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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I have a Blueberry for a daughter. An all right,

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Speaker 1: so today we're going to start off with a little

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Speaker 1: listener mail. This listener mail comes from Alan, and Alan

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Speaker 1: says Chris and John. I love your podcast and have

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Speaker 1: a suggestion for a future topic. You mentioned in your

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Speaker 1: rare Earth Metal show, the exciting possible uses of carbon nanotubes.

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Speaker 1: I've heard that space elevators could be achievable with this

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Speaker 1: new high strength weight material. Would consider a space elevator podcast.

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Speaker 1: Thanks a bunch. Well, we considered it, and we decided

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Speaker 1: to do it anyway. Yeah, this is sort of the

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Speaker 1: the area where stuff to blow your mind would normally cover. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you know what, there's tech, so we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about it, darn it, and we beat him to it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think so. I haven't gone through their entire list

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Speaker 1: of of episodes. I don't know if they've done an

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Speaker 1: episode about space elevators or not. But what is a

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Speaker 1: space elevator? I hear you all ask. It's pretty much

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Speaker 1: what sounds like. It's an elevator that goes into space. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Like many things that we have talked about on this show,

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Speaker 1: this was apparently originally conceived by a writer, Arthur C.

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Speaker 1: Clark Gosh Fountains of Paradise, the guy I thought up

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. He did he did well. I mean, uh,

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Speaker 1: maybe not a lot of the things we've talked about,

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Speaker 1: but we did talk about the geosynchronous orbit and using

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Speaker 1: that for communications. That's something that that he came up

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Speaker 1: with for for for his writing. And in Fountains of Paradise,

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Speaker 1: engineers build a space elevator on an island called temp Robane.

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Speaker 1: Probably mispronouncing that, but I'm okay with that. Um. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it's a uh, it's basically Sri Lanka, which is where

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Speaker 1: he lived apparently in many respects I have I haven't

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Speaker 1: read it, um, but basically he in the book this

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Speaker 1: island is on the equator, which is kind of important. Um,

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Speaker 1: as we'll get to in a few minutes. But the

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Speaker 1: idea of being that there is a something I guess

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Speaker 1: the top floor in geosynchronous orbit, which would allow the

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Speaker 1: space elevator to to have a tethered cable at the

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Speaker 1: other end, and the elevator could move on that cable

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Speaker 1: up into space and back. Yeah. The the element that's

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Speaker 1: in geo secrets orbit is essentially a counterweight. It's uh.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever if you've ever had like maybe a

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Speaker 1: yo yo and you've done it around the world, that

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Speaker 1: would be the kind of the concept here. Um the

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Speaker 1: except of course that the weight is not being um

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Speaker 1: held in place by the cable so much as the

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Speaker 1: Earth's orbit or Earth's gravity rather, but it is an

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Speaker 1: orbit around the Earth. That essentially means that it's constantly falling.

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Speaker 1: That's essentially that's what orbit tends to be. UM, but

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Speaker 1: you're falling in this circular pattern or elliptical pattern, and

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Speaker 1: uh the cable is uh anchored somewhere on Earth. Some

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Speaker 1: plans I saw had it uh an anchor that would

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Speaker 1: be on a uh something that would be a platform

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Speaker 1: in the ocean. Okay, So that's kind of an interesting

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Speaker 1: idea of because that gives you a little more mobility

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Speaker 1: and we'll talk about why that might be important in

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Speaker 1: a little bit. It. Uh some others I've seen where

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Speaker 1: they suggested that the cable could be anchored to the

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Speaker 1: top of a very tall building, which is not quite

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Speaker 1: as mobile. As it turns out, you aren't able to

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Speaker 1: move tall buildings around easily. When tall moved buildings move around,

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Speaker 1: that's usually a bad thing. So, uh, why would you

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Speaker 1: even consider a space elevator in the first place. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a very good question. The point is not to

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Speaker 1: reach the top floor where the penthouse looks out into

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Speaker 1: a nebula. That's funny. I was gonna say the crab nebula. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: I was reading an article from NASA called audacious or

