On 2020-06-11 8:06 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

I think that what happens above geostationary altitude on an elevator
is often overlooked. People talk about putting a counter weight to
keep the cable taught. I think you want to have 30,000 km of cable
above geostationary altitude and you don't need to put a big massive
object at the end of those 30,000 km. What you put at the end of the
cable is another cable, this one spinning. All those cables are your
counter weight, but you can also use them to go away in the solar
system. Just going to 30,000 km above geostationary gives you enough
angular momentum to escape Earth. The spinning cable gives you more
umpf, but it also lets you go outside of Earth's equatorial plane.


I forgot to mention also that once you are past geostationary altitude,
you no longer have to figure out how to power your cabin. The cabin is
pulled out by the centrifugal force. Now you have to figure out what you
are going to do with the electricity you generate while controlling your
speed and/or slowing down. So using the cable after geostationary
altitude to go out in the solar system is really a free ride.

Both of these ideas are interesting potentials of the technology I
hadn't thought of. Cool ideas.

Now if we had say about 3 of these, equidistant around the equator,
acting like giant 'cell telephone' towers, perhaps we could replace LEO
satellite clusters altogether, which seems from today's perspective one
of the two the biggest inhibitors to this technology. The other being
the still unsolved materials problem of constructing the appropriate cable.

So in the end, it looks like rockets and satellites win, because
technology enabled them first.

Dave