Are Space Elevators Possible? 

Underrated

WHO PUSHED ALL THE BUTTONS!?!?!

Ok, but grammar?

Grammar?

@@loturzelrestaurant no one cares?

well, with nanotubes people stopped laughing at the concept, so 2070ish?

MetaSimian He said that 41 years ago and speaking as someone who has done materials physics, you won’t have it in nine years buddy. Carbyne isn’t remotely close And how many millions of tons are you going to produce in space somehow, because you’re not lifting that up with rockets.

@@MrStevestory the quote is 50 years after people stop laughing, not from now...

Humanity will end without this being done

@Lovecraft lol it's happening much, much, much sooner. You naysayers amuse me. You're the type if person to say powered flight will never happen in 1902

Good luck getting your degree.

Ik this is old but any advice for a freshman perusing an aerospace degree

@@elevationsickness8462 stick with it. it definitely gets stressful at times but if you love aviation and things aerospace you’ll be successful. once you get into your aerospace classes, it becomes kinda fun to learn about it all. even though the work is hard, the fact that it’s interesting definitely keeps you goin. when you take your early classes make sure not to cut corners in classes like calc 1-3 or differential equations, and even basic physics. everything builds upon the foundation from freshman and sophomore year but honestly if you have a passion for it and you’re able to put the work it you’ll be just fine

Stick with it，all you young engineers! This is from an active computer programmer who is also a senior citizen😀

@@sowellfan4581 I second that as a computer geek girl and someone in your category. We need more technical, scientifically knowledgeable people and fewer lawyers, MBAs, and politicians!

Kudos to anyone who turns that into a fat mom joke.

It also probably wouldn't work anyway if it were that big, instead collapsing into a bunch of steel "planets", "stars", and black holes after prexisting gravitational fields tore it apart

Hmmm. An object going the speed of light will have infinite mass. We might have something here.

@@clayz1 Be aware that that depends on your definition of "mass".

@@Mr.Nichan Im just repeating some pop physics I heard somewhere.

It's 'REAL ENGINEERING'

Me: I see you included forces. Good choice. So it's basically like a block going down an inclined plane?

oh my gosh ponies 😂

He didn't show you the equation that proves the tether ball he mentions near the start can *never* have the tether be truly horizontal. You can get close to horizontal, but to get actually horizontal would require the centrifugal force be infinite. Mathematician: pi = 3.14159265358979 Physicist: pi = 3.1416 Engineer: pi = 3.141. Real Engineer: pi = 3. Or maybe 2. Perhaps 4.

@@bdf2718 Engineers aren't THAT dumb.

20 years left

@@arandomchannel4413 I am still laughing, therefore the 50 years has not yet started.

@@user2C47 oh no

lol

@@user2C47 wait wha-

What we can measure for Carbon Nanotubes, if we could actually build them to a reasonable volume and length, it would absolutely be possible to build Earth's Many, many Space Elevator cables While Space Elevators are conceptually envisioned as solely Equatorial constructions, thats incorrect. Once the counterweight is in position, it can be used to anchor any number of space elevator cables to the hemisphere of its Line of Sight. In fact, When it is built for real, the Counterweights will be positioned over India and the Atlantic, So you could theoretically embark on an elevator in Syndey, Australia, and with some transit as the counterweight, them embark on the elevator to Athens, Greece.

@@loturzelrestaurant naw.

@@Azakadune Ok. But are you really sure? It would cost no money at all, just a bit of time, and it would benefit all of us, which of course includes you. Also: Dont you wanna fight some Karens? I bet you know that term. I know some, and you could flag them, so they have to leave.

@@loturzelrestaurant just wanna ask, what are you actually want to do?

Mr. Shack, that is the standard answer to what is holding back building a Space Elevator. While super materials do need researching it's not actually true it's keeping mankind from building one. A super strong connection is dependent on the design of the elevator and hundreds of other factors. It's possible to design a working Space Elevator with variable requirements and capabilities. Like most successful inventions the first working one should be a small prototype to test and measure for what is to follow. Skyscrapers for instance were iterations of success as most things are. So we're telephones, planes, ships, etc. First just do it, then elaborate and improve.

This comment is underrated.

