Space Elevator in Google Earth

Has anyone considered the effect that running a cable through the ionoshere might have? in effect you are providing a path for a gazillion volts to follow and without some way to stop the electrical flow that cable is just gonna vaporize. I've heard of what they call "space lightning" following even a space shuttle contrail. There is some serious energy stored up there. Some believe that H.A.R.P. could cause some mega bolts unlike anything we've ever seen from breeching the ionoshere.
Also if this cable were to snap I could just imagine that thing whipping around our atmoshere thrashing everything ...how ya gonna catch that?

In that case you would need a quarter of a cubic mile of "carbonnannotube", good luck!

While i agree its a cool idea, i think the money could be better spent curing diseases or feeding the millions of starving people. How much money is spent each year on space programs throughout the world? What is accomplished by doing expiriments in space, we need to focus on expiriments in our natural living environment for things to be of use to the human race don't we? I think all the space exploration is waste of time and money. I've heard "we know more about the moon than the deepest parts of our own ocean". there isnt much on the moon that i've noticed but shouldnt we be focusing on problems closer to earth rather than having our heads in the clouds, well above them.

[edit on 15-1-2007 by cuda]

Originally posted by cuda
While i agree its a cool idea, i think the money could be better spent curing diseases or feeding the millions of starving people. How much money is spent each year on space programs throughout the world? What is accomplished by doing expiriments in space, we need to focus on expiriments in our natural living environment for things to be of use to the human race don't we? I think all the space exploration is waste of time and money. I've heard "we know more about the moon than the deepest parts of our own ocean". there isnt much on the moon that i've noticed but shouldnt we be focusing on problems closer to earth rather than having our heads in the clouds, well above them.

I'm sorry, but I really can't stand the "we should stop space exploration and feed people" argument. There is no reason why we can't do both. NASA's budget is only a small fraction of the entire US federal budget. NASA gets about $16 billion per year. The current war gets something like what, $2 billion per week? NASA's budget is a drop in the bucket.

Many of the things developed for space related projects are then used or turned into commercial applications. Just look at this site for various examples. Also satellites that study and monitor our planet with there various instruments have given us a lot of knowledge about our world and its environment. There is no reason why technology designed to live off world can't be used here on Earth to improve our standard of living.

most of the 'things' developed for NASA were previously developed for the DoD.