Here's a shocking fact: NASA thinks that multi-kilometer towers would be really cool. One, they could use the heat differences in a 15-kilometer tower to drive a heat engine and make lots of "free" electricity, and two, they could use it to reduce the cost per kilogram of space launches.
You can read NASA's story at:
http://flightprojects.msfc.nasa.gov/pdf_files/usrp.pdf
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cach...pdf+multi+kilometer+tower+NASA&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
I read this and I thought, "Wow! This is great! No need for kooky, probably impossible stuff like anti-grav or cold fusion! This is the Holy Grail! We need to build this right now!"
Now there's one small catch. There's one tiny little technology in NASA's plan that is not ready for prime time.
That is automated construction.
NASA has materials that are light enough and strong enough to support a 50-kilometer-high tower. That's not the problem. The problem is that building a tower that high would probably require "automated construction." I.e. they want robots to do the actual assembly so that they don't have to put pressure-suits on union carpenters and welders. (Think about the life insurance premiums you would have to pay to work at 2 kilometers above earth's surface...)
And unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be possible any time soon. The latest robotics advances I have noticed are: one, the U.S. has great unmanned war drones, and two, the Japanese have walking robots that should prove handy in a few years when all the Japanese are in nursing homes and need exoskeletons to walk. Beyond that, I haven't noticed anything revolutionary coming out in the robotics world that looks like it could be smart enough to build a tower.
Now, if we had a robot construction machine that could build *any* tower, it could be improved to where it could build a multi-kilometer tower.
I have done some Google searches, and come up with very few documents to indicate working technologies.
http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build02/art105.html
is a link to "contour crafting," which seems inadequate to the multi-kilometer tower task.
I would *love* to be proven wrong. I would *love* to find that automated building construction is rolling out, or just around the corner. But unfortunately it looks like decades of advances will be necessary before robots can construct towers.
You can read NASA's story at:
http://flightprojects.msfc.nasa.gov/pdf_files/usrp.pdf
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cach...pdf+multi+kilometer+tower+NASA&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
I read this and I thought, "Wow! This is great! No need for kooky, probably impossible stuff like anti-grav or cold fusion! This is the Holy Grail! We need to build this right now!"
Now there's one small catch. There's one tiny little technology in NASA's plan that is not ready for prime time.
That is automated construction.
NASA has materials that are light enough and strong enough to support a 50-kilometer-high tower. That's not the problem. The problem is that building a tower that high would probably require "automated construction." I.e. they want robots to do the actual assembly so that they don't have to put pressure-suits on union carpenters and welders. (Think about the life insurance premiums you would have to pay to work at 2 kilometers above earth's surface...)
And unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be possible any time soon. The latest robotics advances I have noticed are: one, the U.S. has great unmanned war drones, and two, the Japanese have walking robots that should prove handy in a few years when all the Japanese are in nursing homes and need exoskeletons to walk. Beyond that, I haven't noticed anything revolutionary coming out in the robotics world that looks like it could be smart enough to build a tower.
Now, if we had a robot construction machine that could build *any* tower, it could be improved to where it could build a multi-kilometer tower.
I have done some Google searches, and come up with very few documents to indicate working technologies.
http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build02/art105.html
is a link to "contour crafting," which seems inadequate to the multi-kilometer tower task.
I would *love* to be proven wrong. I would *love* to find that automated building construction is rolling out, or just around the corner. But unfortunately it looks like decades of advances will be necessary before robots can construct towers.