h a l f b a k e r yRenovating the wheel
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This lovely planet has a darned lot of gravity.
If you’re trying for an orbit, your sideways velocity gets
very important, but there’s always lots of benefit to
starting your journey as high up as possible to reduce your
upwardness needs.
If you use big flamey chemical reactions to get going,
you
have to carry all the fuel from the very beginning. Lots of
alternatives have been considered: Virgin Spaceship (use a
plane for a head start); space elevator (climb a cable to
space); build a ginormous cannon; use a balloon-lifted
rocket-launching platform; electromagnetic space-
rollercoaster…
All have ups and downs.
My idea: a wide inflatable tower, 100km tall. Inflated with
helium, tethered at bottom and with guy-cables, a spiral
“roadway” around the outside… to a launch platform at
the top
Global helium supply
https://physicstoda...6.2.20200605a/full/
[Voice, Jul 23 2021]
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Oh, ok, totally baked then! |
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Where does the helium come from? |
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better to use the stairway to heaven! |
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I don't think they have enough |
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The market is incredibly wasteful of helium and anything else that can't be sold or used in the same year. Alternatives must be found, and we need to reinstate the helium reserve. It's going to be one big party complete with balloons for the next 20 years and then suddenly the superconducting magnets, MRI machines, and semiconductor industry will double their prices and/or grind to a halt. The ways to get fusion are: |
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-Have a very large fusion reactor |
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and unless it's under 200 degrees, the stuff escapes like the spawn of Frank Morris and Houdini. |
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There is the issue of air pressure, and of speed:
geosynchronous orbit is some hundreds of miles up, in
quite airless space. |
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Maybe if the tower formed a complete loop (arcing
back to the ground) and air were blown into it at high
speed, the momentum of the air would tend to keep the
tube at high altitude. It might require quite a large
diameter tube to get sufficiently low fluidic drag,
though. |
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To warn off approaching aircraft, it must have big flappy arms. |
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Pure genius [pertinax].
Flappy arms it shall have. |
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