Going Down! Russia to launch space elevator
 

Russia to launch first space elevator - 03/29/2004 14:33

This unique project has been in development for years.

The idea of constructing an elevator that will be used in space was first introduced by Dutch scientists. European Space Agency (ESA) commissioned Samara's Space University to construct an apparatus that will be capable of carrying various products from the International Space Station back to earth. Nowadays, Russian scientists from the town of Samara are already finishing up their work. The experiment, introduced by the Dutch, has already sparked up interests of politicians and authorities.

The main principle of this freight elevator is rather simple. A capsule loaded with cargo will be lowered to earth by means of a special sturdy 30 km long cable. Despite its large parameters, the cable will weigh no more than 6 kilograms. Upon entering dense layers of atmosphere, the cable will burn and the cargo will continue its trip to earth by means of an air balloon (2 meters in diameter).

Nowadays, it takes a long time for various scientific data to reach earth. The space elevator will solve this problem. Russian scientists from the town of Samara plan to finish their work by October of 2004. First tests are scheduled for the end of the year. The experiment will take place at the base of ?Foton¦ spaceship. Project director Michael Krauf is sure in the project's success.

At this point the project cannot be called economically sound. However, once all nuances are worked out, its profits are expected to be tremendous. It is also expected that such space elevators will be used to examine other planets.

Source: RBC


PRAVDA.Ru

I read in one scientific magzine of a similar contraption, but anchored at both ends ie the Earth and in space. It was designed to remove the need for rockets and apparently is feasible.

Isn't this post a couple of days early?!? :ooh:

The space station, cable and capsule will initially all be in free fall; so how do we get the cable to 'lower' itself?
Remember to place ad in Glasgow newspaper for riggers :D
. . and what's the tethered jobby going to do to the MSA?

I know that Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote a popular science fiction book (having read it) in 1948 entitled 'Against the Fall of Night' that referred to a space elevator.

I'm guessing he wasn't the first person to think of that idea... so I'm curious -- whom was this Dutch scientist? Henrik Lorentz of Lorentz transform fame? Someone else?

Oddly enough, I saw a recent discussion involving some of the brightest minds at NASA and others outside of the agency, not too long ago, concerning this very subject.

The general consensus was that it was likely technically feasible -- either today or in the near future, but that there still remained an healthy amount of logistical issues to resolve. Legal, political, regulatory, financial, safety, security, public relations, advertising, etc... yet to be resolved. (Not to mention technical issues -- design, validation, composition, length, etc.)

Even from a technical standpoint, there are a number of interesting issues to be resolved... but the general feeling was that it was nothing insurmountable if there was sufficient will (and money) to see it through.

Can we expect one any time soon? Not too likely. April 1st rolling around sooner seems like a more plausible and bet-worthy proposition in the near future. :)

google : space.elevator : about 63,100 results

serious-looking institute

Pprune search returns some results too

Yes, about 2 to be exact. But this is what Pravda says and they wouldn't lie, would they?

Re Arthur C Clarke,
He also wrote "The Fountains of Paradise" that deals with the construction of the elevator itself. First prerequisite is something like monofilament/bucky balls carbon, as any steel will collapse under its weight, second is a jolly big mass to anchor it in orbit- asteroid ideal.

To build it you start at the asteroid and work down, in fact you just extrude it out of the factory in the asteroid, anchor it to the top of a small mountain on the Earth to get you ouyt of the worst of thre weather. Once it's built the energy cost to get to orbit is something along the lines of $1 per kg, but if you are bringing products from orbit down, it can be effectively free.

This is not rocket science. In fact it is not science at all.
 

Let us assume you can tether the elevator at one end to the space station and the other end to the earth the tether would have to be about 22,000 miles long as to do so the space station must be in a geosynchronous orbit. The space station is around 200 miles up so the station and the point of attachment on the earth would be traveling at different speeds.

Another point to consider if the elevator (read cable) is metallic it will be cutting through the earth’s magnetic field and generating an extremely high voltage that would have to be drained off to earth. That will cause some severe RFI on the space station.

Then again there is the elevator that just hangs from the space station and burns off due to friction between the cable and the atmosphere. If this could be accommodated, then the package to be lowered on the elevator would encounter that same friction and most likely burn up when it reached the end of the elevator. Lets’ assume this system works and the package does not burn up. The cable will be trailing the space station by several hundred miles and you would never know where the package was when it reached the end of the cable.

In the past satellites would release film canisters at about 200 or so miles up and they would be retrieved in flight by a specially equipped C-130. Why not go this route. All you would have to do is scale the system up.


:E :E

It's a while since I've read "Fountain's of paradise", but I seem to recall that the main structural material used was non-metallic, I think form of ultra-high-tech carbon fibre.

