From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 21:15:31 MDT
On Wed, 10 Sep 2003, Damien Broderick wrote:
> You don't have to *live* there, though, right? The beanstalk stretches even
> further out than the distance from surface to GEO. But maybe it would put
> too much tension on the string to have a big station on the far end, say?
I'd suggest that such an approach would kill much of the fun. You buy
your ticket on the elevator knowing that 50% of the time the elevator
accelerates halfway to the end of the beanstalk and then decelerates
through the other half. But the other 50% of the time the elevator
turns the deceleration motors into acceleration motors and when you
hit the end -- well LEO and GEO are things you don't have to think
much about anymore.
Heads you win. Tails you become a god (at least if the ETs/SIs are around
to pick you up).
There has got to be a novel where one day the aliens all decide to
descend on Roswell and explain how it was all a big hoax.
R.
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