this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Sure, if you can find a material strong enough
I also am under the assumption that no material exists that could be stacked tall enough to build a space elevator.
You'd want tensile strength rather than compressive. The trick is to anchor a counterweight out beyond your target distance and let it pull the weight of the cable up rather than building a tower. Think of swinging a ball on a string rather than building a skyscraper. Assuming a sufficiently sized counterweight you can support the weight of the anchoring cable plus whatever else you want to hang off of it (space dock, elevator terminus, etc.)
stacked tall enough...? The space elevator concept is a geostationary node orbiting earth directly above a fixed point, with cables running between them. Not a gigantic skyscraper up into the sky. What am I missing?
You probably haven't read 3001: the final odissey, in any case i think most ideas of space elevators are not like a lift, they are more like skyscrapers indeed.
Edit: i might be very wrong though, i'm not up to date on this
If you build it tall enough, centrifugal force will start pulling on it. Building it that way though... But yeah. Doubt the right material exist atm.
I'm thinking we're going to want either really big spiders or a whole lot of goats now that we've spliced the spider silk genes into goats milk.
Goats! For the love of God, stay away from the spiders!