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Re: starship-design: Space Elevators Maybe Closer To Reality Than Imagined
In a message dated 8/1/03 6:34:56 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net writes:
>> Hard to say. Current tech with a large market could drop costs to $s per
>> pound of cargo to orbit. A teather might be cheaper -- or might be more
>> expensive. A teathers overhead and maint expenses could well be far
>>more.
>>
>> Teather advocates love to quote the stats that "energy costs" to orbit
>>would
>> only be pennies per pound of cargo. But the energy costs of conventional
>> launchers is little more -- and a trivial fraction of actual costs.
>
>Actually, dumping energy seemed to be a bigger deal than energy cost to
>orbit. Perhaps they could anchor it somewhere like the middle of Africa
>which REALLY could use cheap energy and sell the energy surplust to
>defray operating costs.
>
>Better, of course, would be to do the same thing somewhere in the
>developed world where they could get more money for the same energy.
>
>Lee
The power would be worth more.
Wonder how they generate it without degrading their orbit?