Or dead from exhaustion.

The cast from big bang theory would all be jacked

I think that would need more calories, than your body can store in fat.

Why do u think the Egyptians gave up they gave up and just said nah mate there pyramids

*cough* MoBoxGraphics *cough*

Mustard do it so well. Looks very similar.

Mustard is great

I like mustard on my hotdogs

Well at least it’s still unique and special

Lovely father

That’s awesome m8

good for you, we need more skilled engineers in the world!

@@livethefuture2492 or why don't "I should be like them someday" instead of relying on others?

@@snowleopard9463 you need to chill. Not everyone is good at everything. For example, you obviously need to work on understanding others, and how to speak tactfully.

And mirrors! You can do (almost) everything with mirrors

@@Sombre_gd Don't forget cheap automation. If we can do that, the rest falls into place.

This week on Isaac Arthur: "Post-coital dark matter civilizations at the end of time", next week: "Is it morally right to uplift raccoons and teach them to play chess?" :) Love his channel

@@Sombre_gd very reflective surfaces are useful.

alright i highly doubt you will see this as the comment is 2 years old, but if you somehow do, is there any way you would share the paper?

It's not possible, there's satellites and space junk we can't build around

Niels Deckmyn You do realize the ISS exists...

Yoda You do realize the iss moves? And can be manoeuvred just right to avoid everything? (Also it's not in geostationary orbit)

@@nielsdeckmyn9139 and the ISS only has to deal with shit at its attitude a space elevator goes form sea level all the way past geostationary orbit.

Phalanx380 right so a space elevator is not a thing lmao

that would mess up the center of gravity

Yup. One of the fundamental problems with any flat earth hypothesis is it always starts breaking down once you start pulling out the calculator. They have no equations, no carefully calculated predictions. Their claims are paper thin, with no underlying framework that can be modeled. In the meantime, you can carefully calculate and confirm any claim made in current astronomy textbooks. Go ahead and carefully measure the movement of the planets, stars, sun, and moon - something that has been done for many thousands of years. Expensive equipment can be helpful, but isn't required. You are free to question and verify current astronomy, that is the beauty of it.

@@n.m.8802 and dismiss your facts and arguments by calling it NASA propaganda lmao

@@n.m.8802 let's just hope these people don't go into politics and play a role in our respective countries' governance lmao

@@jemuelmongado5030 well, there are qanon people running for senate, so I have very little hope

Yes brilliant

dude i am an engineering student down in orange county California, and i just want to say thank you for all these videos man, you make me love the world of engineering every time Thank you

Can you make a video about the viability of space hooks next?

@Iliass LASRI Just added. They were taking their time to time correctly. This video was finished like an hour before uploading.

I'm curious if it's entirely a coincidence that you and Isaac Arthur had discussions about carbon nanotubes and space elevators within a month of each other.

Scary stuff. A thin thread of it would be sharp as a razor and basically invisible. Handle with care.

@@clayz1 Indeed it was in the book ;)

@@piotrd.4850 Yes. The main character, Morgan, witnessed a man rappelling down off of a height, but he could not see the ‘rope’, which in this case was something an order of magnitude stronger than nano tubes.

Wikipedia has the math for a Mars tether. A Moon tether is not possible in the traditional sense, where the cable is supported by centrifugal force, because the Moon spins too slowly. It is however possible by extending a cable from the L1 and L2 point, and taking advantage of the Earth's gravitation to maintain a stable cable. In fact, the Moon tether can be built with Kevlar and represents a space elevator we could actually build with today's technology.

Except I physically cringed every time he mentioned centrifugal 'force'. .... there is no centrifugal force

@@Azerkeux This is untrue. He specifically said in a rotating reference frame. When in a rotating reference frame the correct term for the force used in such calculations is centrifugal force. It may not exist but in a spinning frame of reference its the only way to do the calculation and further more the math is simpler from that reference frame. Yes the real actual physical force is centripetal force but that only exists in a stationary frame of reference looking at a spinning object.

@@Azerkeux construct a rotating reference frame and centrifugal force appears everywhere. It exists as a very real effect in rotating reference frames, which are not taught in most introductory courses because they are non-inertial forces and are hard to quantify algebraically. That does not mean they are physically invalid.

