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Building a space elevator for the moon seems doable with existing materials (see the wikipedia page). So my question is why is no country or organization interested in building one?
You have to get stuff to the moon before you can launch/capture with a space elevator on it. Right now Earth's gravity well is the limiting factor.Building a space elevator for the moon seems doable with existing materials (see the wikipedia page). So my question is why is no country or organization interested in building one?
It's true, landing and taking off from the moon is easy compared to escaping Earth's gravitational pull. It's unlikely a space elevator on the moon would be cost effective unless there was a large amount of "stuff" being shipped to and from it.I guess it's partly because no one is actually planning to spend a lot of money actually getting there at all, at the mo. It may be quite 'do-able' and it sounds like a very satisfying idea from the engineering point of view BUT it would cost quite a bit more than just sending a manned expedition with a conventional launch system for returning.
The only parallel is that it's a geo-(leo?)-synchronous elevator on a rotating celestial body. Earth's space elevator problem is made infinitely more difficult with a thick atmosphere, large numbers of currently orbiting satellites, and much larger gravity well.In the very distant future, such a construction would be a great test bed for doing the same on Earth.
Well we won't get anything done then, because I seriously doubt those problems will ever completely diasappear!Once we've sorted out the food, the climate and the health issues, it sounds like a fab project for us to get started on. Whilst there are still people, down here, hacking each other to pieces and starving, it sounds a bit of a luxury, to me.
Forget it! The rotation period of the moon is 28 days. To incorporate the orbiting platform that would be needed for the elevator at that rate would require an incredibly high orbit (I won't bother trying to figure how high.) In any case, there are other ways of throwing an object off the moon that are so much simpler and cheaper, like for example, a maglev launcher, once the cost of getting it to the moon is solved.Building a space elevator for the moon seems doable with existing materials (see the wikipedia page). So my question is why is no country or organization interested in building one?
I'm so embarrassed at not spotting that one myself! Now, if they could just speed up the Moon's rotation a bit. . . .Forget it! The rotation period of the moon is 28 days. To incorporate the orbiting platform that would be needed for the elevator at that rate would require an incredibly high orbit (I won't bother trying to figure how high.) In any case, there are other ways of throwing an object off the moon that are so much simpler and cheaper, like for example, a maglev launcher, once the cost of getting it to the moon is solved.
KM