For the last several years at about this time the “Space Elevator Games” attract a few imaginative or at least romantic tinkerers and inventors to see if they have an idea for a space elevator that might at least get off the ground a little bit. It’s now underway again, at Dryden Flight Research Center on the sprawling grounds of Edward Air Force Base in the desert north of Los Angeles.

For more  detail, The AP has a brief piece on it. The big immediate goal is to make a gadget that climbs about a kilometer up a vertical cable, held by a helicopter, while getting power remotely (such as by laser beam).

We all know how the space elevator would work, don’t we, science fiction fans? A super strong cable made of  impossibilium, or unobtainium, or maybe woven fibers of carbon nanotube,  would be strung somehow from the surface of Earth at the equator all the way out to a big counterweight somewhere beyond geosynchronous orbit altitude. Held stiff by centrifugal force, it would bear elevators taking cargo and people to (and back from)  geosynchronous orbit altitude much more cheaply and cleanly than by rocket. Deliveries could be set loose either to drift off as satellites at that distance, or to light rockets and go someplace else.

We’ll see if the games this year produce much news. The Tracker is posting on it only because I have idly mused for years on a one-word question: coriolis force? That is, conservation of angular momentum means that as a weight ascends while along a rotating plane, it is going to want to lose angular velocity. Coming down, it wants to increase that velocity (same reason a spinning skater speeds up and slows down while pulling in or extending his or her arms). That’ll surely pull the tether out of vertical and maybe destabilize the whole thing. But how much? Is it a show stopper?

But rather than just whining that nobody is addressing the question, this year I went looking to see if it’s been in the news. Yes, it has. Last year at New Scientist Rachel Courtland addressed the issue in some detail. And yes, it does appear to be a problem that Arthur C. Clark perhaps did not adequately consider. Maybe the elevator games managers know all about this and have an answer. But any reporter – and most assuredly anybody considered a science writer -  who is covering the event ought to say “coriolis force?” If the organizer looks blank, you’ll know you’re dealing with an ignoramus.

*UPDATE:

• AP – John Antczak (Nov. 5): Success in ‘space elevator’competition ;

Other Low Earth Orbit Wire News:

• Reuters – Kate Kelland: Space junk storm will up mission costs: experts ; Not to mention inflict serious twang on any space elevators hit by the big pieces.

*UPDATE: Grist for the Mill: Int’l Space Elevator Consortium ; They have winners already, live streaming of competitions, etc. 

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.