All Aboard the Space Elevator

May 2, 2023 6:33 AM

The biggest concern is whether there will be enough elevator music for the entire ride.
posted by tafetta, darling! (49 comments total)

This is a pretty fun tool, but, boy howdy, did it eat my phone’s battery alive. I went from 40% to 20% by the time I hit the stratosphere.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:54 AM on May 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

That was wonderful! I have no interested going to space in a rocket, but for some reason I would in a space elevator.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:09 AM on May 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

That was so much fun! I like that you got to keep your scarf on top of your spacesuit.

Go yellow rumped leaf-eared mouse!
posted by Mchelly at 7:17 AM on May 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

Space Elevators Are Less Sci-Fi Than You Think (SciAm, 2022)

One viewpoint, that elevators might be realistic and both much cheaper (sustainable) and safer than rockets.
posted by bonehead at 7:20 AM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Did anyone else get a sort of horror, realizing how high up animals had been? I felt so worried about the monarch butterfly...and yet there was still so much further up to go.
posted by mittens at 7:29 AM on May 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

Elevators! Of course!

*shouts to the crew*

"Take down that giant slingshot, fellas, I've got a better idea!"
posted by AlSweigart at 7:31 AM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Interesting. Whys does a relatively simple animation like this make my computer disc hyperventilate?
posted by ovvl at 7:35 AM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Did anyone else get a sort of horror, realizing how high up animals had been?

I was a bit confused by seeing a Pterodactyl so high. I mean, that kinda implies that they’ve been spotted up there and...well...

Also: I note that the images of the individual creatures and aircraft don’t even appear on my old iPad. Their titles do, though.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:44 AM on May 2, 2023

Interesting. Whys does a relatively simple animation like this make my computer disc hyperventilate?

Because it's not simple. Normally if you have a static image that you're scrolling through the program just grabbing the appropriate segment from a buffer of some sort. That's simple.

This on the other hand does all sorts of layering tricks for the parallax scrolling effect so instead of just copying the right memory to the backing store it has to compose it. Multiple layers. Each with giant textures and alpha. Every single frame. It's basically running a video game inside a web browser but instead of high performance systems language running on the metal it's all interpreted through a JavaScript runtime just to gum things up even more.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:47 AM on May 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

Interesting. Whys does a relatively simple animation like this make my computer disc hyperventilate?

The higher you get up the space elevator, the harder your computer has to work against freezing temperatures and lower oxygen levels.

Almost positive that's how that works.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 8:07 AM on May 2, 2023 [23 favorites]

Just when I think I won't see any more Russian skydivers, there's another Russian skydiver.
posted by credulous at 8:25 AM on May 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

"Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" only works as elevator music up to a certain altitude. Maybe then it switches to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" ....
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:31 AM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

What's really baking my noodle is the altitude that various mushroom clouds from various atomic bombs have reached.
posted by vverse23 at 8:39 AM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

What bakes my noodle is that it shows temperature in Fahrenheit, but height in meters...
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:50 AM on May 2, 2023 [17 favorites]

Just when I think I won't see any more Russian skydivers, there's another Russian skydiver.

Skydiver, or oligarch who crossed Putin?
posted by briank at 8:56 AM on May 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

Amateur rocketry was for years/decades limited to 100,000 feet (30 km) by the FAA. Then around 4 years ago the FAA apparently just said "Fuck it--go for it". Rocketeers were ready. I have friends who've flown to 200,000 feet. The new record (to the best of my knowledge) set in autumn 2022 was by Kip Daugirdas to 293,488 ft (55.6 mi/89.5 km). The only US site (and probably the world) where flights over 50,000 feet are allowed is at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
posted by neuron at 9:38 AM on May 2, 2023 [9 favorites]

Did anyone else get a sort of horror, realizing how high up animals had been?

