h a l f b a k e r y
Strap *this* to the back of your cat.
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Space Mountain
Cheap entry into space and an end to the K2 controversy | |
The Indian government is in competition with the Chinese across a wide range of topics, now including space travel.
Mine the Himalayas and build a mountain (using Everest as a starting point) that reaches into the sky.
This will not only dwarf the Three Gorges Dam in scale and ambition, it
may also be in time to claim the X-Prize.
Elevator to Space
http://www.halfbake...evator_20to_20Space
More intelligent discussion on the same idea. [kropotkin, Oct 04 2004]
How tall?
http://www.vacets.org/tc/tc51.html
Maximum possible height of mountain on earth is about 10 km (6 miles) [kropotkin, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Google: space ramp
http://www.google.c...fe=off&q=space+ramp
[waugsqueke, Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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Without being all horribly PC, new-age or green, or whatever, aren't you advocating ecological vandalism? |
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We've done this one before. The problem with it is that the volume of dirt needed to raise the mountain one foot increases with every foot that you add. (I forget if it's cubic or exponential, but you run out of rubble pretty quickly.) |
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There is a scheme, somewhere in the so-called real world, to build a launch ramp up the side of a mountain. But in the end, it doesn't offer significant advantages over launching without rails. |
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you'll run out of rubble mining the rest of the Himalayas? Seems unlikely. |
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To reach into space you'd need a mountain something like 100 km high; this is about 10 times higher than Everest. However so big a mountain couldn't survive: pressure at the bottom would be so great as to liquify rocks, and the mountain would thereby fall down. In other words, a space tower cannot be built out of rock. (link) |
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I thought the Himalayas were pretty solid not rubble, Barney! |
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*inserts obligitory "Stairway To Heaven" reference here* |
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a conical pile of rocks that big would take tremendous amounts of raw material, so yes, you would run out of rubble mining the rest of the himalayas. |
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The space ramp concept is pretty thoroughly halfbaked here and discussed elsewhere, as googly link indicates. |
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K2 might make a good fulcrum for a space catapult. |
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Might also really put our orbit into a lopsided limp. |
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Orbit should be unchanged, as we are not applying force to the planet, nor ejecting any mass. We will just be moving a huge amount of it. Our center of gravity will move, but very slowly (this will be a government project, right?) so I think that even though the center of rotation will move a little toward K2, the rotational period might be unchanged as well. |
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Of course, tidal effects from our new appendage might render my guess totally wrong. |
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