Samara University by the way is a very real and serious aerospace university - in the soviet days it trained most of the Engineers for Tupolev and the progress rocket plant, amongst others. Samara (previously known as Kyubychev) was where much of the Soviet high technology and aerospace industry was moved by Stalin as the Germans started to threaten the main Russian industrial heartland around 1943. I studied there briefly about a dozen years ago, and learned ten times as much in a few weeks about microsatellite design (my main interest at the time) as I had in several years studying astronautics at a British university.

Then, realising that nobody was ever going to offer me a ride in one, I switched to aeroplanes...

G

Lu Zuckrman,

Have you a good link to those C-130 recovery shenanigans? It sounds very clever...I had no idea.

I'm a final yeat physics and space technology student and we've just had the pleasure of some questions regarding this tether idea. In February '96 a metal sphere on the end of a 20km tether was lowered from Columbia. The voltage induced by the tether cutting the Earth's magnetic field can drive a current by attracting electrons from the ionosphere on to the sphere at one end of the sphere while elctrons are ejected from the Shuttle at the other end by an electron gun (like in a TV).

When you tether two orbiting bodies (e.g. the Shuttle and a satellite), their centre of gravity lies somewhere between them and the result is that both are travelling at speeds which differ from their expected circular orbital speeds at their respective altitudes. This leads to the Shuttle experiencing a small amount of 'gravity'.

Mr. A. C. Clarke is truly a visionary...he was writing about space elevators and geostationary orbits moe than half a century ago...crikey :ok:

Mav

The Russians also used LEO and wet-film, recovering to land, usually in one of several designated areas of Khazakstan. They reckoned to be able to place it within a 100x100km square, which is slightly large so far as search is concerned. The Resurs was the main series of satellites.

The main location tool was chaff, such as is better known for deflecting radar guided weapons. Released automatically on an altimeter (radar / pressure - not sure) it gave the Russians enough location information to vector a helicopter close enough for a visual ident.

I never knew how serious he was, but Professor Shakmistov at Samara told me that the most common cause of failure was it coming down too close to a Khazak local, who would ruin all the film and aparatus breaking in - convinced that there was a cosmonaut stuck inside and trying to rescue them.

Heady days.

G

What I forgot to say was that in the preface to the edition of Fountains of Paradise that I had, Arthur C Clarke took pains to give the credit for the idea of a space elavator to a Russian cosmonaut (can't remember his name) as he was embarrased by the many press reports attributing the idea to him.

Science Fiction writers do tend to come up with some good ideas though. Clarke got communication sattelites, and I believe it was clarke who also thought of water beds:oh: , he thought for hospital patients, but it prevented others from patenting them at a later date.

I just want some of that monofilament carbon that the lead character had in the book, would cut though anything like it was cheese, might even be able to open milk cartons without spilling it everywhere.

Not rocket science part 2.
 

To: -<M4v3r1ck>-

You can start here for an explanation. There are several sites on the web. Just dial in C-130 satellite recovery.

http://samadhi.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/Programs/corona.html

To: Genghis the Engineer

Carbon fiber is a conductor of electricity. On unearthed carbon fiber elements on aircraft structure lightning will see it a hole in the structure and attach itself to the carbon composite resulting in a flashover from the internal structure blowing a hole in the carbon composite. If the carbon fiber cord passed through the magnetic field it might build up a charge and carry over into the space station. Or, it could pass through cumulous clouds and get struck by lightning. At this point it as a conductor either explode or, carry the lightning charge up to the space station raising a lot off hell in the process.

:E :E

And a geostationary orbit is also known as a 'Clarke' orbit after the great man.

Hey, I didn't write the novel Lu.

And if I did, I think my track record of getting my facts right would still be nothing like as good as the Master's.

Incidentally, anybody else read "Glide Path", his semi-autobiographical novel about the development of Radar during WW2?

G

To: -<M4v3r1ck>-


Here is something better.

http://jersey.uoregon.edu/~js/space/lectures/lec11.html

Scroll down to Corona Satellite. There is a picture of an actual recovery but not by a C-130.

:E :E

The thread connecting the satellite had a lot to do with spiders and not Fullerine (spelling???)

It would seem that all we need to do is breed a big enough spider, equipe it with breathing apparatus.............

Isn't there something also about Point Charges on objects? WQhat would happen if we had a large object in space (earth) which had a long conducting spike on one side that extended from the surface to 200 miles? would we have a real change in the ionosphere?

I thought Glide Path was autobiograpical, was certainly in the non-fiction bit of my old school library, but then how far can trust a school libraian? Some seriously ambitious stuff went on in WW2, favorite bit of the book is the description of the giant burners placed down the side of a runway to burn off the fog. The idea sounds like something from our colonial cousins - "Hey we got fog sir"

"Well burn it off soldier!!"

Apparantly caused soome "issues" with turbulance on landing.