Random thoughts from Twid with request for review

[Nephew Twiddleton]

So, I'm going to put random ideas that I have in this thread for further consideration. Please weigh in as you see fit.

So the first idea I had was a version of a space elevator. As I understand it, having the counterweight would make the elevator incredibly long. But what if we had a stationary atmospheric surface platform instead? The space elevator in this case wouldn't have a counterweight in the traditional sense but rather a sort of truck stop consisting of a really large blimp that goes to the edge of appreciable atmosphere. From there a shuttle of some sort or another would use standard rocket technology to go the rest of the way. This would have the benefit of cutting down on the fuel requirements to escape Earth, and reduce any impact that rocket fuel exhaust would have on the atmosphere itself.  Or perhaps we could go even further and have stations further up in Low Earth Orbit reaching down to the atmospheric platform to function as a different elevator? Ultimately the idea here is to reduce the energy cost of leaving Earth. Obviously leaving the Moon would be much easier, and maybe the Moon at that point could function as another stopping off point or even a shipyard.

[Forsooth]

 I'm not an engineer, mor are interested in anything more than conjecture here.

seems to me like a non-surface base to a space elevator would need a form of propulsion to maintain the altitude/position of it, and i feel like solar panels and electric propellors wouldn't be sufficient to do that; so fuel would be an issue

no idea if that would be less fuel than an orbital or escape velocity burn

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm not an engineer, mor are interested in anything more than conjecture here.

seems to me like a non-surface base to a space elevator would need a form of propulsion to maintain the altitude/position of it, and i feel like solar panels and electric propellors wouldn't be sufficient to do that; so fuel would be an issue

no idea if that would be less fuel than an orbital or escape velocity burn

It would be a large balloon. It would float. Think of a really huge blimp that functioned as the top of the elevator.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

To use the ocean as an analogy, it would be a ship with a dumbwaiter to the bottom of the ocean.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Also, this will be largely, I think, based on getting humanity out into space. I'm doing biology, but my love has always been astronomy and such. I would like to apply whatever I can come up with to making humanity a multiworld (even if within system) species. I would like to, if I can as a career goal, focus my biology on space exploration.

The space elevator thing came out of how to get shit off of Earth. Shit includes livestock.

Ideally, perhaps, if you have x need for cows on Mars, what sort of machine can I come up with so that we can fertilize multiple cattle zygotes, freeze them, and then gestate them mechanically on a different world?

More importantly, where the fuck are we going to get all the nitrogen we need? Oxygen is easy through proper chemical responses, especially since Earth's atmosphere was a CO2 Nitrogen  mix and is now an Oxygen Nitrogen mix. Nitrogen? Heh. You know where you find a shitload of nitrogen? Earth, and Titan.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Ok, better way to put the balloon- It is filled with hydrogen (yeah, I know, I know, but that high up there's nothing for it to explode with since there's very little oxygen and hydrogen is readily available through electrolysis of water (byproduct, oxygen!) , unlike helium which is an increasingly rare noble gas and hydrogen is lighter anyway. The platform would float on the atmosphere, but be tethered to a position on the terrestrial surface where the atmosphere is thickest on average. The platform would be unmanned for failsafe.

Shielding of some sort would probably be necessary for long term use due to microparticle damage. It's the beginning of an idea.

[Telarus]

If I were smuggling cows into space, that's totally the way I would do it.

Interesting stuff. One of the best space-elevator ideas I've run into is the mag-lev (basically a large rail gun and magnetic brake). This way, you keep the power needs to either end of the bridge/tether.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

If I were smuggling cows into space, that's totally the way I would do it.

Interesting stuff. One of the best space-elevator ideas I've run into is the mag-lev (basically a large rail gun and magnetic brake). This way, you keep the power needs to either end of the bridge/tether.

Well, I think smuggling would be fairly infeasible at first, but you can in fact get anyone on the take. The purpose is to create an Earthlike environment elsewhere with minimal cost and impact to Earth itself.

That means at first, basic human/plant ecosystem, but we have to make those ecosystems more diverse in short periods.e

[Nephew Twiddleton]

But back to the cows- You need a herd of cows on Mars pretty quickly.

Ship the zygotes over, put them into the Breed-o-matic 5000s and then when they are ripe and birthed, you then have breeding stock. Feed them on dehydrated milk until they can be bred, and then, well, do like they do here on Earth, I guess.

[hirley0]

20131026
While watching A Mushroom cloud form ||
i could not help wonder about the focus of the stem
straight UP | no spreading for ten's of thousands of feet
- -
My guess is the problem is focus || never mind
=
BAC2mth | my guess is its  $ PROBLEM
TO MAKE $$$ they needed a secreT
to B kept in matlab the word they used to describe it is built in
?
words at this time seam meaning;ess | < | meaning expansion More & More
v > contraction Less & Less Maybe inductive v deductive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Induction.html

better than 50% chance COLOR=rong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning
http://sociology.about.com/od/Research/a/Deductive-Reasoning-Versus-Inductive-Reasoning.htm

[Nephew Twiddleton]

20131026
While watching A Mushroom cloud form ||
i could not help wonder about the focus of the stem
straight UP | no spreading for ten's of thousands of feet
- -
My guess is the problem is focus || never mind
=
BAC2mth | my guess is its  $ PROBLEM
TO MAKE $$$ they needed a secreT
to B kept in matlab the word they used to describe it is built in
?
words at this time seam meaning;ess | < | meaning expansion More & More
v > contraction Less & Less Maybe inductive v deductive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Induction.html

better than 50% chance COLOR=rong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning
http://sociology.about.com/od/Research/a/Deductive-Reasoning-Versus-Inductive-Reasoning.htm

Mushroom clouds are pretty interesting. They occur naturally with volcanoes too. And if you detonate a nuke in space it just spreads out as a sphere, which while something that seems like it should be obvious still makes you stop and go, whoa, really? when you first hear it.