Comment on If a Space Elevator became a reality, wouldn't the cable act as a kind of wick for all of the unfiltered radiation from outside our atmosphere?

• bufalo1973@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  And not all would fall. Part of it would be launched outwards by inertia.

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• SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Ah thanks, I was a dingus and looked up the diameter instead of the circumference. Still doesn’t really matter where you build it. No matter what it’s fucking up a a good portion of the equator if it falls.

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  • XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It still can’t really fall. It’d be moving incredibly fast sideways. Fast enough to miss the Earth for a while. Geo stationary orbit is the point where orbital speed matches Earth’s rotational speed, so if it’s anchored at the ground, then it’s at orbital speed if at GEO. The higher the orbit, the slower the orbital speed. So using a higher orbit to maintain tension means it’d be traveling beyond escape velocity, held down by the cable. A break would release the mass into the solar system

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    • SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I think that depends on how big the tether is tbh. It has to be usable as an elevator so it can’t just be a thin cable. And your scenario is assuming that it would be cut down near the base, if it’s damaged anywhere higher up anything below the cut will fall down to earth.

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      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Yeah that’s kinda what I was envisioning, maybe half the tether zingin off into space when the other half fell into the pacific or desert, but even half is gonna be like 20,000km I guess.

        Also wasn’t there a scenario like this in one of the Mars Trilogy books?

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