You are not logged in.
Other way around.
Bill: CNT has enough commercial and industrial applications that that alone might get the funding needed to build the entire elevator. I've heard that Highlift plans to produce and sell CNT once it's developed to help fund the elevator.
CNT is remarkable stuff.
Or the countries like Pakistan and China that will hold back their nukes until everybody else has used theirs?
Bill, theres an image at spacedaily.com that shows the distribution of water throughout Mars (according to Odyssey readings).
I'm sure that, like Earth, the water distribution on Mars is varied enough that we'd have oceans in some regions (on Mars, the northern basins), and water tables convenient for running water in others. I have said before that the initial base, in my opinion, should be at 0, 0. It's in a very (obviously) central location, and it is in proximity to many interesting and perhaps important geologic features.
In addition, the region is close, but not in dangerous proximity to the areas where estimates have placed oceans in the event of terraformation, which I think is, and should be, inevitable.
I'll see if I can fish up the article for you.
tim: we could also attach a seond "down" ribbon to the anchor station, which the capsules transfer to to return to the surface of Earth.
So you still have a 5 day up/5 day down trip, and you get maximum traffic.
But, please remember that your job (our job) is to persuade some really anal investment banker types not merely that the elevator will work but that there is essentially NO risk to the $10 billion you seek (or the $100 billion I say you will need).
Yes, I know, a few months ago I wrote a business plan for a competition. I know how getting investment works.
tim, I am asking you how you came to the conclusion that the capsule will cost $500/lb, let alone the other costs. Yes, I know you said the capsule will cost $500/lb, how did you get this number? Do I have to rephrase it so that you can understand?
If you had paid even one IOTA of attention you would realize that we are talking about ONE WAY DISPOSABLE climbers. If you want 2-way climbers, you can skip the heat shield, but you cut the max cargo capacity, probably by 75%.
Why would boosters going up need greater heat shields than boosters going up and down? This makes absolutely no sense.
In your last post you said $13,500, how did you move it to $60k?
Typo, I apologize. What I meant to say was I would not be willing to spend $3,500 a day in basic supplies. There is no reason for this type of expenditure.
Again, you didn't even read the last post I put up. MANNED capsules will be very expensive while de-pressurized cargo will be cheap.
I did read the last post. Once again, I will say it, the whole capsule will not be taken up by people only, there will be cargo on board as well, that doesn't need the same level of accomodation. You cannot calculate the entire cost of the capsule based on the needs of humans alone, which will not be the entirety of the payload.
AGAIN 1-way disposable climbers. 2-way climbers cut your capacity WAY down. Please follow along. Clearly you have not paid even 1 iota of attention from the get-go.
Would you stop posting insults that are invalid to begin with? You're trying to support your weak position by throwing out names.
I guess you are "blindly" in love with this ribbon idea. I am very interested in the ribbon, which is why I bought the book. However, I also have a head on my shoulders and can think rationally about it.
Who's getting emotional?
If you'd actually read the book, you'd actually know how the concept works, like, for example, how the lasers function.
Are you saying you will send up all these crews without any hope of them returning and no hope of rescue if there is a failure in the ribbon or drive system?
Go ahead, break down to me how this costs $500/kg. And while your at it, explain why the heat shield has to be this powerful, when you are descending at subsonic speeds.
It's 4.8 days to GEO and 9.6 days to the end of the ribbon. Are you saying you would want ZERO extra air, water, food, etc in case of emergency?
I certainly wouldn't be willing to spend $60,000 per four day trip for food and water.
And what on earth will you eat when you reach your destination?
You are also assuming that all the mass aboard is people. You don't need much to sustain food for a week.
I can't read the thread? I've been more actively posting on this thread than you have.
Amortize ribbon: $61/pd
Disposable Lifter: $500/pd (essentially a 50-man Soyuz w/heat shield and thrusters. Assuming huge cost benefits to mass-produce, I put this at $20 mln /each)
Energy: $100/pd
Supplies: $100/pd
I don't know where to begin! $100/lb for lasers! Where can you be getting these figures?
