I know it kind of sounds silly, but this is some of the very first infrastructure on The Moon, and that’s pretty cool.
The Moon will likely be our main port for travel within our solar system - if we made a lunar space elevator we would use it as our launch point without having to expend so much fuel launching from Earth like we do with traditional rockets.
The moon rotates too slowly (about once every 30 days), you don’t want a space elevator for the moon, the tether would have to be ridiculously long.
But there’s no atmosphere, so you have another good option: a linear accelerator, or mass driver. Basically you make a very long, very straight rail and use electromagnetism to accelerate a craft right up to orbital velocity. The only complicated part is constructing 50 km of rail, but I mean, it’s more time consuming than complicated. This is actually way more feasible than a space elevator.
Wut? Impracticality aside, could they build such a “ridiculously long tether”? What’s they make it of? Musk farts? Can’t wait for him to bankrupt the u.s. and build a space elevator that breaks and shatters, ruining astronomy and prospects of drone explorations of Mars
Uh, well truth be told, you could probably use steel cable or carbon fiber for a lunar space elevator cable, but you would need some really insane quantities… Like I said, I wouldn’t recommend it, just go the mass driver route instead.
But why are you even bringing up Musk? Nobody is suggesting involving him…
As the saying goes, “orbit is halfway to anywhere.”
Getting into and out of gravity wells takes far more fuel than moving between planetary bodies. A space elevator that can take cargo from lunar orbit to the surface and back removes one difficulty, while being slightly less sci-fi-ish than a terrestrial elevator.
I know it kind of sounds silly, but this is some of the very first infrastructure on The Moon, and that’s pretty cool.
The Moon will likely be our main port for travel within our solar system - if we made a lunar space elevator we would use it as our launch point without having to expend so much fuel launching from Earth like we do with traditional rockets.
The moon rotates too slowly (about once every 30 days), you don’t want a space elevator for the moon, the tether would have to be ridiculously long.
But there’s no atmosphere, so you have another good option: a linear accelerator, or mass driver. Basically you make a very long, very straight rail and use electromagnetism to accelerate a craft right up to orbital velocity. The only complicated part is constructing 50 km of rail, but I mean, it’s more time consuming than complicated. This is actually way more feasible than a space elevator.
Wut? Impracticality aside, could they build such a “ridiculously long tether”? What’s they make it of? Musk farts? Can’t wait for him to bankrupt the u.s. and build a space elevator that breaks and shatters, ruining astronomy and prospects of drone explorations of Mars
Uh, well truth be told, you could probably use steel cable or carbon fiber for a lunar space elevator cable, but you would need some really insane quantities… Like I said, I wouldn’t recommend it, just go the mass driver route instead.
But why are you even bringing up Musk? Nobody is suggesting involving him…
…but you have to get whatever it is you’re transporting to the moon first
As the saying goes, “orbit is halfway to anywhere.”
Getting into and out of gravity wells takes far more fuel than moving between planetary bodies. A space elevator that can take cargo from lunar orbit to the surface and back removes one difficulty, while being slightly less sci-fi-ish than a terrestrial elevator.
They addressed that in their post already.
A station and then a mine would imo make more sense for a first.
People really not feeling this in the current climate for sure