I’ve not played around with the Google Earth Tool (though my 13-year old son downloaded it and creeped out my wife by being able to zoom into our house), but now I have a reason to. Over at GoogleEarthBlog, FrankTaylor has posted a 3D Space Elevator model, GoogleEarth ready. Very cool.
As soon as I can get my son to quit modding up his XBOX (again), maybe he can take pity on me and show me how to use this.
It’s a breeze.
I clicked the file on the post, told my OS to open that file with Google Earth and Bob’s Your Uncle – it’s in Google Earth.
Click the name of the ojbet to zoom to it. Open the object and there are data elements in the object – in this case platform, a lifter, space station at GEO and the distant end.
My initial take is that it wasn’t to scale – and it’s not or you could not see it until you’re close. But the altitude of the various bits are spot on.