Message-ID: <sZvrW4q00VcJ07Rk5r@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
Date: Sat,  3 Mar 90 02:55:49 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #108

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 108

Today's Topics:
			     Re: Beanpole
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Date: 28 Feb 90 08:04:55 GMT
From: unisoft!hoptoad!tim@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Tim Maroney)
Subject: Re: Beanpole

In article <6356@hydra.gatech.EDU> gt0852c@prism.gatech.EDU (Daniel Rothman)
writes:
>Has anybody out there heard rumors of a beanpole [ie an earthbound structure 
>extending to low orbits]?  A friend of mine in polymers mentioned that new
>ceramics could possibly withstand the shearing loads on such a structure.
>
>Have there been any conferences/papers/references on the topic?

Robert Forward's FUTURE MAGIC is a pretty good reference; it is a
popularization, but it gives references to the main technical papers
involved.  It was an Ace paperback in 1988.  Forward's attitude is
mindlessly technophilic, with not even a single reference (even a
dismissive one) to safety issues and environmental issues -- he
postulates antimatter cars for routine atmospheric use, for instance --
but it is still an interesting and unique survey of this kind of future
technological possibilityi, with a few silly things as well (such as
psychic powers based on the Aharanov-Bohm potential-sensing effect).

He devotes a chapter to beanpoles and similar concepts such as the
Rotovator.  His estimate was that materials science would reach that
point in perhaps fifteen years, as I recall.  My question is, how much
material would this thing require, and as a corollary, what would the
cost be?  Hundreds of billions, possibly trillions, of dollars seems to
be in the ballpark -- look at current estimates for "conventional"
mega-engineering projects such as a new San Francisco Bay Bridge or a
repeat of New York's main tunnel (over a billion dollars in either
case).  Such an expense is awfully difficult for anyone to justify.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

FROM THE FOOL FILE:
"Yet another piece of evidence that it's a Communist society which is being
 presented as good, but which we probably would not want to live in."
	-- Ken Arromdee on rec.arts.startrek, on the Federation's Red Menace

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End of SPACE Digest V11 #108
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