Lunar elevators

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:06:07 -0000, Xenophile wrote:
> You wouldn't need as much energy for a Lunar fountain as an Earthly
> one. Could it be combined with the mass-driver that puts moondirt
> into Earth orbit? Not recovering the pellets, but just launching
> more of them?

I really like the idea, but it's a difficult thing to build.

It's not *nearly* as easy to deploy as a lunar beanstalk.

A lunar beanstalk is seriously easy, and very cheap.

As in, start now, deploy within 5 years.

The mass driver and space fountain concepts require a *lot* of
infrastructure on the lunar surface. How are you going to soft-land
that there? Using rockets, it takes a *lot* of fuel to put something
on the moon. That translates into a lot of fuel that needs to be
launched.

Making it on the moon, gives a chicken and egg situation, you need a
workshop on the moon to make the stuff, but putting the workshop on
the moon is expensive.

> Xenophile (who well need a Fountain of Youth in order to see any of
> this - GGGRRR!!!)

Lunar beanstalks are perfectly possible within your lifetime. This is
something that can be done in the next 5 years, with current
technology, and with only relatively modest funding- maybe a few
hundred million dollars.

--
-Ian Woollard

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in
practice there is."
"a society in which people can do and say what they want will also
tend to be one in which the most efficient solutions win" - Paul
Graham