> Robert J. Bradbury wrote: Now... In relation to "big things humans
> build"....
>
> The abstract:
> "It is possible to make a tower which extends upwards from the surface
> of the Earth into space. ...A mass of 3.5
> million tons was calculated for such a structure sized to carry a payload
> of 22.7 tons, using graphite-epoxy construction.
Robert, methinks this estimate is waaaaay off, by perhaps orders of
magnitude (low). I may be able to find the Landis/Cafarelli paper in
the electronic archives.
Meanwhile I will consult a tech paper I wrote about 6 yrs ago in
which I derived the closed form expression for the mass of a geo
cable, but was ended up in a form that I could not integrate. I had
it in terms of diameter as a function of height. Welcome back! spike
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