Re:How tall can a Lego tower get?
by wiredfool on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @12:02PM
(#4877175)
As a tower? Mainly because the base gets exponentially larger as you get taller. You'd start talking about a mountain that's significantly taller than the diameter of the earth.
Earth's radius is 4k miles. Geostationary orbit is ~25k. Space elevators IIRC, are proposed for ca 60k miles out. Assuming a 10-20x height/width ratio, the base would be 3-6k miles on a side. Even just getting to geostationary orbit would require a mountain with a base the size of a continent.
Earth's radius is 4k miles. Geostationary orbit is ~25k. Space elevators IIRC, are proposed for ca 60k miles out. Assuming a 10-20x height/width ratio, the base would be 3-6k miles on a side. Even just getting to geostationary orbit would require a mountain with a base the size of a continent.