Why instead of launching rockets from the ground, we don’t build a high platform above the sky and launch from there?
In: Earth Science
It’s possible, but not financially feasible. According to current estimates, even if a space elevator exists, it would move so slowly that it wouldn’t be worth it. We’re talking about several days of transit, because of the forces involved. If the elevator tried to shoot up at high speed, it would pull on the structure and possibly topple it.
There also are things to consider like storms, temperature changes, and so forth; highways are built with seams to allow them to expand and contract when the temperature changes, and those sections are just 50’ long or so. If those seams aren’t there, the roadway buckles, arches, cracks, and sometimes violently shatters. A space elevator would be up to *150 miles long*, and would expand and contract by *up to a mile* when temperatures change!
Then there’s maintenance. How do you send someone up to fix a thing 40 miles in the air? We currently send workers up 1700’ radio towers, which takes several hours and is absolutely terrifying, and pays tens of thousands of dollars to each of the 2-4 workers who climb, just to replace a light bulb every so often.
Compare all of this to our current strategy; we have rockets we can move inside when the season turns or a hurricane forms. The rockets can reach orbit in just a few minutes, and can be aborted if something goes wrong before ignition; a crew eight miles up on a space elevator traveling 3/4mph would be screwed if a storm suddenly formed underneath them.
Then there’s the fact that we don’t even have the mechanics or materials to build a space elevator, or an upper-atmosphere launch platform.
For now, this is the best we have. But in the future, the next big change they’ll have to make to allow for long-distance space travel is launch fuel reserves into orbit, so once in orbit a spacecraft could switch out an empty/partial tanks for a full one en route to Mars or Europa.
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