# Would you live in a space-scraper?



## Brian G Turner (Apr 3, 2017)

Meaning, a building attached to the underside of an orbiting asteroid, that passes over a lage swathe of the Earth over 24 hours?

Space-scraper: this high-rise hangs from an asteroid, suspended in Earth's atmosphere

Perhaps one for science fiction at present - though possibly more plausible in other circumstances, such as around gas giants?


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## Biskit (Apr 3, 2017)

Definitely SF at present.  Whenever folks come up with these fantastic ideas, they always seem to leave out some basic practical details.  Geosynch orbits are not actually stable and need regular correction, and that tower is going to act like a sea-anchor, dragging the orbiting asteroid all over the place at the whim of the local winds.

Apart from that, although I wouldn't mind going for a visit, I don't fancy living there.


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## Cat's Cradle (Apr 3, 2017)

I haven't read the article, but the idea seems wonderful to me...thrilling and remarkably bold and innovative, and beyond anything, plain, old-fashioned mad.

But I suspect the apartments will run to multiples of tens of millions of dollars, so happily I shall never have to overly worry about this. (What about passport/visa issues? There could easily be helicopter pads built into the building to ferry people back and forth from it to whatever locale the building is hovering over, at the moment; of course, that would all be worked out.) What an idea though, wow!

edit - actually, of course there'd have to be helicopter pads, and loading bays for supplies, etc. etc....unless they used a retractable, or dangling elevator...wow, this is an exciting (though science-fictiony) idea! (Though perhaps I should read the story, and stop hypothesizing. )


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## tinkerdan (Apr 3, 2017)

Feels like the basic cloud city only using known physics rather than some handwavium anti-gravity.
I like this idea better than the space elevator although if we can do one than the other might be  a logical next step. Bit ify.

Maybe we should work first on experimental airship communities that somehow can keep themselves elevated for long periods using constant supplies of fuel and whatever holds them up.


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## Dennis E. Taylor (Apr 3, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> Perhaps one for science fiction at present - though possibly more plausible in other circumstances, such as around gas giants?



Floating cities in the upper cloud deck of gas giants are feasible. A spheroidal city shell would be stable, although you could make it more stable by going with a prolate spheroid shape. And as eggs have shown us, the shape can take a lot of compression without cracking. I think the cities would float at about the 1.5 bars level.
And the gravity, on Saturn for instance, would be about 1G. To see what that would look like, see here:


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## Danny McG (Apr 3, 2017)

Nope. Not for me. I couldn't even go up Blackpool Tower last summer, waited on the good solid ground for my family most of an afternoon.
Double cheeseburgers help to pass the time


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## chrispenycate (Apr 3, 2017)

To be deep enough in atmosphere for residents to breath, while maintaining centre of gravity at geostationary (both seeming convenient off hand, although the geostationary less important - who cares if it zips through the air creating a continuous sonic boom?) the distance from centre of mass to nearest Earth approach would be thirty kilometres - for perhaps three or four layers of residence. And even then, atmospheric pressure is about Everest peak - need canned oxygen on hand. If you're going to build that far (with so much space that could be pressurised, I suppose) why not do the extra few kilometres and make it an orbital tower? Tensile strengths of the materials involved would be equivalent, and at least, we'd know its postal address, and it wouldn't be wandering over the equatorial region of the planet. 

Or put it in a lower orbit, with several towers, and rotate it round its asteroid, so just the bits of the 'arms' dipping into the atmosphere are traveling at the same speed as the air. Hooks on the ends collect airships and drag them up into orbit. Obviously the arms need pressurising and there's no parachute jumping, and you might not even be on an equatorial orbit, so what country you are over at any given time is - variable. Very variable.

But there is no time scale on this. Collecting a planetoid, putting it into Earth orbit and then stabilising the orbit will take many years, probably decades, and construction of the tower can't start until a fair percentage of that stabilisation is done - moving in will probably need to wait a century. You don't want to rush things if a minor miscalculation can drop a dinosaur killer somewhere on Earth, with more special effects than a disaster movie (and no retakes). I wouldn't like to be the insurance company guaranteeing payment for the damage it could do (assuming there are any survivors to claim their payments).


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## tinkerdan (Apr 4, 2017)

The trick is to insure that there are no survivors. I'd keep a few extra chunks of rock in orbit just as a fails-safe for that eventuality.
The lack of oxygen would be a trick and the length required to be low enough to parachute might make the entire support structure a bit stressed.


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## Maximum7 (Apr 4, 2017)

Yes I would


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## Old_Man_Steve2016 (Apr 4, 2017)

It'd be interesting, but I'd be more concerned about radiation shielding first and foremost.


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## Nick B (Apr 4, 2017)

Maybe it could be combined with a space elevator? Anchored at the equator, it would help with positioning, while not interfering with the actual orbit. The elevator 'columb' wouldnt need the tensile strength associated with traditionaly planned SE's as the object orbiting is just a tether rather than having outward pull. The building could be built as a cylinder around the elevator cable. Makes supply and travel easier.


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## Lumens (Apr 6, 2017)

I would love to live there if they'd let me, I would even go and fetch the asteroid for them. At least in my mind. In reality I may very well not bother.


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## farntfar (Apr 6, 2017)

Lumens said:


> I would even go and fetch the asteroid for them. At least in my mind.



You keep asteroids in your mind?
I'm not going to get *you* cross in a hurry.


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## Lumens (Apr 6, 2017)

farntfar said:


> You keep asteroids in your mind?
> I'm not going to get *you* cross in a hurry.



No not in my mind, in my belt.


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## farntfar (Apr 6, 2017)




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## Lumens (Apr 6, 2017)

Well, when I say _my _belt... 

I guess it belongs to everybody for the moment.


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## Dennis E. Taylor (Apr 6, 2017)

I'm glad you didn't say "in my pants"


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 6, 2017)

I would have thought another disadvantage to the concept is that the space-scraper would have to avoid any particularly high ground or structures. Any small change in course and your building might hit a mountain range!


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## Emphyricist (Apr 17, 2017)

I'm averse to urban life anyhow.  I've lived in cities all but two of the years since graduating from college, but I like having a hard.  But ideally, I'd like to live somewhere I can't see or hear my neighbors.  With the space-scraper idea, you have the added disadvantage of being not even able to go outside.  On the other hand, I've fantasized about the living in the bubble in Saturn's atmopshere idea ever since I read it might be possible, but in that scenario I'm obscenely rich and have a bubble or even suite of bubbles pretty much to myself.


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