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Speaker 1: audacious I don't know, and Outrageous Space Elevators by Steve

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Speaker 1: Price um and he was the one who explained to

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Speaker 1: me that this actually came from Fountains of Paradise. But um,

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Speaker 1: the idea would be that you could transport people and

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Speaker 1: things and possibly even electric city between the Earth and

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Speaker 1: space too. I guess space stations or other objects in

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Speaker 1: space that might, um, you know, be useful for people

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Speaker 1: to use. Um that was redundant. So uh, yeah, the

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Speaker 1: idea being that you could carry things out into space

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Speaker 1: and back without having to launch a rocket or you know,

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Speaker 1: spend spend the time and money and and have to

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Speaker 1: worry about weather openings and things like that. Um, I

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Speaker 1: assume that having a giant cable reaching out into space

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Speaker 1: would produce hazards of its own, but I'm sure, but

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Speaker 1: it would be a fairly affordable method of getting things

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Speaker 1: out into space. Yeah. The Uh, that's the big point

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Speaker 1: there is affordable both both of the fact that it's

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Speaker 1: affordable and in general safer in the sense that whenever

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Speaker 1: you have a launch, there are a lot of risks involved.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we all know this because we've unfortunately seen

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Speaker 1: tragic results of launch is gone awry. Uh, So there's

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Speaker 1: always an element of danger launching anything into space. It

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Speaker 1: takes an incredible amount of energy to launch anything off

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Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth. So you want to be

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Speaker 1: able to cut down that energy cost. You want to

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Speaker 1: reduce the risks. According to our article on the site

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Speaker 1: we actually have how space elevators will work on how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, it was written by Kevin Bonser

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Speaker 1: and Uh. According to to Kevin, the approximate cost to

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Speaker 1: put one pound of equipment or one pound of anything

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Speaker 1: UH into space using a rocket based method is ten

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Speaker 1: thousan dollars ten dollars per pound. That's more expensive than

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Speaker 1: the really good cuts of beef at my butcher by

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Speaker 1: by a couple of factors. Actually, uh. The by contrast,

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Speaker 1: a space elevator could in theory deliver a payload of

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Speaker 1: around UH at around a hundred dollars to four per pound,

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Speaker 1: significantly cheaper, right. Um. Yeah, the the NASA article actually

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Speaker 1: quoted David Smitherman, who is UH Marshall's advance of NASA

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Speaker 1: and the Marshall Advanced Space Projects Office. Um, and he's

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Speaker 1: actually looked into the possibility of of UH creating a

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Speaker 1: space elevator. Um and he said that, Yeah, I saw

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Speaker 1: um Kevin Monster's article. But the compared cost here, according

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Speaker 1: to smither And, what Smitherman would be um, oh, shoot,

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Speaker 1: about two hundred two dollars for a passenger with baggage

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Speaker 1: at about hundred and fifty, So that's two not bad.

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Speaker 1: Compare that to the massive amounts of money you would

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Speaker 1: have to pay to go up on our Russian rocket

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Speaker 1: to visit the International Space Station, as some as a

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Speaker 1: person I know actually did Hello, Richard aread Um. But

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Speaker 1: the yeah, the the the article that we have on

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Speaker 1: the side has some really interesting uh factors in there.

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Speaker 1: You might wonder exactly how would this work? How would

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Speaker 1: you get a machine to go up a cable all

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Speaker 1: the way into space? Uh? Well, the the concept here

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Speaker 1: is is really fascinating to me. It's a it's essentially

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Speaker 1: a platform or some sort of enclosure, depending upon what

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Speaker 1: you're putting on there, and it is attached to this cable.

