Extraordinary Ordinary Things: How Did We Ever Live without Them?

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To my understanding, the likelihood of an elevator car ever plunging going into free-fall is virtually zero. Elevators got along without the aid of computer technology for well over a century, sort of. As high-rise buildings became ever higher, problems that had been only minor nuisances in lower buildings became major problems in higher ones.

Higher buildings require banks of elevators rather than only one. The problem was how to move increasing numbers of people up and down with a minimum number of elevators to save on costs.

And how to move them such that they were not aware of waiting times between pressing the call button and arrival of the elevator car, and the time necessary to reach the desired floor of the building once the passenger stepped in. These and other functions of modern elevators in modern buildings today are increasingly under computer control, whose functions are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Rather than simply pressing up or down to underground floors , waiting people enter a request for a specific floor.

The computer then takes into consideration the location and the demands on all the elevators cars and tells the passenger which one will get him or her to their destination most quickly. The load sensor tells the computer how full the car is. If the car is near capacity, the computer stops the elevator from making any more pick-up stops until passengers get off.

This prevents packing passengers in like sardines, a frequent complaint of many elevator users. Load sensors also ensure greater safety. If the car is too near its recommend load limit, the computer will not close the doors until one or more passengers get off. According to NASA , which is seriously studying the possibility:. Electromagnetic vehicles traveling along the cable could serve as a mass transportation system for moving people, payloads, and power between Earth and space.

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Current plans call for a base tower approximately 50 km tall—the cable would be tethered to the top. To keep the cable structure from tumbling to Earth, it would be attached to a large counterbalance mass beyond geostationary orbit, perhaps an asteroid moved into place for that purpose.

The system requires the center of mass to be in geostationary orbit. The cable is basically in orbit around the Earth. These tracks would allow electromagnetic vehicles to travel at speeds reaching thousands of kilometers per hour.

Conceptual designs place the tower construction at an equatorial site. The extreme height of the lower tower section makes it vulnerable to high winds. An equatorial location is ideal for a tower of such enormous height because the area is practically devoid of hurricanes and tornadoes and it aligns properly with geostationary orbits which are directly overhead.

While the idea of a space elevator is radical, it is not new.

The concept of a tower reaching geosynchronous orbit was first proposed by Russian aeronautics theoretician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Not surprisingly, the concept of a space elevator has figured in numerous works of science fiction. Premier scientific fiction authors such as Brian Aldis, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein, and Terry Pratchett, among others have all explored this theme. Without computers a space elevator would be completely impossible.

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The cable from ground base to the spacial counterweight is 35, km and would not be uniform as you ascend. The equations for finding the right tensile strength and keeping the whole structure in an orbit so that the cable does not bend are dauntingly complex. Only a supercomputer could solve them in a reasonable amount of time. Readers who wish to know more about space elevators will find a plethora of information at http: In short, few inventions have so transformed the way we live more than the elevator. What Is an Elevator?