The Best Place on Earth for a Space Elevator By OzJuggler in OzJuggler's Diary Sun May 03, 2009 at 03:31:24 AM EST Tags: space, asia (all tags)
	A while ago the topic of the Space Elevator concept cropped up again. I took it upon myself to decide the best place on Earth to put the ground station for a Space Elevator. The answer will probably surprise.

Penjantan Island, Indonesia. Latitude     0.104120° Longitude  107.221951° Google Maps An ideal site for a space elevator ground station. Since the space station relies on centripetal force to keep it up, the base station must be along the equator. The site on Penjantan is less than 12km from the true equator, which is close enough. The cable has to be "22,000 miles" long according to a recent study. I worked out that this is about 87% of the circumference of the Earth or 315 degrees of longitude. If it all falls, some of it will hit near the base station, but drag will cause most of it to fall from east to west. The furthest end will be falling very quickly when it hits, so if you've got any choice you'd want the furthest end to splash down somewhere away from major population centres... like the Pacific ocean perhaps. So find some empty ocean on the equator, like just east of PNG, then look 45 degrees (360 - 315) west of that spot and look for the nearest land. Bingo, Penjantan Isand is the place. When the falling cable hits Tanzania, Congo, Brazil, and Ecuador along the way they will have to just suck it up. Plus this site has the advantage of causing a falling mid station to hit the mouth of the Amazon (107°E - 157° = 50°W) where the impact of that large counterweight will be absorbed by soggy ground instead of causing a small tsunami. The island's small size and remoteness means it may be feasible for a consortium to purchase the island from Indonesia, as well as making it much less likely to suffer an accidental aircraft incursion. Intentional strikes could be defended by AA missiles and radars based on the island, or surrounding patrol boats. Other nearby major land masses such as Sumatra lie too low to the sea, whereas this site on a rocky island is naturally elevated above sea level at a safe 180m altitude. It has a clear 180km of empty ocean both eastwards and westwards. For all these reasons, Penjantan is an excellent site for any future Space Elevator.

Poll

Best Space Elevator ground station? Penjantan Island. 33% Cape York peninsula. 0% A big ship like an oil platform. 0% Your own back yard. 33% Spend the money on something earthly instead, you dribbling space cadet. 33% Votes: 3 Results | Other Polls

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