Righto, so this is straight out of the science-fiction fantasy nutjob realm, but some company is giving it a punt.. I reckon its truly ridiculous, but the idea is fascinating, and in any case its great to think about the physics ivolved..
In this little diagram I’ve drawn, its roughly to scale, if you consider Earth’s circumference is 40,000km.
edit: actually if it were to scale the tether would be longer, or the earth smaller.
For perspective, the distance to the moon is between about 350,000 and 400,000km away (its on an eliptical orbit)
The climbing vehicle will climb against gravity for a time, then after reaching zero gravity, will be ‘flung’ towards its destination..
My questions:
Apparently they will use an offshore ‘anchor’ to secure it at the earth end, and it will be mobile so they can shift the entire thing to avoid obstacles such as space debris and asteroids.. how do they plan to achieve this?
SO, if the ribbon is only a few cms wide and tiny and therefore extremely strong, have they calculated the effect of the wear and tear on the ribbon from the shuttle? e.g. can you imagine a dump-truck climbing up what looks like a computer ribbon cable – for 100,000kms??
