'Space elevator' would take humans into orbit

[AJ]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/02/space.elevator/index.html

Would be cool!

 

[YSOSLO]

Sounds awesome, but I can't wrap my melon around the idea of a solid tether to the Earth that'll work, since the Earth not only rotates, but also varies it's tilt in relation to the Sun. Sounds like one heck of a fantastic contraption though.

 

[dmention7]

Actually, the tilt of the earth relative to the sun is pretty much a constant--that's the reason we have seasons. The earth's rotational axis "wobbles" like a spinning top, making a complete circle every 25000 years or so... very slowly compared to the rate of earth's rotation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession#Of_the_Earth.27s_axis)

In principle, it would be not much different from placing a satellite in geosynchronous orbit--where the satellite orbits in such a way that it is always above the exact same point on the earth's surface. That's a relatively simple operation, because it only involves balancing the force of gravity with the centrifugal force necessary to keep a single point orbiting the earth. With the space elevator, they'd have to distribute the mass of the tether in such a way that the gravitational force on the entire assembly balances the centrifugal force of the entire assembly.