Comments on: Nanotech and space travel

By: Dennis Roberts

Dennis Roberts — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:00:11 +0000

Why waste all that good nano-structured carbon on building a tower. Build a balloon that can contain a high partial vacuum at stp without collapsing. Then you have a brick/beam/whatever that’s lighter than air. Whatever you build with it will want to head for the edge of space on its own. Add a device/ pump /getter that removes more of the contents of the balloon as the altitude/pressure decreases and you have a structure that wants to be at where your accellerator or ion engine yada yada can function. Can you say whole cities at the top of the atmosphere that don’t cost a gazillion and anyone can build them.

By: William R. Cousert

William R. Cousert — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:12:26 +0000

What about terrorists? This would be a huge target for them.

[It's way too big to blow up at once -- it's almost 200 miles long! Even a nuclear blast would only take a bite out of it. Most of it is out of reach. The points on the ground could be redundant, hardened, and/or defended as necessary. --jsh]

By: JamesG

JamesG — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:37:59 +0000

Some sort of self-replicating (whether nanofactory or nanorobots) atomically precise technology should be able to either build this space pier or many smaller cheap, efficient, sturdy, safe rocket based ground-to-space transportation, it doesn’t really matter to us now how this is accomplished, the important thing is to get someone with some money to realize that nanobots/nanofabs are what matter, take some of the funding from any large project and pour it into nanobots/nanofabs and the results will pay for themselves almost an infinite number of times over.

What we really need, imo, is a full, molecularly precise simulation of a nanobot (or key features of a nanofab) – until then, the giggle factor and geek rapture factor will continue to dominate talk of true nanotech, even in ‘enlightened’ circles like congress and the white house. That will be the turning point in my opinion, maybe you could do an article analyzing the computational power requirements for design and simulation of a nanobot/nanofab in a future article, so we know at what point we can start doing serious work towards true nanotech. By 2012, supercomputers are supposed to be able to hit 20 petaflops, I’m guessing that will be enough?

By: the Foresight Institute » Solar Sailing

the Foresight Institute » Solar Sailing — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:38:47 +0000

[...] Nanotech and space travel [...]

By: kurt9

kurt9 — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:58:51 +0000

I say build the thing along the equatorial Pacific like where the space elevator was supposed to go. That way, you don’t need to pay for any “right of way” over any land. Being on the equator gives you two advantages. One, you don’t have to deal with typhoons (although you may have to deal with the occasional rogue wave). Two, you have direct launch to equatorial LEO as well as GEO without any course correction.

The other benefit is that the bottom of the elevator is your anchor port, which is your floating Hong Kong II. This can then attract additional business opportunities like international banking, all kinds of biotech and nanotech start business, offshore medical treatments not available elsewhere, casino gambling (competes with Vegas and Macao), and eco-tourism (the scuba diving ought to be kick-ass). If the same guys who build and operate the launch pier also finance the city-state, they will make all kinds of money from the city-state as well.

By: Owl Pellets for July 20th through July 21st | The Grumpy Owl

Owl Pellets for July 20th through July 21st | The Grumpy Owl — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:05:58 +0000

[...] the Foresight Institute » Nanotech and space travel – Just in case the space elevator is bit too down to earth for you, you might be interested in the space pier. 100km tall and 300km long. And, oh yeah, it's built out of magic diamonds by robots. All that effort just to go some place whose defining quality is that there's nothing there. Having said that, this idea might work. [...]

By: Nifty Discussion On A Space Pier « Tai-Chi Policy

Nifty Discussion On A Space Pier « Tai-Chi Policy — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:51:23 +0000

[...] taoist in Cool Stuff. Tags: Aerospace, Nanotechnology, Science, Space Pier, Technology trackback And the feasibility and logistics of building one. We could build one today, [...]