[FT] [GZG] Beanstalks

Tom spake, and it was good...

>Noah spake thusly upon matters weighty:

>> And if you've got solid state antigrav, you don't need a silly old
>> beanstalk.

>Depends. Since beanstalk uses vaccum (no air resistance) and a
>counterbalance system (outgoing shipment balanced with incoming), its
>energy inputs are minimal. Might still be cheaper to operate.

>> Anyway, a beanstalk just screams 'Bomb Me To Make A Political Point'.

 I'm
>> all for disposable/recyclable BDBs (Big Dumb Boosters).  The Saturn V

could
>> put 50 tonnes (metric) on Luna - think how much it could put into
LEO...

>Sure, so does the Eiffel Tower, The Sphinx, any Naval Base, etc. etc.
>Assume the ground point would be gaurded well (and probably real hard
>to knock out unless you had a design engineer handy. It probably has
>a safety  zone a mile or two wide around it. And probably within 50km
>is restricted airspace.

True.  Wouldn't the beast have to be made out of some really tough 
supermaterial, just to stand the stresses that would be put upon it?
"All right, my revolutionary brothers, we now show the Great Powers the 
errors of their ways!  Down with the Beanstalk!"
<detonator>click
<explosive>BOOM
/pause
/sirens in the distance, approaching
"OK, so it's not falling.  You got a better idea?"

>>From what I've seen of recent history with both US and foreign
>rockets (too many satellites go boom), I'm not sure that is the
>answer unless there is a quantitatively measurable leap forward in
>success rates.

Which we could do if we, ahem, HAD MORE MONEY!	Sorry, carving up the
space 
budget is a pet peeve of mine.	I can't help but think that the Ariane 5

blowup could have been prevented if they'd had more manpower & time
(read: 
money) to triple-check all of the software.  And let's not start on the 
Challenger screw-up.

Here's another neat thought:  If you're using 1000km/MU in FT, or even 
10,000km/MU, then a beanstalk will be represented on-table, attached to
a 
planet.  Maybe some heavy wire or a thin rod, with a station out at 
geosync, and the tethered asteroid on the end.	That would look pretty 
cool...

Noah