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Speaker 1: The cable itself is not necessarily really thick either, because

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Speaker 1: it's it's it theoretically built out of carbon nanotube nanotubes

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Speaker 1: and I'll talk a little bit more about those in

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Speaker 1: a second. Um. But the the platform has these robotic

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Speaker 1: climbers that can either climb up or climb down the

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Speaker 1: cable once they are powered. And the way you get

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Speaker 1: power to the elevator is that has these photovoltaic say cells, Man,

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Speaker 1: I can't talk today either. We we recently changed our

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Speaker 1: podcast recording time and our mouths aren't haven't caught up

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Speaker 1: to the rest of us. But photo voltaic cells, so

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Speaker 1: those are the same kind of cells like solar power cells, right,

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Speaker 1: but these cells tend to be tuned to a different

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Speaker 1: frequency of light than our solar power cells are UM

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Speaker 1: they're used, they're made out of different materials. Are solar

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Speaker 1: cells are are made out of silicon. These are made

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Speaker 1: out of other materials that absorb different frequencies of light.

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Speaker 1: Then you use lasers or lasers to direct the light

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Speaker 1: onto the cells, which then the cells will convert the

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Speaker 1: light into electricity, which then powers the robotic climbers. So

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Speaker 1: all you have to do, I'm making this sounds simple.

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Speaker 1: All you really have to do just point your laser

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Speaker 1: at the photo voltaic cell and it does the rest.

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Speaker 1: Not granted it's it's definitely not in all you have

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Speaker 1: to do kind of thing. I dismissed that as being

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Speaker 1: far too easy. But the idea here is that using light,

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Speaker 1: essentially you are providing power to this platform which will

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Speaker 1: then climb all the way up into space. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: there have been some very variations on this idea where

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Speaker 1: you might have multiple space elevators on the same cable

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Speaker 1: and uh and they would kind of do sort of

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Speaker 1: like a fireman brigade type thing where you would transfer

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Speaker 1: the payload from one to the other, so you don't

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Speaker 1: have one UM one platform going the whole way necessarily. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of uh it depends on which which

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Speaker 1: approach you read. Uh that that will tell you, like

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Speaker 1: how how high up the counter measure is going to

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Speaker 1: be and how fast the platform will move. In the

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Speaker 1: article on our site, uh, Kevin was talking about a

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Speaker 1: company called Liftport that had suggested putting a platform that

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Speaker 1: would be or acount of count of way, that would

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Speaker 1: be two thousand miles above the surface of the Earth,

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Speaker 1: and it would move at a speed of The elevator

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Speaker 1: would move at a speed of around one miles per hour.

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Speaker 1: So I did some math. Yeah, that means that to

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Speaker 1: to make the entire trip to go all the way up,

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Speaker 1: not a round trip, but one way, it would take

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Speaker 1: five d point four hours of travel, or around twenty

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Speaker 1: two days. That's a long time to listen to the

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Speaker 1: girl from Eponinus that song bum. Okay, that's all I

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Speaker 1: can do before I get sued. But yeah, now that

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Speaker 1: is that no one should be forced to listen to

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Speaker 1: music for twenty two days straight. Excuse me, I got

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Speaker 1: all choked up. UM. So yeah, it's funny that that

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Speaker 1: you point that out. I did want to make that

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Speaker 1: point that this um the article is is very uh,

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Speaker 1: is really kind of centered on Liftport's concept of doing this,

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Speaker 1: because um, the version that David Smitherman suggested uses a

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Speaker 1: little bit different um technology. Now, he said there were

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Speaker 1: five things that needed to happen in order to make

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Speaker 1: space elevators possible. The first thing is you needed high

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Speaker 1: strength materials for the cables and the tower. Well, okay,

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Speaker 1: the carbon nanotube should probably cover that. I think. The

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Speaker 1: second is, uh, you know, the the continued development of

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Speaker 1: the tether technology, which I imagine is going on. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that for a fact, Um, you also need

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Speaker 1: lightweight and composite, lightweight composite structural materials to be able

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Speaker 1: to build the towers and the buildings that necessary to

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Speaker 1: make it work. The fourth is high speed electromagnetic propulsion. Um.

