Celestia Forums

While waiting for Ran 1.1, here?s a teaser:

The Needle
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This is a customized version of the Hroenn Space Elevator, for the Earth.
It is much more detailed, and more realistic (for one thing, it?s double-barreled), and it has easier and better navigation points.

The Needle has a Geosynch Space Station that looks more natural and "lived in" than the old one, a more detailed Exit, and it terminates in an artificial island in the Indian Ocean - surrounded by a city of towering arcologies.

Note:
The SSC file is a modified, expanded version of Thomas Guilpain?s original Space Lift concept. He did such a great job on it, i could not resist borrowing parts of it...

Here?s some screenshots:




More screenshots, info and download on my website.
Feedback and criticism is appreciated.

-rthorvald

All I can say is...I want one!...great work...Mr Clarke would/will be very impressed I'm sure.

Regards...bh.

NICE.

Of course, every time I try to download from your motherlode folder, my connection just... stops. I still have to figure it out. So I'll have to wait until I can get down to my college office and download it.

This looks perfect, though, for the Zaire Tower in my ArcBuilders celestia installation!

...John...

Great work as usual. Cant wait to see more!

This is a lovely model; I will need four of these, for the Orion's Arm pre-Nanoswarm Earth...
all I have to do is figure out how to shift all these orbital elements into the correct positions...


of course you realise that incoming spacecraft would dock with the geostationary ring, while the far end of the elevator could be used to give objects a greater than orbital speed and propel them toward the Moon or eslewhere.

Eburacum45,

My understanding is that most designs have a large counterbalancing mass at the geostationary point rather than extending the elevator. The torques beyond the geostationary distance are quite different from those below it.

Yes, well it cant be at the geostaionary point, as it would be tugged out of orbit by the considerable mass of the elevator. The counterweight needs to be a distance outwards from the staionary pint, and prefeably be adjustable in some way, to balance any masses coming up the elevator.

I'll say that in English;

Yes, well it can't be at the geostationary point, as it would be tugged out of orbit by the considerable mass of the elevator.

The counterweight needs to be a distance outwards from the stationary point, and preferably be adjustable in some way, to balance any mass coming up the elevator.

You're right, of course. I was simplifying.

I 've sometimes spoke about spacelifts, that i discovered in the Sheffield novel (The Web Between the Worlds,1979), greatly updated later by Robinson's Mars Trilogy (Problems when the lift falls!!!), and so on... (yeah, i also remember sir Clarke in 1979, too, with his 'Fountains..', but I don't like this particular book, sorry: ) The concept is fantastic, but, alas, fictitious for a long, long time.
So: many thanks, Runar, for these new visions of this incredible artifact, in your exoworld and in a new place on the Earth, not exactly Clarke's Shri Lanka mountain, but in an astonishing off-Shore Archology!? What a great idea, I love your creation! Thanks, Jeam

...and as usual: sorry for my english

Superb ! I'm really waiting for this addon !

Kendrix wrote:Superb ! I'm really waiting for this addon !

It?s downloadable from my website. If you go directly to my creators dir on the Motherlode, you?ll find it there, too.

- rthorvald

If anyone can give me a hint about how to move the Elevator so it lands in Sulawesi I would be very grateful;

my efforts so far have simply spread it out into a spiral!
heh heh
steve

eburacum45 wrote:If anyone can give me a hint about how to move the Elevator so it lands in Sulawesi I would be very grateful; my efforts so far have simply spread it out into a spiral!

I don?t know where Sulawesi is, but it is much easier to tilt the model in a 3D program (like Anim8or), than to position it in the SSC file.

If you are moving it to a different spot along the equator, all you need to do is add a MeanAnomaly attribute to the objects, with the angle you want. Then import the eight models the Needle consists of to Anim8or and give them a corresponding tilt to the z-axis...

-rthorvald

Thank you.

Well, the elevator is in the right position for the Indonesian elevator I am trying to build, if I give it a mean anomaly of 40 degrees; but that means each segment is aligned at a 50 degree angle to the surface of the Earth.

I have Animator available; Iexpect that means I will have to import it into that program - it is about time I started to work with Animator, as there are many OA spaceships that want modelling...

but could I achieve the same effect by adjusting the Epoch? If the elevator starts orbiting 2 hours later, it would be in the right position...
or would it?

eburacum45 wrote:I have Animator available; Iexpect that means I will have to import it into that program ... but could I achieve the same effect by adjusting the Epoch??

No, but you can use the Orientation attribute to turn the pieces. You might find it easier than i do, i usually just gets very frustrated with it and end up going to Anim8or anyway...

- rthorvald

If your using Windows you can edit object positions manually on the fly...I think this will work on Linux as well but Im not 100% sure...

http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4805

At last the Indonesian Elevator;

It was quite easy to do in the end- I used
MeanAnomaly 40
RotationOffset 40

which seems to work;