I Love Chemically-Fueled, Vertical Take-Off Rockets But Doesn't Humanity Need a More Elegant Way to Get into Space?

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And a miserable safety record.
Yeah but many of the accidents that have occurred have had extremely demanding operating conditions and environments as a contributing factor. If one of those were flying from Dallas to Chicago and back a few times a day it would likely finish its career without a major incident, but that's not what they're used for.
 
The one by us flares it, too. Too rich to let it drift around where it might collect into a bubble that goes boom - not enough to pay for compression and separation from CO2, water, H2S, and trace crap.

It is not just for safety, burning the methane converts it into CO2, which is considered to be less polluting than releasing the methane into the atmosphere.

But many landfills do make enough biogas to run small power plants. There are over 500 landfill gas power plants "LFGs" in the US. Here in Anchorage Alaska, the LFG power plant has 6 engine-generators, and supplies all of the power for the airforce and army base next to the landfill. The landfill gas is so valuable that the native alaskan tribe that owns the mineral rights to the land sued the City for ownership of the landfill gas as an extracted resource.

Some landfills are managing the "green" component of their waste stream to improve gas production. Degradable waste like food waste and lawn clippings produce higher levels of gas than inert trash like construction debris.

On a different side - a few landfills actual have to add natural gas in order to burn their methane. The landfill produces enough gas that needs to be burned, but it isn't rich enough to sustain combustion. So you have to add a little additional gas to burn it.
 
Yeah but many of the accidents that have occurred have had extremely demanding operating conditions and environments as a contributing factor. If one of those were flying from Dallas to Chicago and back a few times a day it would likely finish its career without a major incident, but that's not what they're used for.

Like the TU-154, US commercial aircraft are all designed to operate on the ground at -40 C/F. Maybe this was a first for Soviet aircraft, I don't know. It is colder than that at higher altitudes, even after including the effects of stagnation heating.

The TU-154 was the workhorse of the Soviet airlines, used everywhere. Some of these happened to be in rougher conditions but most weren't. If you look at the list of accidents on the Wikipedia article, relatively few had to do with the rough conditions it flew in.

I flew on a TU-154 from Moscow to St. Petersburg many years ago. It had seats facing both forwards and backwards like many trains do. I chose not to ride in a backward facing seat.
 
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I flew on a TU-154 from Moscow to St. Petersburg many years ago. It had seats facing both forwards and backwards like many trains do. I chose not to ride in a backward facing seat.
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I think it would have been a neat flight to ride on (if successful. . . ). If unsuccessful, I wonder if the backward facing seat could have been a benefit.

Either way, I wish general air travel felt more like 1st class European train travel. Don't get me wrong, 1st class vs 3rd class on a TGV are both better than coach on a typical US plane from an experience standpoint. Also, the difference in train classes (on the TGV at least) was minimal and the cost differential was also minimal. Its been a while since I've ridden the TGV and I hope it stays that way (not the experience, the desire to not travel).

Sandy.
 
The method of using chemical energy (via the second strongest force in the universe, electromagnetic force) to overcome the weakest force, gravity is costly. Unfortunately, we have not found anything else that is practical enough for us to use. Large number of small nukes (using the strongest force) is possible for our civilization, but the standards norms of our society do not allow us to entertain this possibility. Other stuff is sci-fi and has no basis for us now.
 
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Ugh!
Not the Space Elevator again.
We are more likely to discover "Anti-Gravity" than be able to build a "Beanstalk".

Then there's the problem with where to build it. Logistics would suggest a coastal location so materials and supplies can be easily shipped to the construction site.
Necessity requires it be built on the equator.

Now look on a globe and pick which country would be suitable because I got nothing.
 
Ugh!
Not the Space Elevator again.
We are more likely to discover "Anti-Gravity" than be able to build a "Beanstalk".

Then there's the problem with where to build it. Logistics would suggest a coastal location so materials and supplies can be easily shipped to the construction site.
Necessity requires it be built on the equator.

Now look on a globe and pick which country would be suitable because I got nothing.
If half a degree off the equator is OK, Singapore is the obvious choice as a stable, neutral place where people go to do business. If it must be dead on the Equator, then probably Brazil though it's possible that Indonesia just across the straits from Singapore would work as well. Brazil is probably higher risk from gangs/extortion, Indonesia is probably higher risk from terrorism. Both would have a moderate amount of official corruption.
 
Singapore or Indonesia would be acceptable if China was the majority shareholder in the construction and operation of the tower.
The U.S. would never allow for something like a Beanstalk to be so close to an antagonistic nation.

Brazil might work but it is so far from any industrially developed nation that logistics becomes a problem.
Honesty the problems with both the construction and operation of a Beanstalk that even the more forward thinking science fiction authors have given up on the idea.
 
I've always wondered about a carrier aircraft with jets and rockets carrying something like a medium sized lifting body spacecraft. Jets take it as high as it can, carrier aircraft rockets then kick in and boost it out of the atmosphere. Cut loose the lifting body and its rockets take it to orbit. It would most likely be a relatively small, people and light cargo carrier to leo space stations.
 
The very first thing you have to do when constructing a Beanstalk is to drop/deorbit the initial wire/string/thread from GSO orbit to the location where construction is to begin.
At the same time a counter weighted "string" needs to be spun outwards from GSO to create the "Suspension Bridge Affect".
Now, construction must proceed in four direction; from the GSO point outwards and downwards and from the outermost point towards the middle and from the ground upwards, all to maintain that balance.

We would need a fully functioning deep space construction capability as well as a source of materials that doesn't require they be shipped up from Earth.
 
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Singapore or Indonesia would be acceptable if China was the majority shareholder in the construction and operation of the tower.
The U.S. would never allow for something like a Beanstalk to be so close to an antagonistic nation.

Brazil might work but it is so far from any industrially developed nation that logistics becomes a problem.
Honesty the problems with both the construction and operation of a Beanstalk that even the more forward thinking science fiction authors have given up on the idea.

If a Beanstalk were being built, the risks of being left out in the cold are far, far higher than the risks of an antagonistic nation taking over, particularly in Singapore. Singapore has been an independent crossroads for a very long time, and wouldn't be very subject to Chinese takeover. If China started making moves, they would likely join in mutual defense pacts with the West. Indonesia would be more of a problem in that regard.

Brazil has a pretty decent industrial base. They build aircraft there and have a sizeable oil industry, so I don't doubt that it would be possible. They'd have to build/expand a deepwater port at the mouth of the Amazon, but that's a rounding error in the cost of a Beanstalk. Other options, in descending order of acceptability are: Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea (west coast of Africa), and Somalia.
 
Well the way things are going now, by the time anybody actually has the capability to build a Beanstalk, the United States might not be much of a factor on the world stage anymore.

We seem to be headed to Hell in a handbasket and recently we've added wheels and a rocket motor to it.
 
Having been in the space business for over 30 years, I hear this all the time. "We need something better than chemical rockets." My comeback is, "So get busy and design and build something." That usually stops the conversation cold.

Wanting a space elevator is one thing. Designing and building one is something else entirely. Before you start dropping a cable from Geo, take a few courses in orbital dynamics.
 
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