Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: lokii on <08-24-17/0440:35>
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The location of the space elevator constructed in the 2070s is not often discussed. It seems there are two contradictory locations mentioned: Hazard Pay has it in Panama City, whereas Hard Targets puts it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a Corporate Court project so the Panama location (in the Court-controlled Canal Zone) would fit. I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense economically to remove the elevator (at least your first one) from the continental land mass? So which one is it?
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Actually it makes a lot of sense to remove it from any possible flight zones and isolate it as much as possible. Not just accidents but also sabotage are a lot less likely to occur at wide open sea, well away from established travel routes.
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Well, you have to connect it to the trade system. After all that's the whole point of having a space elevator to make moving mass up the gravity well cheap. So it shouldn't be costly to move material to and from its ground station.
I get the safety concern. The Atlantic is full of flight corridors, but it's probably easier to create an exclusion zone there. On the other hand depending on the cable material aircraft flying at modest speed into it shouldn't necessarily be a problem (for the cable). Any kind of object with high kinetic energy will be a problem regardless of position as it travels at high speed. Also another concern would be submarine accessibility of the site.
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Transport is not really an issue with either megatankers for cheap bulk transport or Ground Effect Vehicles/Thunderbirds for really urgent transports.
And I don't think collisions are anything you want to have - no matter how resilient you structures are.
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I think the prevailing thought is collision is unavoidable given micrometeorite impact. The requirements for tensile strength of the cable material are extreme anyway. If your design cannot handle collision (among other hazards), you basically have no business building a space elevator. ;)
It could be that the additional cost of moving the payload to a remote location is negligible given the cost reduction in delivering it to orbit. (Though you are competing with the Kilimanjaro Mass Driver not just rockets.) Still supplying and maintaining what amounts to a huge floating container terminal in the middle of the ocean is no small task in itself.
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Sure, but micro meteors aren't really a concern for the cable itself - small target and all that - but some idiot with pruning shears (https://xkcd.com/697/)...
It all comes down to the question if convenience or security and control is valued more - and since afaik Lofwyr is behind the SE, I'd expect the focus is rather on the later than the former ;)
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The cable is small in two dimensions, in the third it's gigantically long. That's why micrometeorites, small space debris in general, are a concern. Collision is not going to happen all the time, but I think the statistical calculation says it will happen eventually and your design has to resist it.
And if you cut the elevator cable so close to the ground it just hangs there. You beat up the jerk with the shears and repair the cable. It's not going to fly away or anything like that. Don't think of the cable as tethered to the Earth. It's own weight is balanced with the counterweight, it doesn't depend on a tether. A break higher up would lead the cable to rise as it finds a new balance to compensate the mass loss. The risk of deorbiting your space elevator comes only at very high altitudes, where the micrometeorites live or so.
Anyway, this is all science fiction, so I can live with either answer. Just would like to know which one. Though I kinda like the idea of the Corporate Court one-upping Aztechnology's Nicaragua Canal (even if they gave them the contract for Waypoint).
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Well, 'small' is relative. I wouldn't be surprised if the cable was at least a basketball's width in size, for instance. Even with most of the strength being tensile, you'd still need some big shears and a hefty amount of strength to cut through aligned carbon nanotubes (which I believe is what they said was used) stacked or woven to that width. The cable is, in the end, a glorified rope, and humans are quite familiar with making ropes that don't snap at the slightest provocation. So I wouldn't be worried about micrometeorites and the like, especially if they do regular maintenance checks sending a drone to check the line every few hours.
Honestly, though, I would think that the space elevator would be situated on solid land, either naturally occurring, or an artificial island. There's a few reasons why:
- Humans have a LOT more experience building things on land, which makes building a giant anchor station easier if it is on solid ground.
- Underwater anchors would also have to deal with additional variables, like different shearing forces due to ocean and wind currents, or underwater flora and fauna.
- Underwater anchors have underwater access, which is harder to patrol and secure against shadowrunners.
