E Amazings
  • Home
  • Automotive
  • Business
  • CBD
  • Crypto
  • Education
  • Entertainment
  • Fashion
  • Finance
  • Health
  • Home Improvement
  • Law \ Legal
  • News
  • Shopping
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • Need Help?

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

What's Hot

What Closing Costs Do Home Buyers Have?

February 25, 2023

What Is Realtek HD Audio Manager

February 2, 2023

A Basic Guide To Cell Tower Leasing

February 2, 2023
Facebook Twitter Instagram
E Amazings
  • Home
  • Automotive
  • Business
  • CBD
  • Crypto
  • Education
  • Entertainment
  • Fashion
  • Finance
  • Health
  • Home Improvement
  • Law \ Legal
  • News
  • Shopping
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
  • Need Help?
Facebook Twitter Instagram
E Amazings
You are at:Home»Technology»Next Floor: Geosynchronous Satellites, Orbiting Laboratories
Technology

Next Floor: Geosynchronous Satellites, Orbiting Laboratories

By August 4, 2022No Comments3 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Email

[ad_1]

On Star Trek, if you want to go from one deck to another, you enter a “turbolift” and tell it where you want to go. However, many people have speculated that one day you’ll ride an elevator to orbit instead of using a relatively crude rocket. The idea is simple. If you had a tether anchored on the Earth with the other end connected to a satellite, you could simply move up and down the tether. Sound simple, so what’s the problem? The tether has to withstand enormous forces, and we don’t know how to make anything practical that could survive it. However, a team at the International Space Elevator Consortium could have the answer: graphene ribbons.

The concept is not new, but the hope of any practical material able to hold up to the strain has been scant. [Arthur C. Clarke] summed it up in 1979:

How close are we to achieving this with known materials? Not very. The best steel wire could manage only a miserable 31 mi (50 km) or so of vertical suspension before it snapped under its own weight. The trouble with metals is that, though they are strong, they are also heavy; we want something that is both strong and light. This suggests that we should look at modern synthetic and composite materials. Kevlar… for example, could sustain a vertical length of 124 mi (200 km) before snapping – impressive, but still totally inadequate compared with the 3,100 (5,000 km) needed.

While researchers have previously noted that carbon nanotubes may have the required strength, they suffer from two problems. First, we don’t know how to make very long nanotubes. In addition, under stress they may fray. However, new work suggests that graphene may be the answer.

Technology exists to make very large graphene fibers, although perhaps not to the scale needed yet — but fibers on the order of 1 km in length are now possible. These fibers aren’t exactly the right topology of graphene, but it shows that it is possible to work with the material at scale and with a tensile strength 200 times greater than steel (according to the post), it could be suitable for use in an orbital tether.

The space elevator idea keeps popping up. In “Ad Astra” (see below) the International Space Antenna appears to be tethered to the ground. China says they are actively building an elevator they expect to have completed by 2045.

We’ve been watching this story for a long time. We also think we may see a moon elevator before we get an Earth-based one.

[ad_2]

Source link

Related Posts

What Is Realtek HD Audio Manager

By Corbin BowenFebruary 2, 2023

A Basic Guide To Cell Tower Leasing

By Corbin BowenFebruary 2, 2023

The Flight Of The Dremel

By January 5, 2023

A White-Light Laser, On The Cheap

By January 5, 2023
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Our Picks

What Closing Costs Do Home Buyers Have?

By Corbin BowenFebruary 25, 2023

What Is Realtek HD Audio Manager

By Corbin BowenFebruary 2, 2023

A Basic Guide To Cell Tower Leasing

By Corbin BowenFebruary 2, 2023
Recent Posts
  • What Closing Costs Do Home Buyers Have? February 25, 2023
  • What Is Realtek HD Audio Manager February 2, 2023
  • A Basic Guide To Cell Tower Leasing February 2, 2023
  • Air Duct Repair 101: Everything You Need To Know February 2, 2023
  • Advantage LIC? How Budget Insurance Amendment Bill may benefit the PSU insurance giant January 5, 2023
  • The Flight Of The Dremel January 5, 2023
  • LIC offering multiple benefits on premium payment with co-branded credit cards with Axis Bank: Check features, offer January 5, 2023
Archives
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • September 2021
Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest TikTok
© 2022 E Amazings - All Rights Reserved.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.