Obayashi plans to construct 'space elevator' in 2050

It's not possible, without the so called called counter weight, the structure would fall under its own weight. Of the secret structure extended put high enough to reach a so called counter weight, then the pressure of the earth turning would topple it over. Not to mention even of it did work it would today out costly to much. More then the current space program. The maintenance alone would have to have its own separate tax bracket.o am not an engineer and o know this font add up to making cents



Pun intended

reply to post by Maponos


Oh noeeeys - no satelite can stand still above the poles, thats impossible.

I used to dream about those decades ago. Won an innovation prize from a contest for that idea also. It would be amazing to see my dream realized! But will I still be alive then?

reply to post by elevatedone


Highly unlikely, by 2050 WW3 would have already come and gone by which we will be sent back 3000 years to the time of cavemen. Then in another 3000 years people will find our present day technology and wonder if there were advanced civilizations over 3000 years before.

meh, bush wanted to build a elevator to the moon, that never happened

Originally posted by punisher2012
It's not possible, without the so called called counter weight, the structure would fall under its own weight. Of the secret structure extended put high enough to reach a so called counter weight, then the pressure of the earth turning would topple it over. Not to mention even of it did work it would today out costly to much. More then the current space program. The maintenance alone would have to have its own separate tax bracket.o am not an engineer and o know this font add up to making cents


When they annouched they wanted to build a elevator to the moon, they also realsed what materal they would use, which was a nano created super material or something which is the strongest and weakest materal we know of depending on its tempeture or something like that

Whatever ''X amount of money it costs to construct this thing, it could be better spent on investing on better technology to get us out into space with ease (although of cause you guys already know we've mastered that, or someone has mastered that for us!).

How would this thing be built? I presume backwards, starting from space with the counter weight, and sending some kind of connection down into it's considered destination?

Many lives will be lost building this, and it's prone to be liable in some sense or manner. Japan simply building some buzz around the place after what happened last year...that's all!

Probably once we got going on it, God would take notice, think we were trying to get into heaven,

and confuse our languages so we could not continue to build it.

I would hate to get stuck on that elevator! I hate riding elevators, I would probably freak out after just 5 minutes.

The only way this would be possible is by using carbon nanotubes.

Michio Kaku tackles this in his book: Physics of the Impossible.

I cant' remember what units of meaurement he used to explain this, but he said that the tension on the cable would be in the region of 80-100(insert measurement), and steel cable snaps at 2... carbon nanotubes however have a tension strength of about 120. So while this is a plausible idea, at the time of writing his book they could only make nanotubes 15mm in length, quite a way to go yet. Plus the inherant problem of contamination or weakness of the molecular bond could weaken the tube by upto 70%!!!

It's possible and here's hoping they do it faster than 2050, I quite fancy a ride into orbit.

compared to how much pipe is laid in the ground each year by oil companies, we could pull this off in just a few years, now, We just start going vertical instead of all the horizontal pipelines.

Originally posted by EvolEric
I agree...
this shouldnt be built in Japan if they want it keep it grasping the heavens...

Honestly, think of the destruction it would cause if it came crumbling down to earth.

It would either wrap around the earth multiple times OR come down in one location.. of where it was built.
BUT imagine how much material has to come down...
35,000 kilometers of space elevator... The material coming down would envelope a whole city of like tokyo or something. It would seriously be like one big weapon of mass destruction..

it is a pretty cool idea but as DaRage said if it failed it would cause so much destruction and kill many people, cant imagine how much it would cost to build that thing too. also if it did work what are you supposed to do in a 6 car elevator for 7 and a half days.

Originally posted by DaRAGE

Originally posted by EvolEric
I agree...
this shouldnt be built in Japan if they want it keep it grasping the heavens...

Honestly, think of the destruction it would cause if it came crumbling down to earth.

It would either wrap around the earth multiple times OR come down in one location.. of where it was built.
BUT imagine how much material has to come down...
35,000 kilometers of space elevator... The material coming down would envelope a whole city of like tokyo or something. It would seriously be like one big weapon of mass destruction..

Space is much closer than you think. The elevator would be like a hair on earth, not a tail.

And this is only going to benefit what? Sight seeing? How would something this tall withstand storms? Who would also be crazy enough to take an elevator ride nearly 96,000km from the ground? I see a lot of problems with this idea.

Seems like if there actually is a real plan for this project it must depend on a lot of current technology to improve greatly. 25 years and no cost estimate sounds like stabbing in the dark to me.

Notwithstanding, my (humble) understanding of the space elevator in theory is that the terminating point is a geosynchronous satellite. In this case it can't be analogous to a bucket attached to a lasso (centrifugal force). It's more like two cosmic bodies in gravitational balance that are connected by nano-material. The passive load on the nano-material would not be affected by centrifugal force. It would be affected only by the weight of the elevator cars (but increasingly less as the cars gain altitude), weather and geo-thermal patterns and of course collisions with rogue objects. And pelicans.

One fun mystery to ponder is what happened the first time we tried to tap into the elecro-magnetic power of the universe by creating a really long antenna in orbit. STS-75 (The Tether Incident): youtu.be...