- The base station where everyone gets on the elevator, or unloads people and goods, would be easier and cheaper to maintain if it was ground based, instead of being essentially a giant boat or collection of barges.
- Land access opens additional revenue streams, such as getting tourists into space, or making getting to orbital resorts cheaper and easier.
- Land access allows for those picking up freight from orbit to come with trucks, rather than pulling up a container ship. Not only does this increase traffic flow, but in the worst case a truck bomb (using conventional explosives) does less damage than a container ship full of cheap explosives.
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@Mirikon
That depends entirely on the design of the space elevator - if it were in perfect equilibrium it would indeed just float there. More realistic it would be a bit unbalanced outwards so it can move higher loads and is more stable through the added tension. Cutting such a "rope" would turn it into a gigantic whip.
Micro meteorits will occur weather the base is on land or not, so no need to discuss that, really.
As for your other points:
1. In SR giant Aquacologies exist, so experience and ability exist either way
2. Only if you extend the cable into the sea. There is no need for this - a floating platform is sufficient
3. I think land access is still slightly more worrisome. It certainly requires a lot more sophistication for runners to organize submarines than accessing land locked facilities. If you add magic to the mix tunneling becomes quite easy actually and very hard to detect as you can't have spirits patrolling through the earth - under water you have much more options to detect intruders
4. That's true.
5. Tourists can use boats too - combining a luxury cruise with a visit into space sounds like just the right amount of decadence for the SR universe.
6. I'd imagine that ship inspections would be done at a safe distance - open sea would also allow you to use a lot more force to secure your site without having to worry about figurative (or literal) fallout that you'd have next to population centers. Also, you don't have to buy or rent land or have to worry about a government deciding to nationalize your property (less of a concern in SR, but still, a government backed by another Mega could do it)
7. A floating platform would also allow you to adjust position once in a while, either to compensate for sudden tension or to react to changes in the local geography (the environment in SR is a lot more volatile and a suddenly appearing volcano could be a real pain for such an undertaking, not to mention artificially induced earthquakes and other such problems)
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I can see advantages and disadvantages either way. Personally though I think it would be land based simply because the area is already corporate court controlled and security would be high (to put it mildly). Meanwhile there are less excess calculations and maintainence costs seawater adds a higher level of maintenance simply from corrosion. Of course that is only for the first one if they build a second they may go water based.
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Just reread the Hard Target and Hazard Pay texts.
It seams actually as if the Atlantic Elevator is purely S-K property, so the solution to the original question is probably: Both
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Saeder-Krupp is the contractor for the main construction. Unless it's explicitly mentioned that they built a second one I wouldn't assume there are two. Also I was under the impression that the necessary funding for the space elevator was beyond the means of any one of the Big Ten.
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I'm referring to the following sentence in HT:
"Looks like both Kane and Icarus were right and wrong. Could they be building two?"
p.38
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@Mirikon
That depends entirely on the design of the space elevator - if it were in perfect equilibrium it would indeed just float there. More realistic it would be a bit unbalanced outwards so it can move higher loads and is more stable through the added tension. Cutting such a "rope" would turn it into a gigantic whip.
Micro meteorits will occur weather the base is on land or not, so no need to discuss that, really.
As for your other points:
1. In SR giant Aquacologies exist, so experience and ability exist either way
2. Only if you extend the cable into the sea. There is no need for this - a floating platform is sufficient
3. I think land access is still slightly more worrisome. It certainly requires a lot more sophistication for runners to organize submarines than accessing land locked facilities. If you add magic to the mix tunneling becomes quite easy actually and very hard to detect as you can't have spirits patrolling through the earth - under water you have much more options to detect intruders
4. That's true.
5. Tourists can use boats too - combining a luxury cruise with a visit into space sounds like just the right amount of decadence for the SR universe.
