Welcome to a new feature on Puntabulous called Teach Me Something Tuesdays! The tagline for my blog is “Good. Dorky. Fun”, but the other day I realized that I don’t really do enough to earn my dorky title. Yes, I talk about dorky things, but that’s easy. I don’t really go out of my way to bring you truly dorky entertainment. So the purpose of this feature is to exchange knowledge with my readers. I’ll do my best to teach you something in the science, history, or cultural fields that you may or may not know, and try to do so in a slightly amusing fashion. Then in the comments section, I will ask you to teach me something I don’t know. Just a quick blurb or fact that you find interesting. Let’s take a ride on the knowledge exchange train, shall we?
THE SPACE ELEVATOR
So did you guys know they want to build an elevator into Space? Now I know what you’re thinking: “What kind of music do they play in an elevator into Space?” I’m not positive, but I think it would be the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey, because how awesomely appropriate would that be? Like, so awesomely appropriate! But the song is only a minute and forty-three seconds long. And seeing as though the average time it would take the Space Elevator to move from Earth to Earth’s orbit is estimated to be around 18 hours, you’d have to listen to the song 617.14 times, which sounds shoot-me-in-the-head-fantastic. I mean, I suppose they could add more songs, but do you really think musical selection should be a priority? Can’t you, like, read a book instead? I kid, I kid. Listening to music is so much cooler than reading.
Moving on.
So what’s so good about having a Skyhook? (That’s another name for Space Elevator, which I think is a cooler name for it, but I wanted to ease you into whole Space Elevator idea, so I thought a more descriptive name would work better at first.) A Skyhook is an excellent idea because once it’s complete, it will be able to transport people and cargo into Earth’s orbit at a fraction of the cost of the conventional rocket propulsion. Think about it. How much does it cost to install a normal elevator in an average building? Fuck if I know! Now how much does it cost to maintain a normal elevator in an average building? Fuck if I know! But I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot cheaper. The same principal would apply to the Skyhook. You know how much rocket fuel you would save if you could launch rockets already in orbit rather than having to boost them up from the ground? Fuck if… wait, is that joke getting old?
Anyway.
The base station of these Skyhooks could either be mobile or stationary. Mobile base stations would be large oceanic (not to be confused with Oceanic Flight 815) vessels, which would help make the Skyhook more maneuverable, while the stationary base stations would be placed at the tops of mountains, which is beneficial because it would greatly decrease the amount of cable you would need to reach Earth’s orbit. So they both have their benefits. Kinda like flossing. If you do floss, you save your teeth. If you don’t floss, you don’t have deal with flossing, which is a major pain in the ass.
So what’s the hold-up?
In a word: Cable. Scientists are too busy watching Battlestar Galactica to work on making the damn thing. Wait, no, not that cable, the cable that connects the the base station with the orbital satellite. The cable required would have to have a large tensile strength to density ratio, meaning it needs to be really strong and really light. Like a feather, only stronger. Or like steel beam, only lighter. The most likely candidate for the Skyhook cable would be made of carbon (you know, that stuff diamonds are made out of) nanotubes, however further research (and more importantly money) is required to create a cable long enough that can manage to maintain it’s high tensile strength to density ratio.
Another issue that needs to be resolved is the design of the Skyhook elevators themselves. Unlike normal elevators with rotating cables, the Skyhook would have a stationary cable with a climbing elevator that would need to power itself up the cable, rather than being pulled up. Powering the elevators is another problem that hasn’t been resolved yet, and thinking about it hurts my brain so let’s move on.
The BIG Picture
Let’s face it, we’re going to run out of room on this little world called Earth. So eventually we’re gonna have to set up colonies on the Moon and Mars, and perhaps even beyond. That isn’t an assumption, that’s fact. The human population doubles every 50 years. Where are we going to put all these people? Unless you have a better solution, going to the Moon and Mars is the answer. The only way we can do this is to have a permanent, stable mechanism to get people and things into Space. So let’s make it happen, okay?
Now tell me something I don’t know.
The phrase “round the bend” refers to the fact that in history Insane Asylums used to be always hidden out of view from the main road, so “normal” people didn’t have to concern themselves with the poor unfortunate inmates. This usually involve a heavily wooded drive with a curve in it. Hence to go round the bend.
Going with the space theme:
“Happy Birthday” was the first song to be performed in outer space, sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on March 8, 1969.
Giant space elevators on ocean vessels….all I can picture is someone steering the boat a little too fast and then going, “Whoa…WHOA…OH NO!!!!” as the whole thing comes tumbling down. Wouldn’t they want that bottom end secured to something a little more stable?
Fun fact: if you divided all the legos in the world among all the people in the world, each person would get about 30 pieces.
I got nothing on space, but I’ve read that highway signs are green and white because it is the easiest color to recognize at night.
