The Lunar Space Elevator. Crazy or Credible idea?
Arthur C Clarke once said :
"The space elevators will be built 50 years after everybody stops laughing."
However, a Lunar Elevator can be constructed within a decade by using commercially available mass-produced high-strength fibres such as Kevlar or polyethylene fibre. There is also the possibility of manufacturing such materials on the Moon using ISRU (In situ resource utilization). For the moment, we'll leave talk of ISRU for another day as its a large topic in itself.
Difference between an Earth Based and Lunar Based Space Elevator🤷😕
The Lunar Elevator is of a similar concept to the Earth-based space elevator. As the Moon's surface gravity is about 17% of Earths gravity (On average Moon 1.62 m/s², Earth 9.807 m/s²) which means the engineering & Construction requirements for a Lunar Elevator can be built with using existing materials and Technologies.
A Major difference between the two systems is that a Lunar Elevator would have a tether/cable which extends out considerably farther out to about 100,000km. A potential hazard for this would be debris, manmade or meteorite (space crap). A maintenance cycle would have to be incorporated in the operation of any space elevator.
The Lunar Elevator System. Showing the maximum length of the ribbon (250,000km) Image belongs to LiftPort group.
The connection point, or base, of a lunar elevator, does not have to be at the Moons Equator but could be located relatively close to one of the poles. If near the Lunar South Pole it could be located near Shackleton Crater, where evidence suggests that there is frozen water inside the crater. With ISRU, this water could be in turn used to produce drinkable water and rocket fuel.
What does this all look like?🧐
Fortunately, here is a video that I helped to commission showing LiftPorts Lunar Space Elevator Concept. It was for a conference with LiftPort. If interested, then I may add a voice over to it.
The video gives a general overview as to what's going on.
Here's a shorter version
on Dtube:
https://d.tube/v/epicdave/xgtq4qdsv8l
And here's a link to the original version that we made:
Please give me feedback on this post, is it the sort of style you like? I am trying to avoid going into too many details and I am trying to write articles that will appeal to a broader audience. So, please do let me know your thoughts.
For more info check out the following links
Futuristic Moon Elevator Idea Takes Aim at Lunar Lifts: https://www.space.com/24905-moon-elevator-lunar-exploration-liftport.htmlThe Lunar Space Elevator (power Point): http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/fellows/mar05/1032Pearson.pdf
I would have preferred more details personally, so that I could avoid having to google to get more information (and also an explanation for the first image). Of course, you do not have to write a full novel, but something in between would be IMO nice :)
Also note that the first image seems to be copyrighted. If you want to get support from communities like @steemstem, this is something to take into account. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the feedback. I worked with the group, engineers and artists for the first image. You'll see similar images in the animation, which to my knowledge ( I may be wrong) the images were made alongside the animation. I am kinda a bit bamboozled who to credit for the image. For example, most of the animations I've made were "for the public benifet" and we had permission from artist/musicians to use certain things. I take it that in those cases I'd put the copywrite under my name as I commissioned those animations? I genuinly am clueless. On youtube, I put down the names and roles of everyone involved which ends up being pages and pages long.
I've got a lot of material like that for other projects so it would be good to find out now, before writing any other posts.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll try and incorporate more info in future posts, my fear is putting too much info in and boring the hell out of people. However, on the flip side, I dont want people having to google more info. I have a terrible habbit of writing waaaaay too much and boring everyone to death! :P
Thanks very much for your feedback :D. I genuinely appreciate it and I hope that I can improve these posts :D.
To come back to this (sorry for the delay, but the issues with the chain didn't help), you may just put a little comment at the end of the post, as a footnote, explaining in one sentence how the images were generated. IMO, this should be sufficient. However, if it is not indicated, curators cannot guess (which is my sole point with this respect).
I am looking forward to read your next post!
No worries. Some changes were made a while back to the article.
Thanks for all of your feedback but this will be the last STEM related post I am publishing on Steemit.
The last? But why?
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