The State of the Union and the Space Elevator

President Obama's State of the Union for 2015 was a good sounding speech.  It covered enough topics for everything by the National Academy Press to be related to it (almost).

It was short on specifics.

It did not mention the Space Elevator.  The taxpayers have paid for a lot of work described in http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/472Edwards.pd - the Space Elevator.

I was shocked to find that people where complaining on Twitter about the Space Elevator not being in #SOTUS again this year.

I saw the concept described in the August 2005 IEEE Spectrum and tried to get a friend to kill the program by describing how it is flawed.

Block II MILSTAR satelites are "low-inclination".  The MILSTAR program utilizes geosychronous orbits.  The locus of the point on the Earth which is immediately below them is a figure 8 pattern unless they are over the Equator. 

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/titan/b35/030401milstar.html

 http://www.astronautix.com/craft/milstar.htm

Orbit altitude: 22,500 miles geosynchronous

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/milstar/

The Space Elevator is an excellent example of something that should be left to venture capitalists or Vladimir Putin.

On page 5.2 of the Final Report at http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/472Edwards.pd an “angular momentum” problem is described.  I’m most concerned about the problem after deployment.  The angular momentum problem during use is significant.

First, the base station needs to be on the equator.  Second, we need two to maintain symmetry.  Otherwise climate will change.

The counterweight has to go around a 100,000 kilometer orbit every 24 hours.  Geosynchronous orbits are geostationary only over the Equator.