ISS Will Kill You Twice
I was reading one of the free daily newspapers the other day when an entire page devoted to space exploration caught my eye. Given some of the setbacks NASA’s had to deal with over the last few years I was looking forward to some good news. All it took was the opening line about reviving an old science fiction idea for me to see the problem.
That’s right, they’re looking at building an orbital tether again.
Sigh.
I’m going to show you how bad an idea this is in such a way even my mom will understand and agree (no offense mom but science ain’t your forté).
Okay, first to explain what they’re planning. They want to build a 1-metre thick cable of carbon nanotubes from the Earth to the International Space Station. They plan to attach an elevator, so help me this is the God’s honest truth, and lift it up with lasers!
Am I the only one who sees the problem here? The way it looks to me is they’ve found a very expensive way to kill you…twice.
And here’s how…
Method 1: Vaporization
First some rudimentary electronics/physics…what happens when you run a wire through a magnetic field?
A current (i.e. electricity) begins to flow through the wire. This is the basis behind most motors and artificially created magnets.
The Earth has an enormous magnetic field and these clowns want to run an enormous wire through it. Now it seems to me and my armchair physics that this would result in an enormous current.
Now what happens when you run a current through something? Well a minor current run through an apple will make it explode. A significant current run through a person would kill them or at least stop their heart.
An enormous current?
Ever seen someone get disintegrated on Star Trek? The way I see it that much current would transfer so much energy that it would cause a phase change. If it didn’t cause the entire elevator to go from solid to gas near instantly it would at least become a liquid, what we commonly refer to as melting.
What if the wire doesn’t conduct electricity? Well I did some research and one of the reasons carbon nanotubes are getting attention these days is because they conduct rather well. I suppose you could insulate it but under the forces and pressure it would be subjected to I doubt any insulation would last very long.
If memory serves there were some experiments several years ago running a tether between two planes, I believe as part of the R&D for mid-air refueling. As I recall the tethers tended to vaporize if they were passing through more than one atmospheric layer.
Method 2: Lightning Attack
Again, let’s start with some basics. What determines the course lightning takes? The path of least resistance. Now the way I see it firing a laser through several layers of atmosphere would create a very clear path of least resistance.
Or think of it like a short circuit, the laser would create a path between several DIFFERENTIALLY CHARGED layers of atmosphere.
Since the lasers would have to be fired from the ground to cause lift (I’m not even sure how THAT would work) energy akin to, if not actually, lightning would follow the path of least resistance (i.e. the path of the laser) to the area of lowest energy (due to entropy) namely the laser emitters on the ground. The lightning would then obliterate the lasers and anything attached to them, possibly the Earth end of the tether.
If the tether base station is hit the ISS, tether, elevator, and poor passengers become space junk. Now NASA admits the orbital altitude of the ISS would need to be increased in order for the tether to be taught so it remains to be seen if the ISS’s orbit would be affected by detaching the tether so rescue in this scenario MAY be possible but I doubt NASA currently has the technology to attempt a rescue before the occupants died of hypothermia or asphyxiation.
Conclusion
So the elevator, the people inside, and possibly the ISS and ground station could be vaporized while the ground station could be subjected to intense lightning strikes on a clear day. I’d book a flight on the VSS fleet if I were eager to get into space because I don’t see this method working without a body count.
