Jim reckons a Sky Tube is a fantastic idea... so he improved it.
First lets examine placing a ring of satellites end to end around the earth... a Dyson Ring if you like. To make the ring each satellite must be accelerated to orbital velocity. Once fixed together so that they form the ring --- it is possible to decelerate the whole construction...
What is interesting is that standing on a Dyson Ring an observer would experience the same g force load... ie there would be gravity.
What? ... decelerating the ring a little bit will introduce a small g force loading on every satellite and every satellite joint. The load will be distributed across the ring as a strain. Jim reckons the ring can be decelerated just so long as the structure can maintain its shape under the g force load.
So back to the Sky Tubes... Lets take a few (well many) of these tubes, that is vehicular tubes lofted into the upper atmosphere by a balloon, and place them end to end so that they ring the earth. Attach these tubes together and it is possible to remove the buoyancy provided by the balloons...
Jim reckons it is cheaper to make a Sky Tube Ring than a Dyson Ring because of the vast difference in ring diameter and there is no requirement to accelerate (and decelerate) such an enormous mass...
Cool...-- madness, Sep 03 2013 Gravity Arch [xaviergisz, Sep 04 2013] An equatorial Dyson Ring around Mars will prevent atmospheric loss due to solar wind...
Might also be useful on the earth if the core does freeze sooner rather than later.-- madness, Sep 03 2013 On the bright side the ring won't require station-keeping thrusters 'cuz its CG will always try to be in the same place as the Earth's.
On the other hand the current longest unsupported span is 400 metres. Give us a shout when you've figured out how to bump it up to 40,000,000 metres.-- FlyingToaster, Sep 03 2013 // Longest span...
Ya... it is easy if you allow me orbital velocity. But then I loose all the neat gravitational load. Perhaps there is a happy medium between g force, velocity and materials?
Setting materials aside ... lets assume it is possible to decelerate more than the rotation of the earth. That is an observer on the ring sees the earth rotate beneath them. If you wanted to get from one place to another, take a balloon ride up to the ring and just wait...
You will need to cut down you 1600 km/h velocity first. And this could be done using all the neat new kinetic recovery technology floating around out there.-- madness, Sep 04 2013 I still don't know why you want to decelerate the ring structure. As I have annotated on other planetary ring ideas, long slender structures are much more stable under tension than they are under compression, because of the issue of buckling.
Ipso facto - accelerate the ring, not decelerate it. Under tension the ring will become stable, and not be subject to any buckling loads.-- Custardguts, Sep 04 2013 //Jim reckons// ... Oh. Hi.-- lurch, Sep 04 2013 I suspect the Sky Tube would not be held in place by gravity and would require some sort of correcting mechanism to account for meteor strikes and whatnot.
However, I'm sure there will be space for a couple thousand solar-powered corrector jets, given the massive cross-section required to resist buckling.-- the porpoise, Sep 04 2013 It can be constructed from a stationary point on the Earth in one day, when one full rotation of the Earth allows all the segments to be put in place.-- rcarty, Sep 04 2013 I think you're confusing 'can' with 'could'.
Which, on the whole, is better than my typical mistake of confusing 'can' with 'should'.-- Alterother, Sep 04 2013 //It can be constructed from a stationary point on the Earth in one day, when one full rotation of the Earth allows all the segments to be put in place//
1000 miles of structure per hour? That's nearly as fast as China's rail expansion...
Best build it a little faster, you'll need to account for a lunch break...-- bs0u0155, Sep 04 2013 Haha miles of structure per hour. What's the human reproductive rate as a function of tubular velocities. One billion 6cm penises per second? Resulting in how many babies through those same tubes per second.
That would seriously by a good speed to get it up at.
Go space tubes!-- rcarty, Sep 04 2013 [rcarty]: Nine women and one month do not a baby make, or something like that.
[the porpise] - you don't have to worry about meteor strikes - their union contract contains performance incentives in exchange for ceding schedule control.-- normzone, Sep 05 2013 Meteor strikes ... which part of the world are you from and do you carry an umbrella for that? Round er we just sit back an watch em burn...
It appears that stress/stain is all about mass ... if you recall when there was buoyancy there was no loading.-- madness, Sep 09 2013 random, halfbakery