Zontar said:
More than just seismic activity will create a tsunami, however:
This, I did not know. I still wonder though, how much water would be displaced by the falling elevator.
source:
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/?page=tsunami_science
Going Up! Canadian Company Granted U.S. Patent For A Space Elevator
- Thread starter PatrickJS
- Start date
source:
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/?page=tsunami_science
They'd be using the most lightweight materials possible to build the elevator, so actually I don't think it would have as much kinetic energy as you might think if it fell. It'd be a disaster for the agency or country who owned the elevator, but from a environmental point of view it'd be fairly negligible. Orders of magnitude less energy than a decent hurricane or earthquake, certainly.Draconalis said:
Anyway, I thought the best current bet for sending things into space without relying on rocketry was some kind of kinetic slingshot system?
Here, have another! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F1YyDPZLX8]FogHornG36 said:
OT: Yay, Canada science!
Shooting them down as an acceptable response is a post-9/11 idea even if the military always had it on the table. Hijackings in that 40 year period where exclusively in the form of terrorists trying to get ransoms, prisoners released, getting to a location or a combination there of, and the M.O. for militarise when dealing with this was to wait until the inevitable landing and then take out in the way only the military or a SWAT team can. People didn't resist on the first three planes because to be frank the idea that someone would fly them into a building was just not in anyone's head until after it had actually happened.mad825 said:
Even ignoring security measures which have been added over the years after that event, a 9/11 like hijacking, or a cold war communist or contra one as well, is pretty much never going to happen again due to the new way we as a society perceive such an action. Instead of it being one where we think passively going along with it will virtually guarantee our survival no matter what the outcome (as was the case with pre-9/11 hijackings) now the perception is that no matter what the risk is of resisting, it's better odds then letting them have their way.
This is something terrorists are aware of, and is the reason why now they try to bomb planes instead of taking them over.
I think the orbital airship makes more sense, don't bother with an elevator structure in the lower atmosphere ... just use a blimp to fly your cargo/rockets/etc to your lighter than air station.
So, I get that this is an inflated tower but what would happen if a rigid structure was built around it and then the base destroyed? Would it fall? I assume so. Would it behave like dropping a rod from space would from that height (a massive explosion) or what? I guess the idea is that it is more like a pendulum hanging away from the earth thanks to the counterweight rather than a structure that is standing on earth. But surely if the base of the structure is destroyed then its orbit would decay very rapidly and fall to earth just like anything else.
I'm partially interested in what could go wrong. Still mostly excited for its uses but what's the worst case scenario? What kind of pressures would it have to survive? I mean, even pushing off of it from space would cause far more pressure than people might with the top of it being nearly weightless despite having all that mass connected to parts that are fully weighted.
I'm partially interested in what could go wrong. Still mostly excited for its uses but what's the worst case scenario? What kind of pressures would it have to survive? I mean, even pushing off of it from space would cause far more pressure than people might with the top of it being nearly weightless despite having all that mass connected to parts that are fully weighted.
Even if such a thing was feasible (may or may not be, I have no idea), the G forces would kill people and sensitive equipment.Batou667 said:
There was also an impressive amount of mistakes made by US government agencies. If they'd been on the ball, hell even if they just followed their procedures right away instead of dithering, it likely would not have happened.mad825 said:
Of course, if they had shot the planes down, 9/11 would be remembered as the day the USAF shot down civilian planes in US airspace because of some plan some terrorist group nobody had heard of had to destroy the WTC. It would have seemed ludicrous to very many people if it hadn't actually happened.
Thinking about the movies with space elevator featured in them but not too many i guess. The only fiction coming tomind is EVE Empyrean Age book. Not on earth but space elevator nontheless. Warhammer 40k universe probably has them as well but still no movie.
