Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
From Wikipedia:
I guess you could have the teather drop down and not be under tension, but you'd need the counterweight to offset the mass of the rope being dropped still and I don't know how that would work since the counterweight would just move away in a different orbit as you reeled it out to counter the tether dropping. Some kind of station keeping rockets, I don't know that seems a LOT harder to pull off. I haven't thought much about a space elevator that wasn't under tension. |
Ahh makes so much more sense now. I thought initially you were putting the counterweight in geostationary orbit, which didn't make much sense as you mentioned.
Question though as I'm not well learned in this area. In the diagram they say the center of mass has to be above geostationary level. Wouldn't it have to be at geostationary level or the tether is going to wrap itself around the earth?