@@Azerkeux to a observer in a rotating reference frame the centrifugal force is entirely real... There is nothing cringe worthy about it...

Yeah, that was a really good transition. He actually made a point of why that knowledge was important to and not just get smarter with brilliant

That's his way of showing that it's not just important to be smart but to apply that smartness into things like these..

I know right? ...wow

THIS

I heard smoother ones on Half As Interesting.

I mean, laser launch sites will probably blow all that out of the water in any case.

Yes. I'd highly recommend his channel.

2nd this idea. Also: there has been a LOT of research into materials and climbers; see the Space Elevator Games and the International Space Elevator Consortium www.isec.org with papers as recent as this year.

There’s also a couple Kurzgesagt videos

ru-vid.com/show-UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g but he has major oversights like failing to consider orbital stability, radiation, xtc.

@SangoProductions213: Thank you for the mention, I am one of the animators for his channel.

I finally found someone referencing AC7

Literally anything happens. Jaeger:

space engineers players: oh my god its finally done... now to make an elevator *it violently explodes and a rod from god slams through the planet*

@@sypeiterra7613 Kind of reticent to ask, but what is "a rod from god"? Are you referring to the elevator bits, because depending on where it breaks it will just as likely maintain orbit, as fall, at least the parts above the break.

@@MrJdsenior true. And im referring to the kinetic weapon that some country designed (USA I believe) that was a massive rod of Cobalt that you deorbit and slam into some target and it theoretically could cause an explosion comparable to a nuke. Also true that it would likely break apart before it could cause too much damage and stay in orbit.

*The Kraken intensifies*

For those who can feel that this orbit is wrong, but cannot understand why: planets always located on focal points of satellite's elliptical orbits and not in the center. So they're always shifted to the right or left relative to center of their orbits.

Yep

Though technically a space elevator (baring strength limitations) would be able to have such an orbit. It would have to constantly adjust both the counterweight altitude and the main cables length but it could follow that path. Still not a correct elliptical orbit of a standard satellite which i'm sure is what was the intended example.

I must be the most terrible KSP user then. I feel like my mission is a success when the rocked has reached space. (for ever) I lost the count of Kerbal's that are for ever drifting true space with no hope ever getting anywhere. how do you mean excessive force? I want even more power

I imagined the rise of Celestial Being

At a galactic scale

Hes power scaling Dragonball style

I think it may have been a metaphor

@@justinblin as were some of the calculations

@@StephenMortimer OOOFFF

The smaller size also means a shorter line, and between that and the lack of drag, it becomes possible without major advances in material science.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-L1ytpj3y21E.html

run the numbers for moons/other planets

And yet ironically, those places are the ones that needs elevators less since going with rocket is less costly.

Places without atmospheres can launch things cheaply using mass drivers, so a space elevator isn't really needed on those. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

Link to the exact time in the video? Did they talk about wind, space debris, or sabotage? Why would there be a Coriolis effect if the elevator point on earth does not move? You mean the cabin? Yeah sure. Compensate with a cabin going down! Use anchor on earth!

Insert Father Ted reference here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-beN7FftWNCM.html

Oh, Good morning Mr. Tyler! Going, down?

@@thundercamel Love in a elevator!

"Are you being served?" "Mr. Humphrey's are you free?"

@@eoinkenny3188 Largest lingerie section on the Space Elevator.

You lost me at other

All great points...Also, how long have we been talking about carbon nano tubes, for quite some time.That's a mass mining and production scale we're not close to completing. It seems like we're decades maybe even a century away before we could even look at the idea of having a space elevator. Like you said, there are just too many variables that would bring that bad boy crashing down and flinging everything else into space with no way to retrieve it.

