Wonder what Google has in mind for Moffett Field??? What ever it is, it will be big.

[CK_John]

Google signs 60-year lease of Navy dirigible hangar 1 and two other hangars.

IMO, it will be a "space ladder" from a sub orbital dirigible to the moon.

Basically a nano tech cable that will allow goods and machinery be lifted from a dirigible station to a moon base. The goods first being transported to the dirigible station from almost any point on the earth.

That's what I think. Get a look at this hangar.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26910584/google-take-over-much-moffett-field-restore-hanger

[Brother Buzz]

1. Occam's razor: the hanger is plan B after the Coast Guard nixed the Google barges

That's what I think.

[CK_John]

3. So what are they going to do with the barges and now the hangers???

[MineralMan]

5. Whatever they want to do. I'm sure they have some sort

of plan. What will it be? Apply now to Google for a job. They're always hiring very bright people.

[Brother Buzz]

12. The water-based data center is now going to be grounded

http://www.google.com/patents/US7525207

[MineralMan]

2. Probably not. The technical challenges of such

a thing are far, far greater than you suspect. I don't think a suborbital dirigible is a suitable earth anchor for what you describe. In fact, the physics argue strongly against that possibility.

There is no current technology that would allow its construction.

[CK_John]

6. To me the moon is the anchor that will whip the suborbital dirigible around in its orbit.

If it was easy everybody would do it.

[MineralMan]

9. Ah, I see. I don't think you have thought this through, actually.

You're aware that the moon orbits the earth and that the distance from the moon to the earth varies substantially, right? You know that the moon's orbit doesn't always follow the same path around the earth, right?

You know that no material exists that has the strength to support even its own weight over 240,000 miles, right?

What you propose is patently impossible in terms of physics. And suborbital, to boot. What of the atmospheric drag?

[CK_John]

10. Not true. The nano cable has already been in the testing stage.

Japanese construction giant Obayashi announces plans to have a space elevator up and running by 2050


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-21/japanese-construction-giants-promise-space-elevator-by-2050/5756206

[MineralMan]

11. We shall see. Lots of things are planned.

Most of them never see implementation.

[CK_John]

15. I'll check back with you in 2025 to see how it's working.

[MineralMan]

18. If I'm still alive.

[FSogol]

20. All they have to do is invent the materials. Easy peasy!

[wandy]

13. OK, Space elevator..............

A space elevator is a proposed type of space transportation system.[1] Its main component is a ribbon-like cable (also called a tether) anchored to the surface and extending into space. It is designed to permit vehicle transport along the cable from a planetary surface, such as the Earth's, directly into space or orbit, without the use of large rockets. An Earth-based space elevator would consist of a cable with one end attached to the surface near the equator and the other end in space beyond geostationary orbit (35,800 km altitude). The competing forces of gravity, which is stronger at the lower end, and the outward/upward centrifugal force, which is stronger at the upper end, would result in the cable being held up, under tension, and stationary over a single position on Earth. Once deployed, the tether would be ascended repeatedly by mechanical means to orbit, and descended to return to the surface from orbit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator


As any fan of Larry Niven would point, all we need now is a few thousand miles of Sinclair Monofilament.

[CK_John]

14. I think the tether will go from the moon to sub orbit.

[wandy]

16. The problem here is that the moon 'oobles' around in it's orbit.............

The orbit varies in distance and location. Not just just rotational. At the same time of day it may be a few miles off from where it was yesterday. The latter's location needs to be constant.
Our real problem, what we would be trying to overcome, is earth's gravity. The size of a booster required to reach the moon is considerably reduced if you start the trip from 200 miles up. Its that first 100 miles or so that requires the greatest thrust. Watch that first step, square of the distance and all.
You would use the 'ladder' to put booster, payload et all into high orbit.

That someone will come up with something akin to Sinclair Monofilament is just a matter of time.
Keep in mind their are other ways to skin that cat. We have already been able to move an incredibly small chunk of matter over an incredibly short distance in an incredibly Star Trek manner.

[CK_John]

17. No matter where the moon is, it always shows the same side to the earth.

Also it could be a series of steps, then the tether doesn't have to be just 1 long string.

I'm also thinking about a laser tether some sort of photo shell/electric vortex.

[MineralMan]

23. Keep thinking. Really.

"some sort of photo shell/electric vortex..." Uh-huh. I see exactly what you're talking about there. You bet.

[MineralMan]

19. Theoretical only.

It can't be built with known materials today.

[wandy]

22. Yes, at the moment in theory only. Then and again...........

This person who remembers 80 column punch cards just placed a 32 Gig, fingernail sized SD device in his phone/pda thingy.
All that card stock on a fingernail with no punch dies required.
Even as some of the breakthroughs come into existence they will cause interesting engineering problems.
The emerging 'real world' equivalents of some 'Science Fiction' devices show some of the same benefits/problems.
For example, Sinclair Monofilament .......

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) have designed a carbon nanotube knife that, in theory, would work like a tight-wire cheese slicer. In a paper presented this month at the 2006 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition*, the research team announced a prototype nanoknife that could, in the future, become a tabletop tool of biology, allowing scientists to cut and study cells more precisely than they can today.
For years, biologists have wrestled with conventional diamond or glass knives, which cut frozen cell samples at a large angle, forcing the samples to bend and sometimes later crack. Because carbon nanotubes are extremely strong and slender in diameter, they make ideal materials for thinly cutting precise slivers of cells. In particular, scientists might use the nanoknife to make 3D images of cells and tissues for electron tomography, which requires samples less than 300 nanometers thick.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1463

Ahhhh yes, a cable with an edge that can cut at 300 nanometers. Now that will raise hell with your pulley system.
And likely one very expensive length of rope at that.
Oh well, all things in time.

[FSogol]

21. Sinclair Monofilament.

[tridim]

4. What ever happened to that Google barge in San Fran?

Everyone was freaking out about it a year ago.

[arcane1]

7. Not much:

Report: Safety fears sank Google barge plan
By Kale Williams
Updated 8:20 am, Friday, November 7, 2014

If you were wondering what happened to that mysterious Google barge that popped up last year off Treasure Island, the Wall Street Journal has unearthed e-mails that indicate officials thought the vessels weren’t safe enough for the public, leading Google to abandon the project.

In the trove of e-mails, obtained by the Wall Street Journal through a Freedom of Information Act request, Coast Guard officials outlined concerns about fire hazards presented by having large amounts of fuel and other flammable materials on deck at the same time as a large number of people.

“These vessels will have over 5,000 gallons of fuel on the main deck and a substantial amount of combustible material on board,” Robert Gauvin, the Coast Guard’s acting chief of commercial vessel compliance, wrote in a March 2013 e-mail to Google’s contractor heading up the project, Foss Maritime Co.

-snip-


http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Report-Safety-fears-sank-Google-barge-plan-5877146.php

[CK_John]

8. They sold it for scrap metal If I recall.