Sliding down a metal pole from the moon to the Earth - PPC Posting Board

Subject: Sliding down a metal pole from the moon to the Earth
Author: Tomash
Posted on: 2018-05-23 16:45:00 UTC

isn't something you could ever do. If you could, it'd probably kill you, but you might be able to do it. At least that's the conclusion of this "What If?" blog post by the author of xkcd, which is something I thought people around here would find interesting. For one thing, includes a digression into calculating the ground speed of the moon, which apparently has a minimum every 18.9 years (who knew? I didn't.)

It's worth noting that there's bonus text when you hover over the pictures.

- Tomash

Reply Return to messages

Sliding down a metal pole from the moon to the Earth by Tomash on 2018-05-23 16:45:00 UTC

Oh, it's back! by Huinesoron on 2018-05-24 11:13:00 UTC Reply

What If? is a brilliant read from start to finish; I actually have the book, which includes even more fantastic articles. My favourite is 'what if you had a periodic table made up of the actual elements?'; the answer of course is 'boom', but at great length. (Which describes most of the content of the blog...)

What's interesting for this article is that Randall didn't really address the big point that 'a fireman's pole from [orbiting satellite] to the moon' is pretty much a description of a space elevator. An odd omission.

hS

from [orbiting satellite] to the moon? by Hieronymus Graubart on 2018-05-24 13:53:00 UTC Reply

Wouldn't "a fireman's pole from [(stationary) orbiting satellite] to Earth's surface" be the description of a space elevator? Moving the fireman's pole's lower end to [orbiting satellite] doesn't solve the problem of different angular velocities; that's why we still would need spaceships (but "from [orbiting satellite] to the moon" is the easy part of the journey).

HG

You're right, I meant 'to the Earth'. by Huinesoron on 2018-05-24 14:42:00 UTC Reply

I'm fairly sure I remember a system from something (maybe fiction?) where you ride a bolo up into the upper atmosphere, then transfer to the space elevator which is moving past at upper-bolo-car speeds.

Regardless, this is still 'a space elevator if it was hung from the moon', and since space elevators are one of Randall's things, I'm surprised he didn't mention it. :)

The idea of building giant towers into space has been covered in other What Ifs, including Billion-Stor[e]y Building and Stairs.

hS