Space Elevator (The Epic Tower) (Page 15) Corwin: There is something called a Rail-Gun that works like that... like a magnetic cannon. I suppose a really really big one could hurl stuff into orbit, and would be far easier to build than a geostationary tower. I think what it really boils down to is economics... rockets are probably more affordable.  Zereous Excentris: i dont want to hear about.. Money that is Nothing and how it says No to you.. Stop letting money be your chain.. Use resources and Energy to get out there and stop letting some banker say it costs to much Cotton slip that means JACK ALL Zereous Excentris: You want to know your Economic Limit.. This WHOLE planet.. use it to get into space Corwin: Money is NOT just an illusion. Money represents a very real assessment of resources and manpower. The Pyramids were NOT built for free... they were funded by Egypt's agricultural economy and military might. But even if you did away with money, created a completely and purely Communist world, and everybody worked for free, there is STILL a cost associated with something so big, in terms of resources. Zereous Excentris: yeah.. money is backed up by nothing.. all it represents is a cotton slip of paper.. and the only thing its worth is the value you place on it.. its an Illusion that has substance placed by your mind Corwin: I see you've also never studied Economics... specifically Macro Economics. Money is what has evolved from the early human practice of "barter" and "trade". When you break it down, the world has resources and manpower... money is simply a way of keeping track of those resources and manpower. And I'm not talking about personal individual wealth, I mean the wealth of the world. Resources are limited... manpower is limited. Zereous Excentris: money is just like the never ending story plot.. if you dont fantasize it ceases to exist and goes into the black.. Especially if your race would do Research into New and Better Social Engineering.. Money is just a Social Engineering.. its a Program.. Its not even Based on Physics its just based on your Mind really! (Edited by Zereous Excentris)  Aura: wait a minute, really...I have scanned this whole thread - I might have to read it more carefully, but did you two really just have a 2 month long conversation about the space elevator (with some detours) and the concept of Centrifugal force did not come up?  Once you get the tower up there, the structure is not about holding the top up against gravity. It's there to stop the damned thing from being flung into space because the earth spins pretty damned quick. It's a tension problem. We still don't have the materials strong enough to build this, but the problem of gravity is only with the first payload. Therefore, you ideally wouldn't build it horizontally layer for layer like a skyscraper, but vertically like the rings on a tree. Not supporting in the sense of pressing weight, but pulling weight to build a ever bigger platform on top with each layer. Getting stuff up there, through the Centrifugal force would not be a problem, getting back down against it would be. The other problem is friction since it will create a lot of heat and electric charge spinning through the atmosphere like that. Corwin: Only the very top of a 36,000km high tower would reach the altitude of geosynchronous orbit... the mass of the tower would increase in weight all the way down. So although the entire mass of the structure would not be under one gee, but enough of the structure's mass would weigh heavy at the base, in the order of many millions of tonnes. To build this thing far above and beyond geosynchronous orbit to create enough "tension" to support the entire mass of the structure would mean adding thousands more kilometers to it's height... whereas the idea of building a 36,000km tall structure is already preposterous enough as it is. "spinning through the atmosphere" ?? Why would it be spinning through the atmosphere? This would be a stationary structure. Aura: Have you not had one of those toys where there's a ball inside an other ball filled with liquid? The atmosphere is not anchored to the earth, a tower aside from the high/low pressure of weather systems also has to deal with some air friction crated by the inner ball (earth) spinning. It's not enough to be of much nuisance on 'short' buildings but for something so long, it will be. Corwin: "The atmosphere is not anchored to the earth" You mean "wind", right? The rotation of the Earth causes something called the "Coriolis Effect", which is what spins the atmosphere up into things like hurricanes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. A "space tower" would, by necessity, have to be built at the equator. The equator does not experience the consequences of the Coriolis Effect. Corwin: Oh... the Coriolis Effect is also responsible for the high-altitude "jet-streams" of high-powered winds which run West to East in the Northern and Southern latitudes... also something that does not occur at the equator. Aura: Lol, no. "wind" is mostly air flowing from a high pressure to a low pressure area and most those high pressure low pressure area's are because gases expand very much when heated. weather has much more to do with temperature than spinning of the globe. And the coriolis effect is about trying to move in a straight line when the surface is spinning which was always great fun getting out of amusement park rides and on the spinning platform, trying to get to the exit gate I am talking about what happens when I as a synchronized swimmer started spinning in the water, I caused the water to spin by my motion, but it never spins as fast as I do since it's not attached to me. It will cause some drag on my body because of it. edit, put in a missing s (Edited by Aura) Corwin: But the atmosphere shares the rotation of the Earth as it spins in a vacuum... the entire swimming pool does not share your rotation, and therefor will resist against your spinning. Not the same thing at all, really... the vacuum surrounding the Earth does not cause cause "drag" in the atmosphere. The most energetic large-scale phenomenon in the Earth's atmosphere, such as hurricanes and jet-streams, are a result of the Earth's rotation and the Coriolis Effect. Also why hurricanes rotate counterclockwise in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere. (Also why water spinning down a drain shares the same respective directions of rotation for Northern and Southern hemispheres. ) Jupiter's Great Red Spot is also an example of a massive energetic storm caused by Jupiter's rotation and the Coriolis Effect. These effects do not come into play at the equator. Zereous Excentris: Wind changes works off of gravity wells and gravity effect as the planet rotates to effect wind changes too.. gravity has a roll to play in all of this! just like the ocean swells up and lowers when the moon passes over so does the blob of atmosphere around the planet! (Edited by Zereous Excentris) Corwin: The rotation of the Earth does not "work off of gravity". The Earth attained it's rotation when it formed from a slowly rotating disc of dust and gas... as the disc collapsed, the rotation increased, as a result of something called "conservation of angular momentum", similar to how a spinning figure skater spins faster as they pull in their arms. In other words, the Earth's rotation is Kinetic Energy left over from the process of it's formation. Zereous Excentris: there I edited it to make more sense ! -.- Whole race bitches about whats wrong but never really says well yeah thats right good job.. god am i getting so tired! Aura: It should, but it doesn't. The stratosphere is at 20% of earth's rotation. http://tinyurl.com/q6wc4ur Corwin: Just so my last post makes more sense, I'll copy and paste what Zereo originally began his post that I responded to, before he edited it: " the rotation of our planet it works off of gravity " ------------ In response to his edit: The only major role that gravity plays with weather, is the fact that a mass of hot air rises, and cooler air sinks. As far as I know, the tidal pull of the Moon does not affect weather systems. Zereous Excentris: he could jest edit it and say big whoop but he points out a Random flaw.. how genius of em.. me speaking in a daze did not want it to actualy sound like that.. basically a typo.. acts like I am a retard or something! (Edited by Zereous Excentris) | Technology Chat Room Similar Conversations |