6. I'd imagine that ship inspections would be done at a safe distance - open sea would also allow you to use a lot more force to secure your site without having to worry about figurative (or literal) fallout that you'd have next to population centers. Also, you don't have to buy or rent land or have to worry about a government deciding to nationalize your property (less of a concern in SR, but still, a government backed by another Mega could do it)
7. A floating platform would also allow you to adjust position once in a while, either to compensate for sudden tension or to react to changes in the local geography (the environment in SR is a lot more volatile and a suddenly appearing volcano could be a real pain for such an undertaking, not to mention artificially induced earthquakes and other such problems)
The most common hypothetical or scifi designs for space elevators that I've seen follow the counterweight idea. In other words, you have a big object in space that is connected to a point down on the planet and the centripetal forces work to keep the line between them taught, allowing you to use it as an elevator cable. The fact that we know they captured an asteroid for the other end supports this hypothesis. Now, a counterweight needs to be connected to a solid point or it goes flying off like the hammer throw in track and field. Which is where the anchor comes in. The engineering requirements to tether a big rope to the earth are a LOT less complex than tethering it to anything remotely considered 'floating'. An artificial island works as good as normal ground for this. An aquacology could work, provided it was securely anchored to the sea floor, but you add in more points of failure there, as you add the engineering requirements of an aquacology to those of anchoring a giant rope keeping a rock from flying off into space in place. Wise man once said, "The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
A floating tether would be inherently unstable unless you were on a planet with no real tidal forces, without the ocean currents and storms you get on Earth. Consider the effects of a floating ship heavy enough to counterbalance a space station when it meets a major hurricane or a tsunami. Or what happens if some damn fool punches a hole in the hull, or lots of them. You already have problems with cargo ships being attacked by servants of the Sea Dragon. A ship that size could get her to be personally involved.
And you actually have a lot more options to find and respond to attacks on ground (or under it) or in the air, Jack. Drones are damn near useless underwater for the perimeter patrols you normally have them do on land. Water is quite good at blocking the signals, meaning you'd be trusting the dog brains of drones for your security on a multitrillion nuyen project where an attack would have the highest possible visibility next to a physical attack on the Corporate Court itself. Sonar is useful, but has been known to play hell with local wildlife even today. When you add in Awakened and Emerged wildlife to the mix (and we already know of Emerged dolphins hacking underwater systems)... well, you have a lot more problems.
And S-K is behind the building of the elevator. Putting a massive, almost certainly pollution spewing (this is SK we're talking about) megastructure on a boat is one hell of a middle finger to the Sea Dragon from Lofwyr. Which means you would need to add all her minions into the potential underwater threats.
Then you have the fact that you don't need THAT much more sophisticated an approach for runners to attack a floating structure undetected. Just running the underwater variables, scuba gear and demo packs could cripple a ship-based tether. Don't even need to sink it outright. Just disable some of the stabilizers as a storm hits, and you have all kinds of problems. Even if there isn't a second stage to the plan. Like I said, detecting attacks underwater is difficult. Aquacologies deal with it by being built like bunkers with only a few air locks, which have lots of sensors on them. This means they can concentrate on the main ways in, rather than having to guard against everything. Since they're anchored to the ocean floor, that works.
Having a floating tether if you don't absolutely have to (a water world, for instance) is literally begging for Murphy to show up.
Basically, aside from the benefit of being able to move it if Ghost Dance level craziness happens, the potential points of failure are much more numerous with a floating tether. When you're making a megastructure that is the first of its kind, and already has a lot of potential points of failure, going with a safer option seems best.
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Wait, doesn't the physics of the whole thing require a beanstalk to be on the equator? (Outer end goes past geosynchronous orbit, although you use a mass a little past there to mean your cable doesn't have to be symmetrical about that orbit to have your centre of mass there.)
Which would say Panama is not an option, unless there is another way to design such a beast? (Fiction usually puts these at mountains along the equator, in Equador, Kenya, or Indonesia )
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Ideally, it would be on the equator, yes. That eliminates a whole sheaf of math and engineering problems from the equation, after all. However, as long as you're fairly close (say, within the area between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer), then the math is minimally different. The further you get from the equator, the nastier the math and engineering challenges get.
