Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 20:26:29 -0500
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] Could Partial Space Elevators Take Us Into Space?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

I've been wondering this for years....

Excerpt:
"I think in parallel to full space elevators, partial space elevators are
definitely worth exploring more," says space engineer Stephen Cohen, a
physics professor at Vanier College in Montreal, Canada, and author of The
Engineer's Pulse blog, who wasn't involved in the new study.

Underlying the idea of a space elevator is the high cost of space rockets.
It now costs about $25,00 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) to put something into
geosynchronous orbit, where communications and television satellites
reside.

Today's materials aren't strong enough to support a huge, full space
elevator to those heights, the McGill University study argues. Instead, a
much smaller elevator looks less far-fetched.

"We could view it as the first building blocks of a [full] space
elevator," says study co-author Pamela Woo of McGill University in
Montreal, Canada. "We might start off with the partial elevator and then
maybe extend it to Earth."
--- end excerpt ---

<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140306-space-elevator-partial-orbit-science/>

Just one small detail: orbital speed at geosync I see is 1.91miles/sec.,
not the 5mi/sec for LEO. This suggests, to me, that you don't need to get
into LEO, but rather just go up to the bottom of the elevator and dock...
at well under half LEO speed. A quick calc says that's under 6700MPH,
which sounds like jet/(scramjet/rocket assist), and ought to massively
lower the cost and increase payload capacity.

         mark