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Questions regarding free-fall or not.


Sundog

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I have been considering a construct I wish to use in either a game or other format, specifically a RIGID space elevator. Flexible enough to avoid cracking due to wind-shear and such, but a solid construct up to low earth orbit, with perhaps a tether to an asteroid in geostationary. The elevator is hollow - open at the top to allow railcars to simply drive into the hollow centre, but sealed and in vacuum all the way down, so cars need simply drive down or up without having to "re-enter" atmosphere at all, docking with airlocks at the base.

 

Now, I realise this means an absurdly strong material and structural design, but that isn't my problem. My question is: what would be the gravity conditions at the top? The structure is NOT in free-fall. It's top is going around the earth once every 24 hours, an absurdly slow speed for something in LEO. As I understand it, earth's gravity at LEO is not significantly less than at the earth's surface. So, would I be correct in assuming that the top of the structure would not be in microgravity, but would in fact have close to 1g standard earth gravity towards earth?

 

This is important in that it would require spacecraft to land on the structure, not merely dock with it. And people in habitats attached would be in full gravity, making long term life possible. However, it would also prevent the use of microgravity construction or manufacturing  - these would need to be done in free-fall habitats and moved to the structure for transshipment.

 

Or am I completely off here?

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  • 3 weeks later...

In order to work according to physics as we know it, the 'top' of the elevator would have to well past LEO.

 

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

 

You wouldn't achieve zero (micro) gravity until you reach the geostationary line in the figure at the link. Perceived gravity would decrease (more or less linearly) as you go up. So gravity at LEO would not be all that much lower than on the surface.

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