this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)
Futurology
1776 readers
32 users here now
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The benefit of a space elevator is that the fuel is supplied by the ground and does not need to be carried as part of the payload. Remember in the rocket equation, most of the fuel is used for carrying just the mass of the fuel itself. A space elevator eliminates the rocket equation for lifting mass into orbit, and would be much more efficient than any rocket, reusable or not
There are major disadvantages as well.
You have a limited number of locations, which limits the rate of payloads. You can deploy them at the equator, so you'd have to transport things to the lifting pad beforehand, which would primarily need to be transported by sea.
We don't have a way to power the lifter, you can use microwaves or lasers, but that generates a lot of heat, which would be difficult to dissipate at high altitudes.
We also don't have a way to actually build one, but we do have a way to build reusable rockets (the details aren't complete, but several companies are well on their way to building them.)
By the time we'd be able to build a real space elevator, we'd probably already have asteroid mining, and in space constructions and manufacturing. So we're really only sending small, highly technical, or human payloads up, at which point a space elevator isn't really needed.
On top of all that, a fully reusable rocket powered by fuel that can be synthetically created, would be just as environmentally sustainable (assuming any ozone or ionosphere issues don't become an issue.)
I'm all for working on it if it becomes possible, but it's likely a technology that would be obsolete by the time it's possible.
Okay