has NASA gone crazy with the tether elevator???

[phat tony]

dmahon 300m3 payload would be wrong, the space shuttle discovery was 56.1m long x 8.7m diameter and that is the total size, the cargo area would be a lot smaller, to carry a payload of 300m3 they would need a super ship that would be about 1km long by 200m in diameter and the amount of fuel would be so massive. thank you for your help with the math i am so grateful. allow that they could carry 50m3 per load and 1 load per week that works out at almost 24 years just delivering the material to space. i think they are looking at the whole thing wrong.

[Zakalwe]

dmahon 300m3 payload would be wrong, the space shuttle discovery was 56.1m long x 8.7m diameter and that is the total size, the cargo area would be a lot smaller, to carry a payload of 300m3 they would need a super ship that would be about 1km long by 200m in diameter

How do you work that out? The payload bay was 4.8m x 18m, giving a volume of 325 cubic metres (rough calculation assuming the payload bay was a cylinder) and could carry about 24000Kg to LEO.

<edit> I've just checked....the payload was 4.6 x 18m, giving it 299 cubic metres. Serves me right for going from memory!

[phat tony]

Zakalwe first things first, i love your avatar its mad looking. my kids are afraid of him. hahah its a great way to keep them from my computer. second thank you for putting me right, i was so wrong with all my figures with this whole topic and i should be embarrassed but im not, i am far from a brain buster, i have posted a new thread based around the tether because i see a new problem. safety. 62,000m3 @300 per launch would mean almost 4 years if they launched 1 per week. they plan to use a large craft to lift i mini tether to the height and have it then followed by more and more craft, up to 7 all together and then use them to pull up the real tether, not a bad idea still will cost billions the estimate is 40 billion and climbing. but as i said safety is not believable.