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Speaker 1: I'll get back to that in just a second. And

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Speaker 1: then the fifth is the development of the infrastructure needed

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Speaker 1: to support the space construction. So um. The fourth is

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Speaker 1: the one that really applies to the difference between this

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Speaker 1: and Spaceport because his version basically uses magnetic propulsion. Rather

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Speaker 1: than touching the cable, necessarily you would be able to

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Speaker 1: like a maglev train. It would basically you know, move

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Speaker 1: up the cable without actually touching the cable necessarily, rather

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Speaker 1: than rather than climbing it. Um. And if I'm if

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Speaker 1: I'm understanding it correctly, uh, which is really kind of cool. Um.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how. You would have to be very cool.

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Speaker 1: You'd have to have a really low resistance in those cables,

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Speaker 1: so that would mean you have too super cool of

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Speaker 1: course once you got into space. But it's a neat idea. No,

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Speaker 1: it's a fascinating idea. I had not come across that

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Speaker 1: in my research, So that is an incredible idea. And

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Speaker 1: the reason he suggests, the reason it's so important to

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Speaker 1: have stations placed at the equator is the uh, likelihood

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Speaker 1: of storms decreases at the equator, so you're less likely

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Speaker 1: to have atmospheric interference with the space elevator traveling up

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Speaker 1: and down the cable. Um. So I found that completely

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Speaker 1: fascinating because it's one of those things. I think the

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Speaker 1: first time I actually came across the idea of a

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Speaker 1: space elevator was in playing Civilization Too, So, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I was going space elevator. What's that? How the heck

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Speaker 1: is that even possible? Yeah? Because you sit there and

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Speaker 1: you think about it, like, how could you do that?

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Speaker 1: How could you get you know, how do you keep

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Speaker 1: the tension on the wire. Well, that's easy, the countermeasure

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Speaker 1: does that for you. Because it's in orbit, we should yes, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: until if the counter measure were to fall out of orbit,

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Speaker 1: that would be a bad thing. Uh exactly, if something

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Speaker 1: were to happen to the cable, that would also be

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Speaker 1: a bad thing. It wouldn't necessarily mean the counter measure

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Speaker 1: would fly off into space, because again it's an orbit,

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Speaker 1: but it would mean that you would, you know, you

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Speaker 1: would have a broken space elevator. You would have to

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Speaker 1: find some way of either repairing or attaching a new cable.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about the cables for a little bit. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the carbon nanotubes in particular, which I find fascinating, you know,

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Speaker 1: just by themselves. Yeah, carbon nanotubes are kind of like

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Speaker 1: the miracle equipment of the future, right, I Mean it's

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Speaker 1: like it's like that material that everyone's heard about and uh,

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Speaker 1: no one's really like it's hard to explain exactly what

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Speaker 1: it does or what it you know, what what it

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Speaker 1: kind of functions, it may it may fill in the future.

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Speaker 1: Carbon nanotubes are made up of think of a sheet

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Speaker 1: of carbon molecules and they are arranged in a heck

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Speaker 1: like a pattern of hexagons. Yes, okay, so if you've

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Speaker 1: ever had any kind of graph paper that was in

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Speaker 1: hexagon form, I'm looking at you all my war gamer

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Speaker 1: friends out there, um here okay, I mean the other ones.

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Speaker 1: I've got more than just you. So anyway that if

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Speaker 1: you think about it, you've got a sheet of hexagons

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Speaker 1: all connected together, and then you roll that sheet up

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Speaker 1: into a tube that's essentially a carbon nanotube. It's it's

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Speaker 1: takes this sheet of molecules, you roll it up, and

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Speaker 1: depending on the angle that you roll this sheet into,

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Speaker 1: um it has certain properties. So if you roll the

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Speaker 1: carbon nanotubes or the carbon sheet rather one way, you're

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Speaker 1: going to get certain properties out of this this carbon.

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Speaker 1: If you roll it another way, you'll get totally different properties.

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Speaker 1: And you might think, well, wow, that's insane that you

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Speaker 1: would just just by changing the angle that changes the

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Speaker 1: properties of the material. But then think about what all

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Speaker 1: the stuff that carbons in. Right, you look at the

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Speaker 1: difference between graphite and diamond, one of the softest materials

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Speaker 1: that we know about, one of the hardest materials we

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Speaker 1: know about. Clearly, carbon has got some flexibility, uh figuratively speaking,

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Speaker 1: so well it is. It is considered as flexible as plastic.

