Edmund Storms wrote:
How many airplanes need to hit a tether or kite to bring the method to
an end? How many up and down cycles will the tether survive? How many
lightening strikes on a wet tether must occur before the tether breaks?
In short, this method has no hope of being practical.
Q: What is the difference between a permanent high altitude kite and a
barrage balloon?
A: From the point of view of an airplane, not much ... except the
barrage balloons probably didn't fly as high.
From the point of view of a *bird* ... well, the cables holding the
barrage balloons were probably visible, as they were supposed to be
strong enough to take down an airplane, and at least during the daytime
the birds had a chance of avoiding them. The kevlar (or whatever)
cables holding the kites may very well not be, as far as most birds are
concerned; they'll be too slender.
High, skinny towers are known to kill birds (sorry I don't have a
reference handy but as I recall the effect is strong and well
documented). Apparently some of them migrate at night and they just
don't see the towers ... splat. If we had whole fields of laddermills,
the effect on bird life might be a bit like having a whole swarm of
high-altitude house cats.
http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/rouge_river/cats.html
As to a space elevator: There's no comparison. There will *NOT* be
hundreds or thousands of space elevators clogging up the flyways. The
space elevator will be a lot more visible. The airspace around the
space elevator will be interdicted for aircraft. The elevator will be
somewhere near the equator, probably well out to sea, which may be on
the migratory paths of arctic terns but not a lot of other birds commute
through there, I suspect; spring and fall see enormous numbers of birds
flying through the mid latitudes where the laddermills will go, OTOH.
Ed
Jed Rothwell wrote:
Google is putting $5 million into this. If they have that kind of
money for kites they should invest in cold fusion.
I still think laddermill kites are impractical. What are they going to
use for the tether? What can stand up to 100 MW?!?
Using kites as auxiliary sails on large ships is a good idea.
- Jed