$500/lb for a capsule that never has to come back down? Thrusters? The propulsion is coming from beamed energy, not rockets.
Who needs $100/lb of supplies? You mean to tell me that I need $13,500 of food, water, and clothing in the next two days? Don't be silly!
Where has your ammortization been? clark pointed earlier toward the report to NASA, why don't you have a peek? My calculations are on the first page.
As for "laser propulsion", if you mean ion propulsion or similar scheme, it's useless if you release at LEO. Again, you're nowhere near escape velocity (which is around 5 mi/sec). Simple math on this one. A chemical rocket would work of course.
No, beamed lasers are concentrated on photovoltaic panels to power the thrusters. This should have been described in Brad Edwards' book. Again, check the report to NASA.
I weigh rather less than 100 kg so its $25,000 for my body. What about food, water, air, habitat, safety gear. If 25% is passenger and 75% is elevator cab, structural compenents and the like that adds up to $100,000, no?
You're probably double-counting the weight of the elevator itself. The ribbon can lift 33 tons with a 50% safety margin. Max capacity is 66 tons.
So 13 tons of lifter + 20 tons cargo. Now the *cost* of the lifter, since it is disposable must be included in the cost of the 20 tons being lifted.
I'm back at the ~$500/pd figure * 20 tons.
The $500/lb estimate is double the more reasonable estimate of $500/kg. Highlift included the cost of the lifter when they made their $100/kg estimate, which we have gone from doubling, to quintupling, to multiplying by ten.
The elevator is also designed to release payload at appropriate speeds using its laser propulsion array.
Josh, you completely missed the point. The point was that if the central banks removed the gold backing of the dollar, the economy would collapse.
Why? Because the extremely vast majority of transactions in this country are done using dollars.
Why? Because it is the official, uniform currency.
I am not proposing we remove the gold backing, I was describing what would happen if we did, and why that would happen.
Great, then it's about $45,000 per person, half of the $100,000 estimate.
You're interchanging kg and pounds. My numbers have been in pounds.
I know, a kg is equivalent to 2.2 pounds. So to estimate the cost, when the rate is $500/kg, you must convert 200 pounds to approximately 90-100 kg. 90 kg at a rate of $500/kg is $45,000 kg.
Personally, I *LOVE* the elevator idea - yet Zubrin's hypersonic skyhook - catching Mach 20 scramjets with an orbiting tether may be a cheaper way to get people to LEO.
Scramjets don't exist, and how do you propose to catch something going Mach 20, and so much as slow it down? What if the thing misses?
Going at that speed, how would either the scramjet or the skyhook make it in one piece?
If your costs are $250/kg, how is it $100,000 to lift a 90 kg person to orbit?
soph how much structure, supplies and equipment will be needed to safely lift a 200 pound man (me!) to LEO.
I weigh rather less than 100 kg so its $25,000 for my body. What about food, water, air, habitat, safety gear. If 25% is passenger and 75% is elevator cab, structural compenents and the like that adds up to $100,000, no?
Not really. An air filtration system using oxygen tanks that only has to function for one day at a time is not overly expensive, and no meal I know of costs $75,000.
My estimate would be about $5,000 of extra costs per person.
If air was that expensive for this duration of time, who would Scuba dive?
No hotels or heli-strips, no fleet of VSTOL aircraft, no ground crew etc. . .
Ground crew is on the order of a few hundred thousand, no need for a fleet of aircraft, boat freight is cheap, and hotels cost millions, not billions of dollars.
Perhaps, a more conservative approach is to begin as a payload launch operation (perhaps with minimal, no-frills, orbital crew launches), and then using any profits, expand to accomodate people. This would ensure that the expansion is made with secured money, and that the expansion is made to support an existing base of customers.