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Speaker 1: That's that's the line. That and it's stronger than steel

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Speaker 1: if you roll it the right way, right and um,

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Speaker 1: from what I understand to the idea wouldn't necessarily be

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Speaker 1: to take a single tube and run it into space.

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Speaker 1: They would actually braid these tubes together, which seems like

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Speaker 1: it would make it in more. I would imagine you'd

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Speaker 1: have to grope, yeah, because if you didn't do that,

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Speaker 1: if it were a single tube, I think it would

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Speaker 1: be so thin that anything, right, you just slice right

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Speaker 1: right in half if you came in contact with it. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, yeah, you're exactly right. It would have to

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Speaker 1: be several all. When I say several, I'm talking like millions,

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Speaker 1: all uh, interwoven together. And that's one of the big

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Speaker 1: problems we have right now is just the finding the

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Speaker 1: methodology to create carbon nanotubes length sufficient to work in

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Speaker 1: this kind of uh you know, this kind of application. Right.

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Speaker 1: If we were able to do it now, we'd already

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Speaker 1: have lots and lots of things made out of carbon nanotubes.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's an ongoing process. I mean, you do

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Speaker 1: find some products out there that have carbon nanotubes built

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Speaker 1: into them, like um For instance, there's a some block,

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Speaker 1: really some some block has carbonano tubes in it because

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Speaker 1: of one of the properties of being able to um

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Speaker 1: block harmful radiation. That's one of the cool things there.

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Speaker 1: There's also clothing that has carbonano twos interwoven into it. UM.

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Speaker 1: There was the idea that you would be able to

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Speaker 1: eventually create a Spider Man type suit out of carbonano

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Speaker 1: twos because one of the the things you could do

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Speaker 1: is make it so that it would adhere to surfaces,

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Speaker 1: so you could actually climb up the side of buildings

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Speaker 1: just by wearing the right kind of suit. It's pretty cool, huh,

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Speaker 1: Except for my question was how do you get your

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Speaker 1: when you put your hand down and it adheres to

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Speaker 1: the building, how do you get it off right? If

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Speaker 1: it's strong enough to hold you there, how do you pull?

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Speaker 1: And apparently it was all in the angle, at least

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Speaker 1: in this sort of concept that this one scientist had

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Speaker 1: for it. Anyway, that's an off track. I just I

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Speaker 1: just had this image in my head of somebody, you know,

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Speaker 1: successfully climbing a wall and the suit and somebody, can

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Speaker 1: I have your autograph and I want my pen back. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: that's done. You should do that's you know, I can't

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Speaker 1: get into my else anymore. My keys are stuck right here. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, the carbon nanotubes play a big part in

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Speaker 1: this because it's it's a material that has the potential

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Speaker 1: to to withstand the the pressure that the tensile um strength.

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Speaker 1: It has the tensile strength necessary to fulfill this. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna have platforms climbing up this taut cable and

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Speaker 1: down this taut cable, you know, thousands of miles. It's

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Speaker 1: got to be strong. Yeah, And I think that's, uh,

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Speaker 1: that's obviously since that's the very very first thing um

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Speaker 1: that Smitherman said. You know, you've got to have something

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Speaker 1: strong enough to to work for this cable, no matter

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Speaker 1: what type of propulsion the elevator is using to get

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Speaker 1: up and down the cable, you've got to have something

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Speaker 1: as robust as something or like the carbon nanotubes. I

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Speaker 1: am having so much trouble talking today. It's it's a

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Speaker 1: Friday morning, folks, give us a little break. So anyway, now, it's, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's really neat to see that they've they've gone this far,

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Speaker 1: but you know, what about the possibility that there are

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Speaker 1: going to be whether problems with it or you know

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Speaker 1: that the cable is going to break while somebody is

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Speaker 1: in space, or even or they need repair simple repair

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Speaker 1: right there. There's also the issue of their stuff in

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Speaker 1: space there what lots of there's lots of stuff in

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Speaker 1: space as space, as it turns out, is big, really big,

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Speaker 1: um the but there's lots of little things floating around

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Speaker 1: in space that could potentially cause damage to either the

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Speaker 1: cable or more likely the actual elevator as it was

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Speaker 1: traveling through space. So debris, um, you know, anything from

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Speaker 1: you know, meteorites entering the atmosphere to uh, you know, satellites.

