Space elevator

This chapter discusses some of the criteria for selecting, designing and spacing elevated, burning-pit, and multijet flares. The design of safety valve and flare headers was covered in an earlier chapter, as well as discussions concerning associated blowdown drums, water disengaging drums, etc. 

To reach the fantastic heights required by a space elevator, new materials are essential. Skyscrapers of today are usually composed of a steel framework, but steel is too heavy to use for the space elevator—the tower must be so high and needs so much material that it could not possibly support its own weight if it was made of steel. One possibility for a new material is related to the fullerenes discussed in the text. Carbon nanotubes are cylindrical fullerenes composed of sheets of graphites rolled into tiny cylinders with a diameter of roughly 0.00000004 inches (0.0000001 cm)—a nanometer. The structure and bonds of carbon nanotubes could potentially be used to create a material with about 50-100 times the strength of steel. A slender ribbon of carbon nanotube could be the key to bringing the dream of a space elevator into reality. 

A functioning space elevator would drastically change the world, allowing the placement of factories, research laboratories, and even hotels into orbit. Other new materials and medicine could have similar affects, altering the way people live and work in a multitude of interesting ways. 

Locomotion Walking, flying, fluttering Enough space, elevated perches... 

A second way to change the scale of molecules is to build up a large molecule from fragments. Nature does this and obtains, for instance, chiral DNA (if stretched out, would form very thin thread about 2 m long). Chemists prepare synthetic polymers that can be chiral and be measured in meters - fabric - or in km - tethered space elevators. 

In the lake behind the dam is a 20 million free-standing, 256ft tall tower with water intake ports at four widely-spaced elevations. It had been predicted that water temperature downstream from the dam could be controlled by drawing water from different levels, and that, by controlling water temperature, growth of the fish would be enhanced. 

Edwards, Bradley C., and Eric A. Westling. The Space Elevator A Revolutionary Earth-toSpace Transportation System. Houston, Tex. B.G. Edwards, 2003. A glimpse at truly exotic and daring spacecraft engineering. Excellent example of the way requirements drive design decisions in an engineering project. 

Pugno, N.M., 2006. On the strength of the carbon nanotube-based space elevator cable from nanomechanics to megamechanics. Journal of Physics Condensed Matter 18, S1971-S1990. 

Pugno, N. (2007). The role of defects in the design of the space elevator cable From nanotube to megatube. Acta Materialia, 55, 5269-5279. 

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