But $100 billion is way out of sync with the real costs.
I think it's closer to the $500 figure that I mentioned as a complete guess earlier. Remember how complex these "disposable" lifters have to be, and the odds of perfectly-smooth running logistics are not very good. Every airport is always running behind and they've got more than 1 runway to work with.
Great, then it's about $45,000 per person, half of the $100,000 estimate.
I think you're looking at $100,000 to put a 200-pd person in orbit, not including the cost of lifting all their supplies. This sort of clientele is going to demand 5-star treatment, which is what you are probably getting at.
If your costs are $250/kg, how is it $100,000 to lift a 90 kg person to orbit?
Yet this is a HUGE operation. Hundreds of passengers will need to arrive at least 24-48 hours before their elevator car departs and they will need to be fed and housed 24/7. Hundreds of waiters/busboys/housekeeping/doctors and the like will be needed to provide 24 hour service. Can you say casino?
How may will pay $10,000 - $20,000 for a vacation and eat PB&J from a brown paper bag? Not to mention the cargo platforms to accomodate the docking of giant container ships bringing cargo for lift to LEO.
Why not just a single day? Here's an agenda:
1. Board passenger ship two days before launch
2. Arrive at destination night before, check into hotel, eat dinner
3. Spend the day at the hotel, making arrangements, undergoing micro-G preparation, having three meals, taking photos, etc.
4. Board elevator
A single day of hotel accomodation costs, at most $500. So let's say that the entire previous day is $1000 of cost to Highlift. They can defray this by concession stands, casinos (as you mentioned), and so on.
tim: cruise ships may be better, because we are likely to have cargo as well on the elevator. Supplies and crew should also be delivered to the island. Helicopter is not as effective at cargo delivery as boat.
Right, but the elevator is going to be far away from any land at all, each are on a piece of land. The base of the elevator is a modified oil rig, not an island, similar to Sea Launch.
I was thinking of an airport, but how would you build a commercially capable airstrip that far out into the ocean?
How much infrastructure do you need to get thousands of people to there every week/month and fed and house them as they prepare for the elevator ride?
Probably just a passenger ship and a hotel. I mean, there's no need to overdo it. For higher end V.I.P.s, for an extra few thousand, they may be able to come on a luxurious yacht.
Do you think Big Pharma takes this attitude when they negotiate office rent, or staff salaries, or buy copy machines? They won't spend the extra $10 million unless it translates into guaranteed profits.
The lab itself can generate enough "Wow" value for the company's advertisements to cover the costs of the lab. And the lab could test many, many drugs, any of which could be the next Prozac.
A Big Pharma company may gladly pay $15 million for an orbital drug lab but balk at $25 million, just because the numbers don't pan out.
To a big drug company, looking at revenues of billions, a $10 million difference is peanuts.
We need to draw a price/demand curve and evaluate how elastic the demand for Earth to LEO travel may be. If demand is too price sensitive, then an elevator is a huge risk. If the price per kilogram is close to the market's saturation point, then a fairly small cost overrun can cause users to abandon the elevator leaving a giant white elephant.
Not all of it needs to be to orbit! You can launch all kinds of robotic missions and manned mission payloads to Mars or the Moon, and any number of celestial observatories, or assembly plants, and materials, to be used in interplanetary missions.
clark: the spent capsules could stay up at the top as a counterweight, further increasing the capacity of the elevator.
The use for a down elevator would be practical, not imperative.
Oh, right, and Bill commented on a "down" elevator.
I imagine it would be possible to connect a second ribbon to the anchor station and counterweight. You may even be able to deploy the ribbon using the first elevator. You could have separate up and down ribbons. The ribbon wouldn't be very expensive at all, once the CNT is ready. It would probably be about as expensive as the anchor and counterweight, so a second ribbon using the initial infrastructure (as opposed to a whole new elevator) may cost in the hundreds of millions.