http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/ Engadget Comments for Space elevator ride may kill humans due to ionizing radiation http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
Look like i won't be living up to the old U of I prof's expectations for higher learning this semester. Oh well.

Let somebody else figure out how to get me to the moon.

I just want to play GTA in High Def.]]>Nov 14th 2006 6:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
To keep this on-topic: so basically we'd need to be strapped into a capsule-esque lift with jets attached...which kinda ruins the point. (Unless you get a huge weight going down, I suppose!)]]>Nov 14th 2006 6:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 7:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 6:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 7:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
You're not REQUIRED to go the full distance on the elevator.]]>Sep 25th 2008 5:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
"The space elevator would run through the Van Allen belts. This is not a problem for most freight, but the amount of time a climber spends in this region would cause radiation poisoning to any unshielded human or other living things.

Some people speculate that passengers and other living things will continue to travel by high-speed rocket, while the space elevator hauls bulk cargo. Research into lightweight shielding and techniques for clearing out the belts is underway.

More conventional and faster atmospheric reentry techniques such as aerobraking might be employed on the way down to minimize radiation exposure. De-orbit burns use relatively little fuel and are cheap.

An obvious option would be for the elevator to carry shielding to protect passengers, though this would reduce its overall capacity, of course. Alternatively, the shielding itself could in some cases consist of useful payload, for example food, water, fuel or construction/maintenance materials, and no additional shielding costs are then incurred on the way up.

To shield passengers from the radiation in the Van Allen belt, perhaps counter-intuitively, material composed of light elements should be used, as opposed to lead shielding. In fact, high energy electrons in the Van Allen belts produce dangerous X-rays when they strike atoms of heavy elements. This is known as bremsstrahlung, or braking radiation. Materials containing great amounts of hydrogen, such as water or (lightweight) plastics such as polyethylene and lighter metals such as aluminum are better than heavier ones such as lead for preventing this secondary radiation. Such light-element shielding, if it were strong enough to protect against the Van Allen particle radiation, would also provide adequate protection against X-ray radiation coming from the sun during solar flares and coronal mass ejection events."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator#Van_Allen_Belts]]>Nov 14th 2006 6:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
Also, Engadget, sorry.. you've got it backwards. Slashdot is supposed to post two day old Engadget articles, not the other way around.

]]>Nov 14th 2006 6:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Space elevator also counts as a gadget?

wow, that's refreshing.]]>Nov 14th 2006 7:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 7:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 7:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
I just want to play GTA in High Def."

And this is why video games will destroy modern civilization.]]>Nov 14th 2006 7:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Sep 24th 2008 5:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 10:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
Pardon? Perhaps you meant "moving too fast to be hit by significant amounts of radiation".

Also, compared to the complexity of building a space elevator in the first place, adding a some shielding is pretty "little".]]>Nov 14th 2006 9:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
That is how you protect people from radiation. Reduce the stay time, increase your distance from thesource, or put shielding: lead for gama radiation between you and the source.

I don't think anyone can outrun a gamma, but traveling fast would reduce the stay time.

]]>Nov 14th 2006 7:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 7:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 7:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
only question i have is...where the heck is this thing going? the moon? ]]>Nov 14th 2006 8:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 8:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Sep 24th 2008 4:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
props for dumbest ending in an engadget article.

for the benefit of the redneck editor, you should know esp given the overall complexity of the project building a radiation shield for the van allen belt is only of 'little' complexity. ]]>Nov 14th 2006 8:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
"important" isn't the same thing as "complex," as it turns out. You'd think a writer for engadget might know that. I suspect he does, but wanted something snappy to close with. Alas, it turned out, as you say, just silly.

It's unfortunate too... I like space elevators and bad articles only reinforce people's bad (and wrong) opinions of them.


Also, people, just because it's called an "elevator" doesn't mean it's the same size as the one in your office building. Sheesh. You might arrive at that conclusion through mere logical analysis if you weren't too busy searching for every last scrap of information on the PS3 or Wii.]]>Nov 15th 2006 4:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 8:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 15th 2006 2:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Oct 23rd 2007 1:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
Yes, I'm being pedantic on purpose, because your "argument" invites such derision. Pushing the limits of our technological capacity is what humans do; it's why we have nice things these days like trains and cars and computers. There's nothing patently absurd about a space elevator, any more than there is with strapping a million tons of explosive fuel to your ass and lighting it.

I'm not saying it's the only game in town, and I'm certainly not of the mind that there are no problems with the idea, but your dismissiveness is just lazy.

On top of which, even if the space elevator never comes to be, big goals like this generally produce a whole lot of smaller achievements along the way, which tend to be readily adaptable to products. As a simple example, the SE folks are learning a lot about how to handle carbon nanotubes from the standpoint of fabrication, embedding them in substrate, safety issues, etc. That work is likely to produce valuable applications completely separate from the SE. I guess better flak jackets and high conductivity wires and stronger cables for building bridges and so forth are laughable too.

]]>Nov 15th 2006 5:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 8:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 11:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Space is generally defined as 100km or 100,000m not 100,000km. Remember the SpaceshipOne X-prize?

So the elevator ride would only be about 30min. Not so bad unless you die from the radiation.]]>Nov 14th 2006 10:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Sep 24th 2008 3:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
I swear if I see another "space elevator" headline.]]>Nov 14th 2006 10:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 14th 2006 11:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
Protecting people is a "little" complicated if the threat to the people is not hard to overcome.]]>Nov 16th 2006 2:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 15th 2006 12:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 15th 2006 12:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 15th 2006 2:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 15th 2006 8:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/
I am not he, but I can answer. In this case ‘no, not really’. We (speaking as a culture) have known ‘how’ to protect people against radiation for going on oh, sixty years now.

You wrap the passenger compartment with tanks of water. Water stops radiation. Water can also be re-used at the top or stored against need. ]]>Nov 15th 2006 11:30AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/14/space-elevator-ride-may-kill-humans-due-to-ionizing-radiation/Nov 15th 2006 4:34PM