suprised that it's hard to understand, it does make sense, there are 2 ways you could establish a gensynchronous polar orbit, and a third way that occurs to me in that you'd not need to, which i'll add here.

Remember that a polar location is preferable only in that it is an uninhabited place, you could use a ship in the pacfic I suppose. but that is inherantly difficult, unless you anchored to the sea bed.. and ignored storms that way.. The idea that the antarctic is hard to get to is irrelevant, it's only hard to get to "now".

Method 1. you rotate the captured rock around a twin on a tether the center of which is at 90 degrees sun-synchronous orbit and you match the rotation of that tethered twin pair to once every 365 days. There are loads of places you can get such rocks, even the moons of mars would work, but that's a digression.

Method 2. You use a rocket to continually nudge the upper part of the elevator in a circle and rely on the elevator to provide the propellant. The "fall" of the ISS that needs boosting is no massive difference to this approach. i.e. active rather than passive location.

Method 3. You don't care precession means the anchorpoint moves and you allow the elevator cable to "wobble" or spin once every 365 days, and you engineer that tolerance.

 

[MeteorWayne]

What is "gensynchronous"? I've never heard the term before.

I don't think you understand what a sun-synchronous orbit is. Perhaps you should look it up.

 

[Beanze]

Let's do it like this! The top attached to the space station or wherever and the bottom onto a very thick wide and stable solid building. Yea! Use the conveyor belt to transport the vehicle onto the space lift and there you go! An elevator with lifting capabilities of whatever you like. enforced NanoTubes could come in handy.

 

[neilsox]

I don't think the tether can be made stiff enough to keep the cork screw shape. Geosynchronous is perhaps optional for a high tower near the South Pole. There are some tall mountains to help with the height. The non-corkscrew tether can extend horizontally from the top of the tower for about 50,000 kilometers, which puts the counterweight high over the Arctic circle (not the Antarctic circle) The tether will sag some while the climbers are moving North so the tower needs to be very tall to get above the atmosphere after about 2000 kilometers travel on the tether. If the counter weight circles Earth several times per day, launch near the counterweight, can take the space craft anywhere in the solar system in a few years or less due to the very high speed. Advantages are low laser energy is needed to propel the climbers and none after about 2000 kilometers. Disadvantages are: 1 very difficult to deploy 2 the rotation rate will slow due to air resistance and the moving of the climbers, so we will need to speed up the counter weight frequently or continuously. 3 the specs for the CNT need to be better than that required to build a practical Edwards type space elevator. 4 The South Pole is not a convenient location to launch climbers. 5 I forgot 6 The release speed (near the counterweight) is too fast for many destinations such as GEO orbit, but we can release any where after the climber leaves the atmosphere to get optimum speed and direction of the throw. With excellent CNT specs, if the ribbon breaks, the wide, but very thin ribbon slows quickly in the atmosphere to the local wind speed, and is thus a hazard only to penguins and any aircraft flying over Antarctica. If the ribbon breaks high in Earth's atmosphere the upper portion goes into solar orbit, and will burn up in the upper atmosphere in the unlikely case of re-entry.
A similar design is likely workable most anywhere on a Moon's surface, but much easier due to the lack of atmosphere and the low gravity. Neil

 

[MeteorWayne]

It is clear that no one has taken the time to look up what a sun-synchronous orbit is. Sheesh!!!