Space elevator breakup

[STEVEDIGIBOYtv]

The CN tower has a higher elevator LOL! wind seems to be blowing it around not harmonics.

[mistaspot1]

stop being obscure

[Ancho1987jaja]

wow.. that vid is lame

[ericpid]

thanks for the input chief

[pdoeman]

I still think somekind of hand-crack is in order.

[Unfathomable42]

a nano hand crank would do it, if they are saying the tube will be carbon nano tubes, hundreds of tiny hands...

[gibletparade]

A nano bike? I love the idea of being able to cycle into geostationary orbit. Would soon get out of breath though.

Seriously though, why not put a pulley on the counterweight, loop the tether through that. Once it's up, join two ends here on earth, and just pull down on one end to make the other go up. What do I win?

[Unfathomable42]

a pat on the back and a picnic in geostationary orbit?

[DrakeMagnum]

That pesky wind is a foe to be dealt with. I suppose that is something we'll have to overcome if the space elevator will ever work.

[tricky778]

This video is really interesting because it shows that the position of the load will cause harmonics. Perhaps some active dynamic cancelling at the ends could be deployed (as the ribbon starts oscillating, disturb it).

[DrakeMagnum]

That sounds like a good idea.  Wouldn't that put even more strain on the ribbon though?

[tricky778]

Not necessarily. If you can cause the parts away from the anti-nodes to move more and the anti-nodes to move a bit less, no one point gets vast strain. The key to breakage is that one point gets more than the breaking strain - move the energy elsewhere and that's less likely to happen.