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Speaker 1: Just the fact that some set, not all satellites are

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Speaker 1: geospatial satellites, right, They're not all locked into the same

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Speaker 1: spot right, In fact, most aren't, I think. So you

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Speaker 1: get to a point where you have to figure out, well,

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Speaker 1: what what do we do in the case of there's

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Speaker 1: a you know, uh, an object that's on a collision

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Speaker 1: course with the elevator. You have to be able to

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Speaker 1: detect those things. You have to be able to adjust

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Speaker 1: the speed of the climb or descent of the space elevator,

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Speaker 1: so it avoids them. Um And with the the water

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Speaker 1: based anchor, you know where you've got the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the cable anchored to a platform that's on the ocean,

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Speaker 1: you at least have the potential of moving that platform

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Speaker 1: so that you can change the angle enough so that

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Speaker 1: the elevator will avoid whatever the object is, because even

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Speaker 1: a tiny object could do a massive amount of damage

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Speaker 1: the elevator. Because you think, if it's an object that's

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Speaker 1: moving around essentially in the orbit of the Earth, it's

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Speaker 1: moving on an incredible speed. So you have to plan

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Speaker 1: these things out. You can't just say all right, well,

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Speaker 1: now we've got the climbing technology, we've got the platform,

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Speaker 1: we've got the cable. Let's do this. You've got to

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Speaker 1: be able to protect what you've just built. We can

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Speaker 1: build it. We have the technology right well, and there

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Speaker 1: were there were fears of terrestrial problems as well, not

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Speaker 1: just weather, but people who might want to sabotage the

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Speaker 1: space elevator. Yeah, as it turns out, you know, when

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Speaker 1: people come up with these brilliant ideas that are um

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Speaker 1: there are potentially going to change the way we do

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Speaker 1: something you know, massive like moving things into space. It

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Speaker 1: means that we've invested a lot of money in time

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Speaker 1: into that, right, and so what better way to strike

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Speaker 1: at an enemy than to hit a spot that's going

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Speaker 1: to you know that that was the result of billions

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Speaker 1: of dollars of investment and and and countless hours of time. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, take sabotage that and then you've struck a

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Speaker 1: huge blow. So especially if you have something like a

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Speaker 1: platform floating down in the ocean. Um, depending upon how

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Speaker 1: big that platform is, you might not have that many

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Speaker 1: personnel assigned to it, so it becomes an attractive target.

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Speaker 1: This is actually something that people have had to think about.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's you know, if you're if you belong

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Speaker 1: to a terrorist organization and you're looking at potential targets,

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Speaker 1: then you want to look at high impact and you

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Speaker 1: want to look at the high probability that your attacks

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Speaker 1: going to work. So, I mean, it's an unfortunate reality.

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Speaker 1: So that's another one of those things that people have

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Speaker 1: had to think about, like, well, how would we protect this?

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Speaker 1: And I'm pretty certain that whichever nation comes up with this,

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Speaker 1: or if even if it's a you know, a group

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Speaker 1: of nations that work together to create the first space elevator.

