Thursday, December 08, 2005

 

Going Up?

(Via Cheryl) I've written about space elevators a few times, most notably in my story "Gold Mountain," which will be in a forthcoming issue of Postscripts, and is about the construction of a space elevator in my Celestial Empire timeline. I spent a fair amount of time researching the things, checking the figures, and looking at diagrams and schematics, and so I think I have a fair understanding of what space elevators are and how they'd operate. When I see this, though, even knowing it's just a painting (and a spectacular one at that), my lizard brain takes over and I find myself gripping the arms of my chair. Yow. I get dizzy every time I glance back at it.

Comments:
I bet I can make you dizzier still - if only in your mind's eye.

The first SE will be a meters wide by cms thick ribbon - all but invisible from a distance.

Imagine the same scene, with a lifter ascending and a hair's width of ribbon barely visible ...

It is possible the vision in Mondolithic's wonderfull graphic will never come true so for practical reasons as well. Sad, perhaps.
 
Breathtaking. And as I suffer from acrophobia, dizzying and a little disorienting as well.
 
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