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Re:The Quest to Build an Elevator into Space by lotsofmangos on Friday October 03, 2014 @07:26PM (#8408175)
I been trying to think about this from a different angle and have been trying to work out how long you could make a self-supporting fuel and oxygen line by putting a lightweight triangular gantry with three small adjustable rocket engines and a fuel pump every hundred meters or so. This wouldn't need stupid materials as it would not be under the same tensile loads, but it will have a maximum length that depends on overall fuel consumption of the structure vs the flow rate of pipe you can haul.

Also, it would be constantly burning fuel, so it has pretty high running costs.

edit - you could also make an electric version of the same thing that pumps a reaction mass like water, but then you need to be able to fire it very fast out of the nozzles otherwise the water line becomes unwieldy very quickly, so I figured using chemical fuel might make things simpler.

Re:The Quest to Build an Elevator into Space by stcredzero on Friday October 03, 2014 @09:04PM (#8408436)
There was an informal JPL study that was posted to rec.arts.sf.science a very long time ago, that found that a 100km high exponentially tapering tower could be practically built by using highly pressurized balloon tanks of boron. (Practical meaning, conceivably affordable by a superpower, with a chance in hell of actually happening.)

People have also studied using dynamically supported structures. We could probably build the Lofstrom Loop and it would bring the cost of going into LEO to space elevator levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop

Still, not a chance in hell of it happening in the US. China might be crazy enough to build it.

Re:The Quest to Build an Elevator into Space by civilian on Friday October 03, 2014 @07:41PM (#8408211)
Yeahhhhhh that is not an effective strategy at all. Rockets upon rockets. It sounds like an idea hatched in Kerbal Space Program.

The best "ground powered" structure would be the space fountain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain

Re:The Quest to Build an Elevator into Space by lotsofmangos on Friday October 03, 2014 @07:52PM (#8408232)
Back of an envelope calculations seem to indicate that a 200km one is possibly feasible using normal petrol, tho I wouldn't like to bet on geostationary. The space fountain has it's own issues, such as engineering the deflector and making the giant electromagnetic tube. What I am suggesting is far simpler.

edit - and the I had the idea before Kerbal came out, so if it is total madness, I promise you they are not to blame.