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Speaker 1: I'm certain they will have incredible security measures around that. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine so. But I don't think we're likely

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Speaker 1: to develop a working space elevator in the next you know,

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Speaker 1: short few years. I think it's still going to be

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Speaker 1: quite a ways down the road. Um. And it seems

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Speaker 1: like the logistical things there's a lot to work out. Um. Sure,

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Speaker 1: you know, it just seems it's always seem risky to

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Speaker 1: me to have a cable running that far out into

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Speaker 1: space and expecting it to stay where it is. You know,

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Speaker 1: it just seems weird. The aliens don't like that. The aliens, yes,

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Speaker 1: they don't. Uh. And you know, I forgot about one

400
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Speaker 1: of the other potential uses for a space elevator. The

401
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Speaker 1: thought is actually really cool. One of the potential uses

402
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Speaker 1: is actually launching UH vehicles from the space elevator into space,

403
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Speaker 1: because the idea here is that you don't need as

404
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Speaker 1: much fuel UH and you don't need as larger rocket

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Speaker 1: in order to go into space once you're in orbit,

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Speaker 1: because you don't have to escape UH or gravity from

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Speaker 1: the surface. Right. So, so it means that we could

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Speaker 1: cut down on the costs of space travel, and potentially

409
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Speaker 1: use a space elevator as a launching site for missions

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Speaker 1: into deeper space, like another trip to the Moon or

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Speaker 1: perhaps two Mars or who knows. Yeah, it seems like

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Speaker 1: as long as the elevator work capable of carrying that

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Speaker 1: weight through the you know, up until it reaches the

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Speaker 1: edge of the gravitational pull, significant gravitational pull, it seems

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Speaker 1: like it would be able to do that. But I

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Speaker 1: can't imagine. I would have to be a pretty hefty

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Speaker 1: elevator to carry something the size of say the Space Shuttle. Boy,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna carry that weight, carry that Wait a long time,

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Speaker 1: Oh man, I can't let you out here, Dave. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting because you know, the space platform is just

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Speaker 1: above hardware and uh and tools and uh that's a

422
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Speaker 1: long long wait. Yeah, it's interesting because although we're calling

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Speaker 1: it an elevator, obviously it would feel more like a uh,

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Speaker 1: some other kind of vehicle. Yes, something like that. It

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Speaker 1: would have to be if we were going to be

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Speaker 1: traveling for multiple days. You know, clearly you wouldn't be like,

427
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: all right, did everyone go before they got in the elevator?

428
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: Because this is important. It's gonna be several days before

429
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: we get to the top. So clearly it would be

430
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 1: more like you know, it had to be bigger, yeah,

431
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,400
Speaker 1: and it would have a you know, facilities clearly would

432
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:18,400
Speaker 1: have to beds, things like that. Food Yeah, yeah, Food

433
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: would also probably be important. I would not want to

434
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,400
Speaker 1: go and not want to go between eight and twenty

435
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: two days without eating. Um, I don't like going a

436
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 1: couple of hours without eating, tell you the truth. I

437
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 1: wonder if I wonder if there's a way to send

438
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: smaller things up the cable at the same time the

439
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: elevator is like for example, uh, you know, you have

440
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: the elevator going, and you have a small container of food,

441
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: you know, for stay a week, and you send it

442
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: on up and it caught up to the space elevator

443
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 1: and they could you know, drop waste or trash or

444
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: you know, I suppose a person breaking out because he's

445
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 1: in an enclosed space and freaks out an elevator. The

446
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: longer you would the longer you go on the trip, Like,

447
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: the closer you get to the top up, the longer

448
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 1: it would take the supplemental material to get to you. Yes,

449
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,640
Speaker 1: it would, um, I would imagine that, but that would

450
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 1: probably I wouldn't help prevent the need for carrying a

451
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 1: lot as much stuff. Yeah, I mean, if the robotic

452
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: climbers are are powerful enough, it's not really an issue

453
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:19,360
Speaker 1: because I mean we're That's the other thing is we're

454
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: not really thinking of Uh, you know it's space elevator

455
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 1: is not the same as an elevator, and that elevators

456
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 1: usually use cables to pull them up or lower them down,

457
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: whereas in this case, the space elevator is using robotic

458
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: climbers that climb either physically or magnetically in the case

459
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: that you quoted the cable, So, um, I imagine. I

460
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: mean these these climbers have to be incredibly powerful. They

461
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 1: have to be I mean there otherwise you wouldn't you know,

462
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: nothing would go up the cable. Well, if there are

463
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 1: any rocket scientists listening, you're happen to have any insight

464
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, I just know I don't want to

465
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 1: step into a space elevator. See otis on the door,

466
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:05,360
Speaker 1: and then you know, seven days into it, it stops

467
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: and then I'm just sitting there. Essentially, you spent too

468
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 1: much time on Martha equipment. Yeah, well, did you see

469
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,640
Speaker 1: my tweet this morning? According to the sign my next

470
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: train was arriving in one thousand, three d seventy four minutes.

