- Jan 28, 2005
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Pump N2 around a superconducting cable? Can you imagine how heavy all the piping would be? And how would you go about pumping it all there in the first place?
A really HTSC would be a bit more feasable, but it would add thousands of tons to the weight of the structure that isn't really neccesary, when nuclear or transmitted power are available.
On the note of power, is power transmission feasable (microwave or laser beam)? I'd imagine it wouldn't be much use in the atmosphere, due to beam absorption. However, it could be transmitted from a station at geosynchronous orbit loaded with solar panels when the climber is above 100km or so. It'd probably be fairly difficult to focus the beam correctly when you're aiming at a target <10m across from 36,000km away. At all possible? If not, I'm sure nuclear power could be used if we got past the political issues.
A really HTSC would be a bit more feasable, but it would add thousands of tons to the weight of the structure that isn't really neccesary, when nuclear or transmitted power are available.
On the note of power, is power transmission feasable (microwave or laser beam)? I'd imagine it wouldn't be much use in the atmosphere, due to beam absorption. However, it could be transmitted from a station at geosynchronous orbit loaded with solar panels when the climber is above 100km or so. It'd probably be fairly difficult to focus the beam correctly when you're aiming at a target <10m across from 36,000km away. At all possible? If not, I'm sure nuclear power could be used if we got past the political issues.