In a GQ thread about the moon’s rotation, someone’s link made the following observation:
So, if human beings lived on Pluto, could they build a stable bridge/tunnel/elevator from Pluto’s surface to Charon’s?
Given the tidally locked, and a minute orbital eccentricity, sure. It would have to be a little flexible and be able to handle a .002 pct stretch…but its doable.
It would be a heck of a drive, though at just over 10k miles each eay.
Talk about a bridge to nowhere.
Maybe we can get Palin’s backing on this one, too.
We’re quite a long ways away to casually say “as if joined with a rod.”
A few hundred miles worth of libration (seen in this movie of earth’s moon) could mess up most bridge designs, and a doubt that the data is good enough to rule out that sort of movement between Pluto and Charon.
I am pumped up that we are going to get a our first good look at them both in a few years thanks to the New Horizons probe.
We’re having a hard enough time building a bridge across the San Francisco Bay.
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This is GQ, and your political snark has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Please save it for GD or the Pit.
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Instead of a (relatively) rigid bridge, it would be more feasible to build a kind of cable-car system. You get a strong but flexible cable connecting the two bodies and have airtight gonolas travel back and forth.
I’m sure Charon’s orbit is at least slightly elliptical. That blows it right there.
Huge spring-loaded spools of extra cable on each end.