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steve_bryan
Tourist

Reged: 04/19/04
Posts: 100
Loc: Edina, MN

Re: Space Elevator

04/23/06 03:23 PM

View in Google Earth View in Google Maps (235 downloads)

It's such a cool model I hate to quibble but isn't the scale wrong? The semi-major axis of an object in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth is about 26,000 miles while the radius is about 4,000 miles. So the station should be about 6 Earth radii away (which is also approximately the Earth's circumference). I did a screen capture from Freefall, a Mac satellite simulator, and that is how far Inmarsat 3F5 appears to be.

I suppose a station could be put about anywhere along the cable (like Clarke did in his novel Fountains of Paradise) but the cable would have to extend out to geosynchronous orbit and probably beyond. I still haven't found a good reference for the details of an analysis of all the physics involved.

Edit: That file available for download is a jpeg of the picture, not a placemark. It is compressed in a zip file because the forum software required it.

Edited by steve_bryan (04/23/06 03:28 PM)

Post Extras

Entire topic
Subject	Posted by	Posted on
Space Elevator	Gerardo64	04/15/06 02:01 PM
Re: Space Elevator	BlackwaterPro	07/07/06 08:08 AM
Re: Space Elevator	Cole_Naymash	01/14/07 03:17 PM
100000km of cable?	Gregor_J_Rothfuss	06/15/06 04:08 PM
Re: Space Elevator	jesusw	06/04/06 12:54 AM
Re: Space Elevator	steve_bryan	04/23/06 03:23 PM
Re: Space Elevator	gscad2004	04/18/06 06:28 AM
Re: Space Elevator	embont	04/17/06 06:16 PM
To repliers - Periboob added	Gerardo64	04/17/06 05:04 PM
Re: To repliers - Periboob added	Periboob	04/29/06 01:08 AM
Re: To repliers - Periboob added	Gerardo64	04/29/06 08:56 PM
Tek & Valery	Gerardo64	04/17/06 04:50 PM
Re: Space Elevator	Frank4	04/17/06 08:40 AM
Re: Space Elevator	Periboob	04/19/06 04:57 PM
Re: Space Elevator	jesusw	06/04/06 12:42 AM
Re: Space Elevator	darkmancer218	04/16/06 12:54 PM
Re: Space Elevator	Hill	04/16/06 12:28 PM
Re: Space Elevator	Braham_S_Aggarwal	04/16/06 08:22 AM
Re: Space Elevator	TheLedge	04/16/06 12:42 AM
Re: Space Elevator	tekgergedan	04/15/06 07:41 PM
Re: Space Elevator	Valery35	04/16/06 12:34 AM

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