Space Elevator? Build it on the Moon First

[Fraser]

SUMMARY: Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously predicted that we'd see space elevators 50 years after people stopped laughing at the idea. Jerome Pearson has been thinking about space elevators since the early 1970s, and he's been watching the growing enthusiasm (and fading chuckles) with great interest. But he knows there are significant challenges in engineering and materials that still need to be overcome, so he's suggesting NASA build an elevator on the Moon first. And the agency is taking the idea seriously.

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[GOURDHEAD]

Bah! Humbug! But then I've signalled my bias in other threads. The moon would be ideal for a space elevator if its rotation was not gravitationally locked to the Earth, but since it is, the elevator would have to stay on the side of the moon opposite the Earth with center of mass at the distance from the moon in that direction equal to the distance from the Earth to the moon with the counterbalancing mass even further from the moon.

For use at the Earth, we haven't discovered/developed sufficiently strong material to withstand the rigors of the Earth's environment.

[publiusr]

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