Slight derail, but humans are pretty terrible. In 1827 the locals here in Niagara Falls, ON decided to put a bunch of animals on a barge and then watch them fall to their death. True story. And you might ask why, don't expect any reasonable answer outside of, "Because we could." & "Tourism."
posted by Fizz at 10:04 AM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

that was totally cool! I love to see where all the birds, bugs, animals etc., go. the different types of clouds is amazing. things we can see here on the ground that are soooo far up there, like auroras. great post!
posted by supermedusa at 10:24 AM on May 2, 2023

First elevator

...The elevator was destroyed during the First Martian Revolution in 2061. Bogdanovists placed and ignited charges at the joining point of the cable with Clarke. Clarke left Martian orbit while the cable violently wrapped itself around the Martian equator, twice. Peter Clayborne was on an elevator car during the attack. He left the car and drifted in space; he was rescued by chance by a passing spacecraft.

Those who were on Clarke, among them Phyllis, got all the Earth-to-Mars freighters out, linked them together, loaded all the supplies on them and left Clarke. They propelled themselves towards the Jovian system. After 10 weeks, they used Jupiter's gravity to swing them around towards Earth (becoming the fastest traveling humans in history in the process) and, with limited supplies, they safely reached Earth and survived.

So the biggest concern may be what happens if someone cuts such a space elevator at its top or any point below, an event described in detail by Kim Stanley Robinson in his novel Red Mars.

Who knew bumblebees could fly so high?
posted by y2karl at 10:29 AM on May 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

That bumblebee was having the best day of its life, no question.

"Oh, I'm scoping out all the honeyspots today, gonna get that Worker Of The Day award, awww yeah. Can the queen do this, huh HUH?!"
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:32 AM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

That Rüppell's Griffon Vulture is amazing--flying at 11,000 meters, 2000 meters higher than Mt Everest. According to Smithsonian Institute (in Google's cache, no longer at the site), the reason they know it can fly this high is that one got sucked into an engine of a aircraft that was flying at that altitude. Poor guy. Probably shocked the heck out of the pilot too.
posted by eye of newt at 11:50 AM on May 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

one got sucked into an engine of a aircraft that was flying at that altitude.

The buzzard's reaction
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:42 PM on May 2, 2023

That bumblebee was having the best day of its life, no question.

Makes you wonder if animals test their limits, Icarus style, just for fun:
"Wheee! I can see where we are migrating to from here! "
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:03 PM on May 2, 2023

y2karl I love that people know that book, also the other two colors, also the Clarke inspiration.

But that was some 30 years ago. People invented solutions for these problems, like rotovators - yes, they can still suffer, erm, unscheduled rapid deorbiting events, but they don't need to be anchored in geosynchronous orbit and can have far less mass.

What bakes MY noodle is that birbs can fly in temperatures that are close to freezing alcohol. Try landing a plane in Antarctica , in winter.
posted by flamewise at 1:07 PM on May 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

"Congratulations! You have made it 0.01% to the moon."

Dang.
posted by doctornemo at 1:11 PM on May 2, 2023

So the biggest concern may be what happens if someone cuts such a space elevator at its top or any point below
Not sure about Mars versions, but IIRC the CNT designs for Earth that pencil out are ribbons, and not strong enough to survive the shear forces resulting from a break, so the section that falls downwards and doesn't burn up in the atmosphere would tear into pieces and flutter down.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:16 PM on May 2, 2023

Great, detailed, fun stuff.

Fine example of the infinite canvas principle.
posted by doctornemo at 1:17 PM on May 2, 2023

The thing this most reminded me of was a similar scroller that took you to the bottom of the ocean - so I went searching for it and (surprise!) it’s from the same creator… The Deep Sea
posted by Mchelly at 2:02 PM on May 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

What bakes my noodle is that it shows temperature in Fahrenheit, but height in meters...

It wouldn't be aviation if it were consistent! Here's the weather in Pittsburgh right now, for pilots:

KAGC 022119Z 26010G18KT 10SM -RA BKN023 BKN030 OVC070 07/03 A2948 RMK AO2 RAB12 P0000 T00670028

26010G18KT - westerly wind in knots
10SM - visibility in statute miles
BKN023 BKN030 OVC070 - cloud layers in hundreds of feet above the earth
07/03 - temperature and dewpoint in celsius
A2948 - atmospheric pressure in inches of mercury

The two kinds of miles is what I like the best.
posted by Chef Flamboyardee at 2:32 PM on May 2, 2023 [11 favorites]

Aw....that was an lovely voyage to 0.01% of the moon.
posted by Schadenfreude at 2:54 PM on May 2, 2023

Here's the weather in Pittsburgh right now, for pilots:

That's impressive, in an absolutely ridiculous way.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:57 PM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

What bakes my noodle is that it shows temperature in Fahrenheit, but height in meters...
Temp shows in c for me - maybe it's picking up something from your computer settings? I would have preferred that the height was in feet, being of the generation that learned a lot of stuff just as the civilised world was transitioning to metric.

