Table of Contents
Could you climb a rope to space?
It would have to be incredibly strong to handle the gravitational and centrifugal forces pulling on it. The steel used in tall buildings wouldn’t work for a space elevator cable. You’d need a higher mass of steel than all the mass in the universe, Landgraf noted in a 2013 TEDx talk.
Could we tie a rope to the moon?
No. It can’t be. Many people think that just because the moon is tidally locked to the Earth and the same side of the moon is also always visible, so we can make an elevator all the way up to the moon or connect both with a rope… but its a wrong concept.
Is it possible to build an elevator to the moon?
New study suggests that a lunar space elevator could be built for about $1 billion using existing technology. Since the dawn of the space era more than six decades ago, there’s been just one way to get to the moon and back: rockets.
Could we climb up into space instead of launching rockets?
So physicists have concocted another solution — one that turns the tower approach on its head. Some scientists have proposed hanging a ribbon in Earth’s orbit and dangling its end down to the surface. Then people could climb up into space instead of blasting off in rockets.
Why is a cable stuck at a specific position on Earth?
The competing forces of gravity, which is stronger at the lower end, and the outward/upward centrifugal force, which is stronger at the upper end, would result in the cable being held up, under tension, and stationary over a single position on Earth.
Is it possible to build a space elevator on Earth?
The cable thickness is adjusted based on tension, it has its maximum at a geostationary orbit and the minimum on the ground. Available materials are not strong enough to make an Earth space elevator practical. Some sources have speculated that future advances in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could lead to a practical design.
What is the height of geostationary orbit from the ground?
He considered a similar tower that reached all the way into space and was built from the ground up to the altitude of 35,786 kilometers, the height of geostationary orbit. He noted that the top of such a tower would be circling Earth as in a geostationary orbit.