In my fair city of Columbus, Ohio, it’s officially illegal to sell corn flakes on Sunday.
Dogs can, indeed, look up.
I want to be the first person to claim the name to this space elevator as the Stairway to Heaven!
Beer Fact of the Day:
In St. Louis, Missouri, it is illegal to sit on a street curb and drink beer from a bucket.
Love all the facts so far!
I’m just not sure if I believe the corn flakes one though!
It’s true! Also true in Columbus: It’s illegal to allow your dog to pee on a parking meter.
I see “Happy Birthday” was mentioned earlier…
Did you know that “Happy Birthday” is technically a copyrighted song which is why you never hear it sung in public by restaurant employees? The restaurant could be sued for singing it without first gaining permission from the copyright holders.
In my college town of Boone, North Carolina, there are no sorority houses because in this town it’s considered a brothel to have more than five unrelated females living together.
I thought your space elevator was an April Fools joke, but it’s on Wikipedia so it must be true. Here’s your “fun fact”: Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown received his nickname as a result of a farming accident that mangled his hand. However, the new configuration turned him into a dangerous pitcher. He played for the Cubs in the early part of the last century.
Reindeer like to eat bananas.
Have you read Jack McDevitt? Engines of God is my favorite, but Deepsix is the book that uses the skyhook idea.
Useless fact of the day: The machines they use for the dramatic science lab scenes in CSI are real and fully functional.
A space elevator was featured in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Rise” first aired February 26, 1997
The Soviet engineer Yuri Artsutanov proposed a cosmic funicular in 1960, adding the notion of geostationary satellites to an older Russian proposal.
UK physicist and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke presented the idea to English readers in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Paradise.
Space elevators play a big part in Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1993–1996 Mars trilogy.
Space elevators also played a big role in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 3001: The Final Odyssey.
The largest penis in the animal kingdom belongs to the Blue Whale at 11 feet long.
If Jere’s going there, then I’m going here: Masturbation is illegal in the state of Nevada.
Congratulations on living up your tagline. Of course with all the talk of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, I was thinking you were living up to “Dorky,” but you’ve shown me that I was wrong, and that there is still plenty of dorky that the world has yet to see.
And by the way, Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
Finnish and Hungarian are completely unrelated to any of the other languages of Europe, Mess o’potamia, or the Indian subcontinent. They form their own language group called Finno-Ugric which exhibits almost no commonalities with the ancestor language referred to as Indo-European from which the others are derived.
Well, Jere and Dave S., I would imagine that a Blue Whale masturbating in Nevada would be a felony and quite a sight to see.
also: The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off
The Grateful Dead once did an 18 hour jam version of Aslo Sprach Zarathrustra (the 2001 theme), so that might work for the muzak.
Oh, and if the cable broke, would the elevator burn up on reentry?
>Oh, and if the cable broke, would the elevator burn up on reentry?
Hi-larious. I actually laughed out loud on that one.
The word “deer” comes from the Old English word “deor” which actually referred to wild animals in general, not just Bambi.
Barnacles are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world, like Portugal, where my boys and I ate them.
The part you eat is called the peduncle. A peduncle is “a flexible, contractile stalk that attaches the barnacle to floating objects.” The peduncle contains muscles and ovaries.
If you can’t get to Portugal, no worries. You can approximate the taste and texture by soaking a rubberband in salt water for about a week and then eating it.
Bon appetit!
Back in the early 80′s, there was an issue of the Legion Of Superheroes that dealt with some of them getting trapped on the “space elevator” that traveled between the earth and the moon.
Yeah, even as a early teenager myself, the physics of having an elevator between the earth and the moon just ruined the story for me.
And really, what kind of super heroes get stuck on an elevator anyway?
*I was gonna use teh Voyager episode, but someone beat my to that!*
HUGS…
Interesting fact # 2:
If I still lived in Nevada and was reading this site yesterday, I probably would have been arrested after seeing that picture of Dave S’s abs yesterday.
If you write about someone getting their “just deserts,” and some know-it-all comes along and says you spelled it wrong because it should be “just desserts” (like dessert after a meal), that know-it-all doesn’t, in fact, know it all.
“Just deserts” is the correct spelling.
cf. http://www.snopes.com/language/notthink/deserts.asp
I’m less of a dork, more of a language nerd. We’re our own kind of dorks, I guess.
“the whole nine yards” is attributed to unloading an entire machine gun belt which is 27 feet long.
I’ve also heard it as a refernce to concrete. Apparently at some point the typical load for a cement mixer was 8 yards, but it held 9, hence the saying “give me the whole nine yards”.
In 1959, Walt Disney owned the largest atomic submarine fleet in the world.
I remember reading about the space elevator a while back.
“A man, a plan, a canal, Panama” is one of my favorite palindromes. Another, “Able was I ere I saw Elba,” is attributed to Napoleon.