How high is it currentley possible to build? Could a Super Tower into Space ever be achieved?

Question

If money and politics were no object...
How wide would it have to be?
How long would it take to build?
How much would it cost?
What would be the dangers or advantages of such a massive superstructure?

Answer 1

Yes, a space tower is theoretically possible. The most difficult thing technically is creating enough carbon nanotube to carry the loads. Carbon nanotubes are the only material with cohesive strength high enough to resist snapping under the strain of holding its own weight along a 50,000 kilometer strand, to an asteroid counterweight just outside of geostationary orbit.

The usefulness of a space elevator is that it makes rockets needless. Once it's there, you only need to get into an express elevator that takes you all the way up to the asteroid counterweight, where you can transfer from the elevator car to a spaceship that's about to leave for Mars, or wherever. The space elevator saves lots of rocket fuel that would otherwise been needed to lift stuff into Earth orbit.

The cost would be huge, especially if it were done by today's greedy aerospace corporations. Such pigs they are. And they'd stretch the project out as much as possible, to wring even more money out of Congress.

The "cancer foundations" never find a cure for cancer because, if they did, their gravy train would stop running. For the same reason, profit-seeking corporations would never initiate a space elevator project if they had to pay the overhead themselves. And, if they can get the taxpayer to pay the overhead for them, they'll begin the work briskly, with upbeat attitude, but as soon as it becomes clear that the project will actually work and Congress has sank a hundred billion dollars into it already, the work will bog down. Problems will arise. Problems that need more money to hire the right specialists and experts. Every day the corporations will be at Congress for more money, more money... and they'll get it because Congressmen would otherwise get blamed for wasting those billions of tax dollars that had already been spent.

Personally, I'd solve that problem by taking 10% of the aerospace corporate executives to the side of a deep trench, shooting them dead so their bodies fall into it, and use bulldozers to cover up the mass grave. And if the corporations tried any more budgetary sneakery, another 10% of their executives would get the same treatment. Until they got the message: don't play games, just get the job done.

One danger of the space elevator is it can fall, wrapping itself around the planet and spreading much destruction in a band around the equator. Like atomic bombs falling every mile or so, all the way around the planet twice. And you'd have to make sure that those sneaky, greedy corporate executives don't attempt to sabotage the space elevator so that they can make it fall when they want to.

You can't separate a project like that from politics.

Answer 2

There are some principles to get straight before talking about how tall to build...

1)It is likely intuitive that the taller something is, the more of a base it needs. A pyramid is more stable than a box tower, but a box tower can be stable enough if it is not too tall.

2) A building or tower is built for purpose, not to just be too tall. The available space is the measure of usefulness.

To these points, a 100 story building is built to be tall and wide enough to be useful, but sturdy enough to stand.

I suppose it is possible to build 200 or 300 stories, but the base to support it would be so wide that the usefullness of the space is more than we could use, so nobody would pay for it. WHy build so high and put so many people into it?

To build higher would be pointless.

Answer 3

A person who tells you something is impossible, are like people 150 years ago who said it was impossible for anyone to fly. An aircraft was a brain child of a man with vision, who didnt think anything was impossible. It is very hard to say whether something is impossible because technologies are improving every day. Hell, a man going into space was an impossibility at one point in time. A car that goes 150 miles an hour was an absolutely impossibility too. It takes people with visions to create things that others think are impossible. This has been the case all through history, and with one vision, comes more visions and more hope that anything is possible. At this present moment in time the answer would have to be no, but in years to come, probably the answer is a yes. Technologies havent reached the point of building a tower into space, but I am sure they are working on it.

Answer 4

Firstly all other answers are good but they all miss one important detail if you want to build a tower into space, lets just say that money, politics and materials are available for such an project of this scale. The thing that all the other answers miss is that they don't mention the atmosphere, look what happens when a space shuttle comes back to Earth it reaches incredible temperatures on its reentry to Earth so having a tower that went high enough to go into space you would need a differant heat risistant and cold reistant material to overcome this problem. I hope that this helps answer your question

Answer 5

There was a theory that a certain amount of massive posts could be built at strategic points round the equator that would allow a massive ring to be erected around earth, which would alleviate the symptoms of arthritis and other such ailments to allow the elderly and others with similar illnesses to live longer, whether it's true or not I don't know but it's a great idea.

Answer 6

The problem is that as it gets taller it - obviously - get heavier and the lower part has to get stronger and stronger and so on. So with modern materials I do not think it would be possible. Remember Everest is as tall as mountain can be because the pressure on the underlying rocks melts them.
How about attaching a length of string to a geostationary satellite? But just work out the weight of that one!
RoyS

Answer 7

even thought building a tower so tall would be possible in the future it would make little sense to building so much space. one might argue that if the population of the earth increase so much that such buildings would needed, but actually it would be far more logical to build space suburbs and moon citys, possibly in the craters of the moon.
carbon nanotubes are increbibly strong. i am in a nanotechnolgy program at Uc davis and its theoretical strength is enourmous. it is suprising how carbon can be so weak in pencils , but so strong if its molecule stucture is different.

Answer 8

To answer your first question, it is possible to engineer any height of building in theory providing the base of the structure is large enough.

The main limit to height of building is the limits on manufacturing lift rope. For example it is possible in a 200 floor building to have on lift run 100 floors and any other lift run the next 100 floors, it is inefficient, presents huge fire escape risks and very costly

Answer 9

I am almost certain,ask my MRS if i'm ever wrong! Twould bee cherwelve bye free uninintentional references diviided by the most inane answer equals the most perfect picture of yourself pretending you werent there

Answer 10

Towers can only go so high before it collapses under its own weight.