Someone over at Free Republic (see comment #11) had an amusing comment on the space elevator concept, which brings up a serious issue:

So this elevator "would crawl up a single cable into space over several days." How would people be able to not start up conversations for that long? Would they be allowed to make eye contact or would they have to look up at the ceiling? What if there's a pretty girl on the elevator? And would they pipe in Muzak? These are the things that would have to be worked out.

For this reason, and perhaps safety reasons, even if elevators are built, they may be used primarily for bulk cargo, rather than passengers. Given my acrophobia, I know that I personally wouldn't want to ride one--I don't even like elevators in medium-size buildings, and you couldn't get me into a glass one of more than a story or two on a bet.

I still suspect that there will be a market for reliable space transports to get people quickly to and from LEO. From there, cheap propellants made possible by use of extraterrestrial resources (and perhaps the elevator for more sophisticated equipment) will open up the other "half of the way to anywhere."

If people don't go into space on the elevator, how do they go into space? LEO operations will be severely restricted once a space elevator is in place, to avoid debris damage.

They'd better come up with debris-mitigation schemes, along with redundancy in the cables. They'll also have to make sure that orbits are continuously adjusted properly to avoid collisions. I think that if we have to make a choice between LEO and elevators, at least for the near term, the elevator will have to wait.

They already have to do that. It ain't just debris, there are several hundred satellites below GEO that cross the equator twice each orbit.

That's why the base station is built into a floating platform, not an island. It'll probably be in constant motion on an optimized course plotted days in advance, with sensors in places like Australia, Japan, and the US to detect anything inbound that hasn't been mapped yet.

Fortunately, space is relatively big compared to a ribbon. However, that doesn't mean that risk-reduction measures shouldn't be taken, and the designers got out in front of that one.

The debris issue isn't just an elevator problem, though; folks have worried for years about spent upper stages and debris crashing into satellites and space stations, and I would hope to expect future launchers to find some way to avoid littering.

Note that one nice thing about the elevator is that GEO is a parking lot--everybody just sits there at roughly the same velocity. Great place to build a mall.

I suspect pleasant accomodations can easily be built. I recently spent ten days on a 35' dive boat with 28 other people and even taking into account the diving and the open air, it was not a problem, even for the two days each we were underway on the way there and back. An elevator capsule with private cabins, observation decks, a bar, etc, etc...I just don't see the problem.
Those who want to spend 100 to 1000x as much to ride a rocket can do so, I suppose. Sort of like JetBlue vs the Concorde.

I agree with Toren on this. If these things are built for cargo, I would think you could make some pretty decent accommodations.

In fact, John Varley's The Golden Globe has a pretty good description of an "elevator" on a rotating artificial structure that fits the bill pretty neatly, replete with gamblin' facilities, movie theaters and the like. Once you start building on that scale, what counts as "big" anyways? :)

(Side note: Heh, MT wouldn't let me post with the correct name for "gamblin' facilities, go figure. :))

Leave the craps tables in the space station at GEO. You've only got 13 tons to work with, and that needs to include as much cargo as possible while still providing sufficiently luxurious quarters.

Think PC-based video poker. :P

Come to think of it, I don't think that I've seen any artists impressions of SE-lifted stations. I assume some dreamers have at least *started* thinking about what's possible with that kind of lift, cost, and launch rate.

When I was a freshman at UNC-Charlotte, I lived on the 11th floor of my dormitory. One night, traveling up to my floor in a fairly full elevator, a fellow drinking one of those oil-can Fosters ("Australian for beer") finished his beer, burped, pulled the elevator doors open to stop the elevator, and hauled out a huge model of those illegal cigarettes that used to be popular back then. No one objected and the elevator stayed put until the madness was complete.

I expect we'll need some tighter controls on the new elevators.

What about flatulence? Did you address THAT threat to the elevator, Dr. Edwards? :)

On the issue of restrictions on LEO rocket flight once the elevators go up: SSTOs do not produce debris (unless they blow up, I suppose), and supporting that, if you have the materials technology for space elevator ribbon, you can sure as hell build structure from it and make rockets more than light enough to operate SSTO. Not to mention skis, tennis racquets, airplane parts, bicycle helmets, etc. Tongue only slightly in cheek.

Some future Burt Rutan (or maybe Burt himself) is going to craft a homebuilt SSTO from elevator nanostuff and the FAA will have to invent a new regulatory regime.

I'm opposed to the space elevator concept on the ground that an elevator to space will be a monopolized transportation system. Rather than opening space to the general public it will likely put even more control over access to space in the hands of government and government-favored monopolies. The alt-space movement offers the best hope for cheap access to space available to the general public. You can read my views here if you care:
http://talesoftheheliosphere.blogspot.com/2005/02/space-elevators-of-20th-century.html

tdr, you just stated a fear as a fact. Railways are (were, at least) built with big capital and in cooperation with state aims. But they didn't shut down, for the instance, access to the American West--they multiplied it, because the guys with the money saw they could make more money by making cheap tickets and shipping rates available to anyone who could pay for them.

I see the elevator as _part_ of alt.space. Neither NASA nor any other government agency has committed to building an elevator, while Edwards and others are pursuing the idea privately. It may take big money, but that does not automatically imply monopolistic control.

Even a monopoly SE would also have a strong anti-monopolistic effect, just because it would allow large numbers of people to move into space.

Imagie that the Transcontinental Railroad had been a government monolpoly, it still would have greatly reduced the difficulty and expense of moving to the West, and so would have greatly increased human freedom and variety. And the increase in Western population would have justified the development of other competing rail lines, and other transportation routes like the Panama Canal.

Also the whole idea of monopolies is falling out of favor, and probably any SE would soon be run in an open way, with transport freely available to anyone who can pay. Actually, space is much like that already; if you have 50 million bucks to push onto the table, someone will be happy to launch your satellite...

It's not fear I stated as a fact it was a belief. But whatever.

Anyway, multiple factors compel me to conclude that a space elevator will be owned and operated by a government enterprise or a government authorized corp or authority. First, the cost is going to be large. Second, there's not likely to be multiple elevators because of the risk posed to other elevators if one falls (see Blaise Gassang's webpage) and b/c of the cost. Liftport proposes building more than one but they also plan on controlling all of them. Third, the elevator has to be at or near the equator which means it'll either be in the ocean or in a foreign country. If in a foreign country it runs the risk of political takeover like the Suez Canal and even Panama. That risk is reduced if the anchor is in the ocean but I seriously doubt that any private company or consortium will be permitted to build their own elevator in international waters without government involvement.

In any event, the elevator won't be entirely in US territory the way the railroads were so that is one flaw with the American railroad analogy. Another flaw is that railroads allow for multiple stops along their routes and they allowed settlement to build up along their path. A space elevator isn't like that. A space elevator gets you from the ground to orbit.

The better analogy to the space elevator is not the transcontinental railroad but the oceanic canals, like Panama and Suez. Both were major engineering ventures outside the territory of the country that built it and both reverted to the control of the country where it was located. Both are government owned and operated.

The bottom line with a space elevator is that access to space on the elevator will be controlled by the owner. That owner is likely to be a government or a government favored monopoly. Sure, the operator will have an economic incentive to make the elevator profitable but if a government is in charge there's a risk of political decisions affecting who can use it. If you look at Suez for instance Egypt has made political decisions about who can use the canal. Ask Israel about that.

Anyway, I don't think anything about the SE concept can be considered alt.space. It's too big, it's too centralized, and it's too expensive. Better a bunch of rocket companies launching from a bunch of different spaceports than a space elevator funneling everybody to space from one location.