Author Topic: Space elevator corkscrew at geostationary polar orbit  (Read 6671 times)

Offline PeterAlt

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I'm starting this acknowledging that this may be my most hair brain idea yet. I've spent less than a minute thinking about this before posting. That said, here I go...


Could a space elevator, anchored at geosynchronous polar orbit and shaped as a cork screw, at an exact polar location harness the earth's rotation in order to cause an upward spin?


Again, I've put no thought into this. Can the Earth's rotation be of any use at the poles to power payloads to orbit, either by my hair brain corkscrew concept or via something more conventional?

Offline mheney

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Re: Space elevator corkscrew at geostationary polar orbit
« Reply #1 on: 02/07/2014 08:20 pm »
There is no such thing as a "geosynchronous polar orbit."  you can have a 24 hour polar orbit - but that visits each pole, one pole per 12 hours.

Offline kch

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Re: Space elevator corkscrew at geostationary polar orbit
« Reply #2 on: 02/07/2014 08:22 pm »
I'm *sure* I've heard something similar to this before -- but where?  Hmmm ... oh, yes:



 ;)

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Space elevator corkscrew at geostationary polar orbit
« Reply #3 on: 02/07/2014 08:24 pm »
GEO is not the anchor point of a space elevator.  GEO is about 1/3 of the way up.  Space elevators also live in equatorial orbits - they are powered/kept up by the Earth's rotation.

Offline Joffan

A geosynchronous polar orbit is not geostationary. The ground track of such a satellite, as far as I can figure it out, is a bit like a figure 8 on one hemisphere of the Earth, touching the two poles at the extremes. Of course this track repeats every day, but there is no way of creating an elevator of any shape.

The adjective you were looking for is "hare-brained" ;)

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Offline Avron

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Re: Space elevator corkscrew at geostationary polar orbit
« Reply #5 on: 02/07/2014 09:44 pm »
A geosynchronous polar orbit is not geostationary. The ground track of such a satellite, as far as I can figure it out, is a bit like a figure 8 on one hemisphere of the Earth, touching the two poles at the extremes. Of course this track repeats every day, but there is no way of creating an elevator of any shape.

The adjective you were looking for is "hare-brained" ;)



its all about perspective, its an approximate geosynchronous orbit.. if viewed from Mars.. humm why not corkscrew from Mars. 

Offline Hauerg

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Re: Space elevator corkscrew at geostationary polar orbit
« Reply #6 on: 02/07/2014 09:57 pm »
...

Again, I've put no thought into this.
...

It would be polite to think about it a minute or 2 , and then post.

Offline cordwainer

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Re: Space elevator corkscrew at geostationary polar orbit
« Reply #7 on: 02/08/2014 01:10 am »
All geostationary orbits are not truly "stationary" but do travel a figure-eight. Traveling pole-to-pole or wobbling around the pole itself would make for a very large figure eight pattern and require a lot of station-keeping hardware to keep your space elevator stable. Also you would have to make your elevator hour glass shaped to keep the top and bottom of your elevator from wobbling uncontrollably. Typically space elevators have an anchor point near their top to provide sufficient inertial forces as they spin about the earth to "lift" their tail end as essentially payload into a sort of stable orbit.(Like a weight at the end of a string being spun around) A polar orbit would put more strain on your elevator and cause the top of a typical space elevator to wobble, hence the need for nearly equivalent anchor points at either end. You would be better off building a "corkscrew" elevator at an equatorial orbit where precession forces are felt less. You would also probably want your corkscrew to be shaped a bit like a spinning top.(sort of like a wire wisk beater with the pointy end at the bottom of the gravity well) Also, making the elevators tether into a ribbon shape rather than string shape would create more surface area to impart centrifugal forces from Earth's "frame-dragging" effect.

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