There are much bigger examples of election interference, from the media, to Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

It's amazing how many people think nanotubes are impossible yet carry workstations in their pocket. If only they knew all the materials sciences work needed to make that happen.

Actually, from my reading, the theoretical strength of carbon nanotubes is far more than what is needed for an earth-based elevator.

The reason the materials sciences advances are still in the future is because there aren't many people working on it. (You should be amazed by the materials sciences technology that goes into your cellphone.) Kennedy said that we couldn't go to the moon without inventing better alloys. Necessity is the mother of invention. Many things are hard if you don't try.

The good news about the nanotubes is that you don't need them until the launch date, after the climbers and everything else are also made.

That assumes you are capable of writing a book, and you are comfortable lying, or are extremely incompetent.

However, imagine you saw a book about how someone could get a fully-functional RC helicopter for $12. Would that be nonsense?

It is pretty amazing how many advanced and cheap technologies exist today and yet still many technical people insist carbon nanotubes are totally impossible. Meanwhile, they have workstations packed into a tiny device they carry around in their pocket.

Thanks for the steel numbers!

Of course it isn't strong enough, however, it can be helpful to have some comparable numbers when people throw around $1 trillion for costs of the space elevator and call it a "building".

Note your launch cost analysis is not useful: the entire ribbon doesn't need to be put into space. The best and cheapest way to build the elevator is with a seed string.

You'd still need rockets for humans. The space elevator is just for cargo.

NASA could have built an elevator if they had tried, but they are a political organization as much as a scientific one.

It's true that the materials don't exist, but at the same time, necessity is the mother of invention. There isn't a lot of research taking place for something which is only needed for the space elevator. Meanwhile, there's been a ton of materials science advancement since the 1960s that has put a workstation into a cellphone.

I wasn't asking you to write a research paper, I was just saying you provided no data or analysis. There is a big difference between a tunnel and a tether. In fact, they are almost opposites of each other aren't they?

You claim the cost estimate is wrong, but unfortunately you don't have any analysis supporting your comment. I suggest you read the book when you get a chance. It talks a lot about the cost, and other interesting issues.

The numbers come from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Space-E... Their research is more serious than your unsupported opinion.

Definitely these are some interesting problems that people have already written about and studied.

You obviously have done very little reading about the space elevator, AC. It's not a building, it's a tether. How much would it cost to make 50 thousand miles of 3-foot, paper-thin steel? It's not strong enough, but it gives you some idea of costs more than what you are throwing around.

The key to making it cheap is the bootstrapping mechanism that Edwards described in his book. What you do is launch into orbit just a seed string, and the first climbers will be small and actually strengthen the ribbon.

We do need strong carbon nanotube fibers. A number of groups are making them now, but they aren't good enough yet. I think companies like Intel and others could product them of the proper quality if asked and given money.

Once we have some strong fibers, we need to spin them into arbitrarily-long threads like cotton, which we've been doing for centuries.

People aren't making this stuff because there isn't a need. Necessity is the mother of invention. Did you know that we couldn't go to the moon without making better alloys? Kennedy talked about needing improvements to materials sciences in his speeches.

There are other detailed estimates for a space elevator that are around $10 billion. The people who throw around $1 trillion are trying to pick a number so big it prevents people from considering the feasibility. You definitely won't find any detailed breakdown that leads to something so insane.
Brad Edwards book covers all of the problem scenarios you laid out. He explains why it wouldn't be catastrophic if it did fall apart, and what needs to be done to prevent it. I agree we do need to make space more pristine, but we can clean things up, move the tether around, and repair it. It's all engineering work. This could have started in 1991, when carbon nanotubes were first discovered.