It's amazing how high some of those birds can fly! I was also impressed with the records skydiving heights, but wonder how they figure out where they're going to land?
posted by dg at 3:25 PM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Temp shows in c for me - maybe it's picking up something from your computer settings?

I just went back to the site and found out that clicking on the temp toggles it between F and C, so that's cool.

Oddly, however, the same doesn't hold true for the height.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:08 PM on May 2, 2023

It's amazing how high some of those birds can fly!

I always argue for dinosaurs being the most successful clade ever, because despite their reduced variety they manage to travel, hunt and live in more places and extremes than practically anything else. They raise young in the Antarctic night, they hunt food in the pack ice of the Arctic night. They fly over the highest mountains and dive deep into the sea, they literally can live on the wing for years at a time, they prosper in the wettest jungles and the harshest deserts, ones so sterile we use them as a stand-in for Mars. Some of them are even burrowers!
posted by tavella at 4:09 PM on May 2, 2023

I don’t have anything to add to the discussion, but this is cool.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:34 PM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

...but a space elevator would not stop there. You can't construct one that only goes that high. All you could do at that altitude is take in the view. The page ends 100/35,786=0.28% of the way to the first elevator stop: geostationary orbit. That's 20 days at the speed of the fastest elevator mentioned early on, as opposed to 80 minutes.
posted by tigrrrlily at 4:50 PM on May 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Also, that's exactly what I needed tonight. Magical.
posted by tigrrrlily at 4:52 PM on May 2, 2023

Nice tunes
posted by rossmeissl at 5:02 PM on May 2, 2023

640m: mallard

Mallards : Northern Ontario :: Penguins : Antarctica
posted by shoesfullofdust at 5:30 PM on May 2, 2023

Space Elevators Are More Sci-Fi Than You Think ("Rise", Star Trek: Voyager on FanFare)
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:23 PM on May 2, 2023

That Deep Sea one is pretty amazing too. Holy hell, elephant seals can dive DEEP!
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:42 PM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I worked in downtown Chicago in many different tall buildings for 20 years and have ridden so many goddamned elevators I couldn't even begin to count them. I cannot remember hearing music in a single one of them.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:34 AM on May 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

That was dumb. And incomplete given its stopping point.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 5:52 AM on May 3, 2023

How far down does the haggis go, though? I think neal.fun has some missing info.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:35 AM on May 3, 2023

"Oh, I'm scoping out all the honeyspots today, gonna get that Worker Of The Day award, awww yeah. Can the queen do this, huh HUH?!"

Bumblebees, as it turns out, lead interesting, complex and threatened lives and their Queens are hard workers who you can help.
posted by y2karl at 8:46 AM on May 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I would have preferred that the height was in feet, being of the generation that learned a lot of stuff just as the civilised world was transitioning to metric.

I don't live in the civilized world. I live in the United States.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:41 AM on May 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, then go put the tools away.
posted by y2karl at 11:37 AM on May 3, 2023

So neat. Thanks for this!
posted by brundlefly at 11:38 PM on May 3, 2023

Yeah, where's the rest of it?

I was fully expecting this to illustrate just how long a space elevator needs to be. If you park an asteroid or other giant weight at the top you might be able to keep it under 40,000 km but even then the distance to "space" is basically a rounding error against the full scale of the thing.

Now I'm curious to read more about how much smaller a rotovator might be, but if they can't really dip into the atmosphere that's still a solution that basically starts where this visualization ends.

(Also Ctrl-F "integral trees" returns no matches, was I the only teenage nerd desperate enough for hard sci-fi to read every bit of schlock that Larry Niven put out?)
posted by bjrubble at 1:05 PM on May 4, 2023