From what I understand moon space elevator is possible with today's technology and is actually easier to build because the moon is tidally locked. you have to put the satellite at the Earth-moon L1 and balance it there. But compensating for tides shouldn't be that much of an issue. you could either use thrusters or simply change your center of gravity by moving the counterweight up and down. But everything else is an issue. And weathering, needs to deal with space weather as well. It has to deal with the solar wind and the environment in the van allen belts. A more serious challenge though would be the winds. Any force acting on the cable inside the atmosphere would be propagated through the cable to the space station which would need to constantly mitigate for it. As for space debris I do imagine one might mitigate this by having a mobile base, which can change position to avoid collisions. One imagines this could be achieved by moving the base and the station in a coordinated fashion along the equator line, but now you have another factor to consider: waves. Still, I think all this can be solved in software. It does pose another problem though: when the base and station move to avoid collision, this induces extra strain on the cable, which will lag behind due to inertia, so you'd have to factor that in the design. As for erosion due to either lifeforms or weathering one does need to factor in the possibility of maintenance. And this is one structure you can't afford to neglect for a few thousand years, like the pyramids, as it would come crashing down on the planet.

@@Peanutdenver there is no additional mining output to be required to build something on this scale, especially if there was a slow down in other sectors that demand the raw inputs, but mass production output of quality graphene and/or nanotubes would have to greatly increase. and yes, entire fleets of reusable spacecraft, and the ability to economically collect, deorbit, deflect, or eject uncontrolled space debris are all vital prerequisites to both build and protect a project on this scale

@Carlos Saraiva On bodies with no atmosphere space elevators aren't really needed since you can use mass drivers to launch things from the surfaces since there is no air getting in the way. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

why not both? you don't need new materials for a space elevator if you engage in active support

@@kingmasterlord Elevator for low G like the moon ( Kevlar is enought) and sky hooks for transfer between bodies and planets with high gravity

@@daskampffredchen9242 exactly. no 1 thing is gonna be the next big thing, we're doing it all

one of the two doesn't work.

And significant production of those materials.

It looks like carbon nanotubes are plenty strong enough, and you could even get away with a significantly worse specific strength. The difficulty is producing a usefully thick cable of carbon nanotubes 36,000km into space, plus thousands of kilometres more to reach the counterweight

Not if the shaft of the space elevator is buoyant... Of course, a pipeline for oxygen and hydrogen is also more practical...

Orbital rings and skyhooks.

Hanif Shakiba And you only have to endure about a hundred times less elevator music for a given climber speed

100 km seems optimistic, since there's still quite a lot of atmosphere there, but double that and you still have a cable length much more managable than going all the way to geostationary.

I don't think the math works out for them either.

@UCe2tjdUskfhS8yFg8wh67_A I recommend watching Isaac Arthur's video on the subject of orbital rings. Basically as you say, the rings do need to feature a rapidly spinning internal mass running entire its lengh to counteract gravity. This internal mass is basically just a metal cable, with relatively mundane specific strength requirements. Imagine this cable spins at 2x orbital velocity for its altitude, and you can see that the such a cable could support either continous weight along its entire length, or descrete points a long its orbit where structures could be built, or relatively short tethers lowered down to the planet for stability and lifting things into space.

this is an Underrated comment

Yes.

It would have to loop an ungodly amount

I would just go that elevator up and down for days

Or 'Love in an elevator' for the couples who go up

I'm thinking the same thing. Let's see the rise of GN drives, I mean, Celestial Being.

Same...😁😁

@@alphajed7700 Speaking of those drives... ahh what wacky crazy cool things the GN drives are. I'll be damned if mankind can really make such a thing haha. Fun to think of though. I'd say we'll have space elevators first before GN drives having, in between, a veeeery larger gap of development /construction than what is presented in the show

Nicola Sabbadini he never said it was, he was just stating that this makes him want to achieve a higher education because of brilliant

Please go on!! We need more professionals of knowledge

You are the size of your dreams

unfortunately the explanation is pretty misleading in some places (well, just straight up wrong). For example, centrifugal force doesn’t actually exist. Good on you that you’re motivated though!

I love this channel

Cyrotechnium fellow Ace Combat fan, I see

Lmmfao

Well earths gravity well is pretty much the biggest obstacle for space exploration. If we can find efficient ways to send massive amounts of material into orbit then definitely possible to colonize the solar system.

Was looking for a comment from a fellow ace

Dark Blue plays

Honestly disappointed there aren’t more AC fans in the comments here, who could possibly forget the glory of Mobius One in 04?!

Laughs in Weird Drone

We have so far to go.