471
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,439
Speaker 1: Rather I calculated that out. It means that I wouldn't

472
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,359
Speaker 1: be here until tomorrow. Well, it's a good thing that

473
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: you are so that we can do this show. Um,

474
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: it was very lonely without you last week. Okay, well

475
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: I really don't have any else anything else. Yeah, Yeah,

476
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: it's it's a really interesting approach. It's um. Obviously, it's

477
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: an approach that comes with its own set of problems,

478
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: not all of which are trivial. But if we can

479
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: get it to work, it will mean that we could rapidly,

480
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: at least comparatively speaking, uh, shoot things up to say

481
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 1: the International Space Station or bring it back down. Um.

482
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: It would mean that we could build out other space stations.

483
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: We could launch deeper exploration uh missions, whether they were

484
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: robotic or human manned. Um, human manned, Well they if you,

485
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: if you built enough of them, you could develop a

486
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: significant infrastructure in space to do all kinds of different things. Yeah,

487
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 1: and eventually you could have a fantastic arcade game space

488
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: elevator action. I'm not even going to touch that. Do

489
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do? Alright,

490
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: then hey, I love that game. All Right, Well, we're

491
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: gonna wrap up this discussion. Clearly we're a little loopy,

492
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: but no, space elevators really are an interesting idea. I'm

493
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: not sure we'll ever actually see one implemented. I hope so. Uh,

494
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 1: there's certainly a lot of people who are really really

495
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: smart who are working on this, who are really trying

496
00:29:57,880 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: to make it work. Uh, and I hope there's a

497
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: accessiful The projections for when we might see it tend

498
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: to be around the end of around give or take

499
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: a year or two um in either directions, So hopefully

500
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: that will actually pan out. Yeah, you know, the thing

501
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: that worries me more is not necessarily the technology, but

502
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: the logistics of actually making it happen. Yeah, that that

503
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: actually seems to me to be the biggest problem. We

504
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: didn't even talk about how they would get the cable there. Essentially,

505
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: the idea I saw was that you would launch a

506
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: rocket up that would be carrying this cable on a spool,

507
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: and at a certain altitude it would start to unspool

508
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: as it continued to go up into space. So you

509
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: would have the cable unspooling while it was still in

510
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: the Earth's atmosphere and uh, then the rocket would reach

511
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: its destination and stop, essentially um and possibly become the counterweight.

512
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: That's that's one possibility is used the whatever vehicle you

513
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 1: used to get the spool up there, use that as

514
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: the counterway to secure it in space. There have been

515
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: other suggestions that we'd use an asteroid, you know asteroid, yeah,

516
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: to to secure the cable to an asteroid and geosynchronous orbit. Uh,

517
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: and then you would use an aircraft to capture the

518
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: cable in the Earth's atmosphere and bring it back down

519
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: to whatever you were going to secure it too. Yeah,

520
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: it's kind of that's crazy. I mean, it's the whole

521
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: concept is both amazingly awesome and insane. I could Yeah,

522
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: I could do that. Yeah. So anyway, if you have

523
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: any amazing, lee awesome but insane things to say to us,

524
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: can you drop the insane part and just make it

525
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 1: amazingly awesome because the insane ones hurt my brain. But no, No,

526
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: you can write us. You can actually contact us on

527
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook or handle at both of those is

528
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: tech Stuff hs W, or you can email us that

529
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: address is tech Stuff at hell Stuff Works dot com

530
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: and Christen, I will talk to you again really soon.

531
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

532
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,

533
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner

534
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:16,000
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535
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:23,560
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