Re: beanstalks (was Re: Metallic hydrogen ...)

From: Fred B. McGalliard (frederick.b.mcgalliard_at_boeing.com)
Date: 06/09/04 

Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2004 17:42:27 GMT

"The Ghost In The Machine" <ewill@aurigae.athghost7038suus.net> wrote in
message news:jmmjp1-...
> Interesting, but probably won't do much regarding power transmission
> up to the elevator car. There's still a lot of air molecules
> in the way, whether transmitting photons or electrons. :-)

The advantage of the FEL is that you can tune it to any wavelength you want
without regard to finding some excited state with a lifetime that permits
you to create a population inversion (so you can make a gain region for
amplification). I can imagine a narrow beam radar providing power, through
most weather conditions anyway, but the only way to get power out of a light
pulse is to run a heat engine, or to run a solar cell, the efficiency of
which is low enough that power dissipation is a big deal. Nether of these
techniques solve the problem for a small vehicle over 1000 miles away and
scooting higher fast, since they require a large vacuum heat radiator. The
microwave system might work with a somewhat smaller rectinna, but it is not
a slam dunk, I think. We could take two cables and pull them apart at earth,
forcing the car up like one of those yard toys, but I expect this has it's
own limitations. Perhaps a set of three cables, two to hold, and one
pistoned up and down in a quasi resonant mode? How fast can we jiggle a
10,000 mile long cable weighing scads of tons? The taper in the stupid cable
is a problem, otherwise I would suggest just running an elevator style
pulley. But we could run a series of platforms with loads balanced at the
platform, so perhaps you would ride up 1000 miles, then change cables, and
the cable energy would be passed with a simple shaft. Sounds kind of clugy,
and very heavy if we have to make more than 10 of them. They would eat into
our already puny payload limits. Could we force the system to ride up by
providing a pair of torque supports, much lighter, and rotating the whole
main cable, then climb it using a simple torque converter? That might work,
especially since the system has to be under tension anyway. Boy would you
ever get a Gordian knot if you lost the cable.

Relevant Pages

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