Good question, I’ve thought of it myself quite a bit. You need something that will be able to blow the explosives quickly incase the cable snaps but also it to be resistant to that sort of thing incase an external force (terrorist, computer error :eek:… ) decides to blow up one of the most expensive endevours in human histroy. First off, the explosions would have to happen in a chain to prevent someone from just setting off one at the top and letting the cable fly. So as soon as one goes off, the whole cable is gone. The activation “switch” would have to be at ground level in some type of bunker, probably in the US somewhere. They would constantly moniter weather conditions and the conditions of the cable to make sure everything is running smoothly. Now whats stopping someone from breaking in and blowing the cable? Well lots of things. Just think of a nuclear silo, I haven’t heard of anyone break in and launching a missle. Plus with something as important as the space elevator I doubt they are going to be stingey on security. Also a computer failsafe would probably be set up incase a human can’t flick the switch fast enough. Course’ that brings up the problem that the computer could be tricked, but thats not very likely considering the importance of it.
A no fly zone would have to be declared for some distance around the cable. Any unauthorized aircraft violating that airspace would be shot down, or maybe disabled, just because this is some 30 years off I’d assume we’d have some type of EMP gun by then or some other neato device. Transportation would be by boat and sometimes if nessisary helicopter.
Now weather poses more of a problem because its effect on the nanotubes is not yet know. Nanotubes (according to some reports I’ve read) are an amazingly good conductor, if not the best. So unfortuantly that means you have the worlds tallest and most conductive lightning rod. Or you might not. It’s hard to tell at this point.
Well, I need a break. I’ll be back to answer any other questions you have.
The cause in which they died will most certainly go on, and I’m damned pissed about it right now. Gregg Easterbrook makes a convincing case that these seven astronauts died as a result of our money-driven political system:
That’s the perfect followup to the Challenger disaster, where seven astronauts died for bureaucracy’s sake.
There’s a lot of truth in that article. But I don’t think the Space Launch Initiative has been cancelled. It was renamed Prometheus, and was supposed to get a whole bunch of new funding.
The Bush administration appointed O’Keefe as NASA administrator precisely because of the problems mentiioned in the article. O’Keefe is a space visionary and a bean counter, and has been going through NASA looking for waste, duplication, and other legacy problems. The next NASA budget to be unveiled next week was supposed to annouce funding for a new fleet of spaceplanes, the first of which was to fly before 2010, and a new nuclear propulsion initiative.
Now we’ll have to see if the politics change because of this accident.
I am curious about something that all of the naysayers seem to be repeating. Exactly what technology or human enterprise has ever been started, declared too risky… abandoned and then resurrected later as a perfectly mature endeavor? I’m racking my brain and I can’t think of one… even human flight which goes back centuries with some pretty dismal failures has never been just abandoned in the hopes that somehow without any work or effort we would have the technology and solutions we needed to send up millions of people a year in transcontinental flight. Yes space flight is risky and expensive and it will keep being risky and expensive untill we keep plugging away at it, refining our technology, riding the edge of innovation. That is how progress is made, it’s not something that just happens. Also alot of people keep putting out the environment and other terrestial problems as if it’s an either or proposition and they’re not. Do you honestly suggest that a vigorous space program with ambitious goals is at odds with or detracts from our efforts to solve the other problems of humanity?
lokij, one of Easterbrook’s main points is that the shuttle (a) isn’t breaking much new ground (most of the bucks spent on the machines go to fixing them back up after each flight), and (b) by soaking up money with those “Phyrric reusability” repairs, it sucks up funding that might go to technological developments.
What I’d say is not that an ambitious space program aids or detracts from our solving our other problems, but that it does neither, and that our other problems are where the real action is. We will not solve the human race’s problems by going to space; all but a few of our race will remain here. So space exploration cannot be our “most important long-term endeavor” as the thread title asserts.
Alien, can you say for certain that human life will exist on its own, without help from Earth, anywhere else by then? No, you can’t. And it’s a damned sight more likely to have survived here than to have successfully established itself somewhere else. Now be quiet. :rolleyes:
I guess you’re right here; I was speaking from the assumption that human survival is generally accepted as "not evil’, but capitalism is sometimes considered such.
Both points are valid, in the long run.
What are your criteria for reasonable? I mean, cancer research? Most people with cancer die after they’ve contributed to society, so who cares?
The point about travelling in space, with the very long term goal of colonization, is that when it becomes necessary it will already be done.
I read the Gregg Easterbrook article and I agree wholeheartedly. This even though I am quite the space/aviation junky.
Every week, I read the general interest scientific literature (Nature and Science) as I need to get a PhD at some point. While I see plenty of dividends of the space program – there are plenty of articles with data from the Hubble, or the Cosmic Background Observatory, or even an interplanetary probe like the Mars Observer, I have never ever seen one thing from the ISS or the Space Shuttle. The people most interested in most of the experiments this week on Columbia’s Spacelab were high school science classes and perhaps a few people in industry. It seems that the only real science I heard discussed was from the Israeli Meditteranean dust measurements, but I fail to see how this had to be done from a manned mission.
