Talk:Mombasa Tether: Difference between revisions

Ditto--[[User talk:Plasmic Physics|Plasmic Physics]] 14:00, December 1, 2009 (UTC)

 

*I would say that the trivia entry makes a few assumptions about the role of those rings near the tower's base. Based on the explosion, it seems more likely that those rings are designed to hold the structure ''down'', not up. In this case, their compressive strength would be irrelevant; their tensile strength would be of greater import depending on how much of the tension they were absorbing. It seems likely that based on their appearance, the rings would likely have been used either to shield the structure, or as a multi-level anchor to allow the tether to be anchored to the ground more securely than if it were simply fixed to a single point on the Earth's surface (perhaps magnetically, as in a space fountain). When the tether snaps, the center of the support structure explodes, but the majority of the tether is lifted away, implying that the explosion was due to the tether's failing ''tensile'' strength, which caused a whiplash which destroyed the tower. The 2 remaining kilometers of the tether certainly would not be enough to cause a compressive failure given the nature of the materials no doubt required to build such a structure. Simple stone has a compressive strength of 40 MPa, sufficient to support a vertical structure at least 2 kilometers in height. Any space elevator material would require a tensile strength of at least 62.5 GPa if the elevator were to be built as a passive structure with no active support system.<br><br>Alternatively, something else could have exploded within the tower to cause the collapse, but in that case, it still leaves us with no clue as to what purpose the structure at the base served, so it cannot be assumed that it was a compressive support.<br><br>In any event, an orbital elevator of that design is ''entirely'' unfeasible with modern predictions. Those rings continuing up the column serve no visible purpose based on the elevator's configuration, and likewise appear to have no obvious attachment points to the tether. The physical destruction wrought by their scattering also implies that they are quite heavy, making such an elevator even more unfeasible since this dead weight would drastically increase the tensile strength required for the cable. Thus, if we are going to point out that the support structure seems "infeasible," then there are many other things that should be listed, the support structure ranking rather low on that list. I also fail to see specifically how ''quantum'' physics have anything to do with the tower's compressive strength. Compression takes place on the atomic level, as atoms and molecules are forced together, and is more within the realm of chemistry and standard elementary physics than quantum mechanics. [[User talk:The one092001|The one092001]] 06:33, August 4, 2010 (UTC)