This only reminds me of MOTHER GOOSE FUCKING ONE

@@micahfrempong1600 THE FUCKING DRONES KILLED HIM

Not worse than anything we've engineered the International Space Station to withstand, and carbon nanotubes are very thermally conductive.

good point! going from 300K to like 5K could create noticeable thermal stress on the cable. also usually as u cool down materials they become brittle and weaker so u would need a material that maintains its strength within this temperature range. This would be another fun aspect to look at if there is ever a followup video.

Not to mention frictional differences through the varying densities of earths atmosphere combined with different relative velocities every step of the way. Imagine the vibrations this would generate. It would even generate varying forms of sonic emissions in accordance with those vibrations potentially yielding all sorts of harmonics and standing wave oscillations. Bahhh bullshit hard engineering.

@@johndehaan2764 And with that gl to sendsomething to space with a super oscilating rope

@Rafael Jingles we are just throwing ideas round. I dont see whats wrong with that

You jsut have to start over with basics

Needs to be on equator...mount everest is not on equator

SHut up! You Solitary. Now!!!

Azure Lonemark we need some arsenal birds

And X-02s

i was looking for this comment

@@zonastarwars4397

Yo buddy, still alive?

Retweet

Welp, there is a DOI given, which is even better than a reference number that one has to look up from the description. DOI: 10.1119/1.2404957 You can find that paper at pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d402/ba5f97884b7398ae2a1ff79136f9c1a03993.pdf which is given as reference [3].

I guess you're unable to read what was on the paper shown?...

@@Marahute0 yes, I was lol

I'm curious if any research was done on the material requirements for a rotating skyhook.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dqwpQarrDwk.html

@@aaronturkey kurzgesagt

the sky hook sounds much more feasible.

This would be how the orbit would look IF gravity was was constant with increased distance, which is it definitively not.

@@TuckerJohnson7 Even if they managed to get a crazy close to perfect orbit, the moon would probably shift it away from that destroying the space elevator lol

@@skyr8449 the main station would probably need thrusters to counteract this. But I assume that would still be doable.

SimulatedScience Imagine the amount of monopropellant to keep it from succumbing to the moons gravitational pull.

@@FormerGovernmentHuman yeah, it would make more sense to just launch things through chemical or nuclear rockets from earth lol, maybe if there is *massive* amounts of cargo leaving a smaller planet it would make more sense but, at the same time rockets are easier to make on smaller planets

Yup, the degree of "not to scale" is excessive here.

The whole concept looks different when you realise that an elevator traveling at todays train speeds would take weeks to reach the top.

@@Bbonno And you still have to accelerate the mass horizontally from 1000 mph to 6000 mph.

Plus with over-sized drones that carries drones.

The trebuchet idea is actually the sickest and most effective method that needs to be explored more. The entire video had me convinced

@@MarloSoBalJr yes

@70 Roadrunner ok bruh. Chill

@70 Roadrunner btw, if you want to take the idea of space elevators seriously you must consider the idea of launching the cargo at a high enough altitude and then letting the elevator do its job. Or else its all impossible. The idea of space elevators on earth is too good to be real. We could make a moon elevator at some point but not anytime soon

This structure is called a "Skyhook", and here is a cool video about it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dqwpQarrDwk.html

It was probably just a conference paper... That's why it is better to refer to peer-reviewed ones, if there are any.

The authors should publish an erratum with corrections to the technical errors. As far as we can tell, their analysis is otherwise sound, no need for a retraction.

He probably meant to say 'detonated'

@@GediMini You mean "denoted"

@@hetakusoda2977 Ah yes exactly, "nodeted"

@@pajamac55 You mean "neatoed"? 🙃

@@czerskip it's actually really interesting. Watch this explanatory video if you don't understand the context between denoted and neatoed. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d1YBv2mWll0.html

Sky hooks for example

I don’t know but that is, but sounds cool!

@@supernoodles908 personally im a bigger fan of orbital rings than skyhooks. They just seem dangerous by nature. I mean you are literally a projectile and if you stay on for too long... Well, you missed.

Still safer than rockets tho.

Downside of the orbital ring is that you need a lot of demand for space launches before it becomes viable. The launch loop could work as an intermediate step, though.