If you are going to call it exploration, then by Queen Isabella go do some actual exploration. Don’t grow seeds or light matches or watch ant colonies for $500 million in 16 days and justify it on scientific grounds. Exploration is stretching the limits of technology, improving what we know, bravery, yadayadayada. The Mercury and Apollo shots were exploration. The ISS was touted to be a waystation for intraplanetary exploration – make it one. The science can be more efficiently done here on this planet or with unmanned spaceflight. The quest to send a human to Mars should be exploration for exploration’s sake, just as the Moon landings primarily were. We didn’t go to the moon so that Alan Shepherd could measure the parabolic arc of a golf ball hit in 1/6*g. We went there so he could hit the golf ball. NASA will regain its relevance only when it starts again to stretch the boundaries of human knowledge.
What good is art? Music? Literature? Sure, you can put a price tag on these things, but we all agree that their true value is beyond that of money. The space program is the same way. On July 19th, 1969 all of humanity looked up at the Moon and said, “There’s people up there.” For a moment, the world was one. The price of that was a few billion dollars and at least 3 lives, but that doesn’t begin to tally the value of the program.
Some people have their church here on the ground, for others, our lies in the stars.
For one thing we managed to put up a giant billboard that still stands today that says “this moon was first claimed for the world by the United States of America”. IMHO this played a large part in defeating communism around the world, today tomorrow and in the future. Its political and military implications are untold. How would you have felt if everytime you went out at night you looked up and thought USSR or China instead of Neil Armstrongs words? It worries me that the Chineese think they will be going to the moon in the near future. I will look at the moon much diferently if they go there.
I feel that at the moment the human race is at a stand still concerning the space program. The main problem is that spacecraft to explore deep space is not technologically possible with the science that we know now. Our solar system itsself is huge. The distance between Earth and Pluto is almost three billion miles. According to a website (www.dustbunny.com) an aircraft flying at 600 MPH would take 675 years to fly from the Sun to Pluto.
At the speed of light (86,000 Miles Per Second), it would take over 9 HOURS to fly from Earth to Pluto,
(3,000,000Miles/86,000=34883 seconds/60=581 minutes/60=9.6 hours).
In universal terms, a trip from Earth to Pluto is like crossing the street. With our technology today, it would take over 600 years to do this. Nor, do I believe that in our lifetime that humanity can construct the technology for in trekkie language, “warpdrive”, that would enable mankind to go at the speed of light.
Not to be a negative person, but deep space travel beyond Mars (possibly) is unachievable. Obviously there is no intellegent life in our solar system, so we on Earth might live in the Death Valley of space. Humanity is trying to make a phone call to extraterrestrial life through satellites and space probes (Hubble, Voyager I etc.) but no one has heard us, or are ignoring our call.
I do not feel that in our lifetime that mankind will do anything more than orbit our own planet, throw away a lot of money shooting a manned flight to Mars, and sending probes into the darkness of the Universe.
Using that jet figure is a pretty poor comparison for calculating current interplanetary travel abilities. The shuttle travels more than 20 times faster than that jet does, and it doesn’t even have the speed to leave orbit. Any vehicle that has the ability to leave the earth’s orbit will almost certainly be going even faster. The probes we launch can make the trip in something like 6 months (Forget how long exactly, but less than a year). This is kind of like saying it’s impractical to travel around the world because it would take years to walk that far. We’re not going to walk across the US, and we’re not going to fly a 767 to Pluto.
And, um… Hubble isn’t “making a phone call.” And it’s not a probe. It’s an orbital teliscope, and is in no way involved with sending out signals to aliens…
That’s just what THEY want you to think! 
Yeah, sure, it’s all a conspiracy. Riiiiight. Some friendly men in black suits will be over shortly to correct you on this. Sheesh, silly man… 
Interesting juxtaposition.
by Tuckerfan:
…and then twinswin said:
twinswin, why not be glad that other nations plan to visit the moon? I don’t understand your “worry”. One appeal to space exploration is the potential for human beings to finally put aside their frail ideologies and unite as one race of intelligent, curious beings. Patriotism is all well and good (I guess), but I think it should be given a time-out when it comes the moon and other celestial bodies.
Whoa! Just saw this, and though I’m not twinswin, I think that I can provide an answer. In my case, I’m not happy about other nations going to the Moon IF the US doesn’t do it as well. My reasons for this are admittedly a bit selfish. Any nation that goes to the Moon is going to gain a technological advantage of some kind. I don’t like the thought of the US losing the edge that it currently has (Yes, I’m being nationalistic.), and if the US fails to go to the Moon or Mars with a manned mission, we stand in danger of losing that edge. Secondly, there are military advantages to having a permanent foothold on the Moon (See Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for reasons why.) and whilst having the British, French, or some other democracy up there running around without the US wouldn’t bother me greatly, I’d be seriously unnerved about the Chinese or the North Koreans running around out there. (More so with the Chinese, they’re not stupid and aren’t controlled by a crazed lunatic. If they get a toehold, they won’t screw it up and lose it. Hell, they’ll figure out how to profit from it!) Thirdly, if the US builds a permanent base on the Moon, there’s a chance that ordinary folks could go and live there. Not so much of a chance if anyone else gets up there. Still, having humans running around up there is better than not having anyone up there at all, which is what we have now.