Unfortunately, most of the places that are physically on the equator are either in Amazonia (no way the dragon allows that), in the middle of the ocean (no way the dragon allows that), central Africa (already have to deal with pissed off spirits and tribes, and no one really wants to be too close to the ghouls), or the phillipines and other island nations in East Asia (which are all mostly hellholes, or have dragon lairs, or both). Even when you expand to the areas between the tropics, you get Aztlan, more Amazonia, more Africa, the worst parts of the Middle East (I don't have to explain this, right?), India, Southeast Asia (mostly hellholes), and Australia ('nuff said).
So it comes down to Panama or India, and Panama in the canal zone is not only firmly in corporate hands (because of the canal), but it also has a bunch of existing infrastructure in place (because of the canal).
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@Mirikon
I am aware of the phsyics involved - it's actually one of my favorite sci-fi topics.
Just because it's floating doesn't mean it isn't anchored - or that it isn't already filled with some stuff lighter than water to make it buoyant. Also sinking isn't really an option if you are pulled up constantly. Tidal movement is mainly a problem close to coasts. The larger your structure the less it has to worry about waves and weather.
Regarding sea dragons, might I turn your attention to HT p.38:
"The big change staying a secret seems to be all about security at the new platform. A great way to keep rumors from getting out is to use personnel who fear their employer as one would fear a dragon. Because their employer, and the immediate security, is being provided by a dragon—the Sea Dragon to be exact. Those mountains I mentioned have a lair we didn’t know about when the Clutch of Dragons datafile was put
together, and the Sea Dragon has quite a force there. If I were to believe all the materials I’ve read she even has other leviathans in the region. Possibly the offspring from the eggs we were discussing."
There are also some pretty smart under water drones available. The Proteus Krake is just one example of a perfectly capable autonomous defender. Add water spirits to the mix and you'll be hard pressed to get close. Hacking is only a problem if wireless is on - which there is no reason to have it on when you can't communicate with them anyway.
Compare that to a mage with Shape Earth that can just tunnle where he wants to go and I'd say the sea is the safer bet.
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What's wrong with Australia sure we have a few little manastorms but don't let that put you off.
More seriously couldn't you limit the ease of entry simply by layering things steel, concrete, earth, asphalt, plastic, titanium and so on. Lots of different Spells and cutting tools needed to get though that especially without triggering all the sensors.
For those who seem to know about space elevators why is the equator worse than the north or south pool?
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I'm referring to the following sentence in HT:
"Looks like both Kane and Icarus were right and wrong. Could they be building two?"
p.38
I think that can only mean building two in close proximity. The description "outside of Panama City" from Hazard Pay leaves the possibility that the ground station is a seagoing platform. So it's conceivable that it can be moved. Still it should be on the Pacific side and I don't know how feasible it is to tow a space elevator around the planet. But more to the point how can anyone miss that they started building it in Panama and then moved it to the middle of the Atlantic? And the counterweight asteroid also can also only be in one of the two locations.
The most common hypothetical or scifi designs for space elevators that I've seen follow the counterweight idea. In other words, you have a big object in space that is connected to a point down on the planet and the centripetal forces work to keep the line between them taught, allowing you to use it as an elevator cable.
As I said above the weight of the lower portion of the cable itself requires the counterweight.
By the way Hazard Pay calls the space elevator "Skyhook". I had actually thought that it was misnamed because it is anchored to the ground. But on rereading the text I realised that they only talk about anchoring it to the asteroid counterweight not necessarily to the ground station.
Wait, doesn't the physics of the whole thing require a beanstalk to be on the equator? (Outer end goes past geosynchronous orbit, although you use a mass a little past there to mean your cable doesn't have to be symmetrical about that orbit to have your centre of mass there.)
At the equator the outer end of the space elevator can be in geostationary orbit, so it always stays in the same position. Once you go off-equator you have a non-equatorial geosynchronous orbit so the outer end as seen from the earth moves. I think Panama is still reasonably close to the equator? Not sure. It could mean that the space elevator has to be anchored to the ground after all, with resulting additional stress on the structure.