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Not So Easy After All
It appears building a space elevator will likely be even more complex than one would at first think. The complicating factors? Coriolis, solar wind, and gravitation system effects combining to destabilize the whole system.
Still, what we're talking about here are engineering problems, not ones of material strength or basic physical laws. Engineering problems always (eventually) respond to blood, sweat, and treasure, and something tells me these will be no different.
Steven den Beste mentioned this nearly two years ago. Going up an elevator isn't just a matter of lifting a metal box, it's moving a metal box from a low geosynchronous orbit to a high one, and that causes sideways pressure as the elevator resists the change in its momentum (from the rotation of the Earth). When the surrounding walls are rigid, this gets channeled safely into the building foundation. When they're not, you end up with a giant flail capable of literally slicing the planet in two.
Posted by: Tatterdemalian on December 11, 2008 12:48 AM