{"id":1982,"date":"2014-11-17T00:05:14","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T06:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=1982"},"modified":"2014-11-16T18:36:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T00:36:15","slug":"87-miles-from-the-equator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/?p=1982","title":{"rendered":"89 miles from the Equator"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"89 miles<\/a>, that’s how far the capital of Singapore is from the equator, the latitude where ‘conventional wisdom’ says a Space Elevator should be built.\u00a0 Not very far at all.\u00a0 And this is one of the main reasons why a 2006 study<\/a> by Dr. Paul T Mitchell<\/a>, then a Visiting Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University<\/a> concluded that Singapore would be a very good location for a Space Elevator.<\/p>\n

He summarized why<\/a> he believed this to be so;<\/p>\n

“A space elevator would exploit both Singapore\u2019s proclivity for high technology as well as its only natural resources \u2014 human ingenuity and geographical location. While there are many speculative reasons for the construction of such a system, the absence of energy resources would form Singapore\u2019s primary interest in a space elevator: unlimited and cheap power from enormous space based solar arrays.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he itemized his reasons for locating it in Singapore;<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Energy (solar power satellites – no, I’m not a fan of this idea<\/a>)<\/li>\n
  2. One of the few terrestrial locations near the equator that enjoys political stability<\/li>\n
  3. Excellent logistical connections<\/li>\n
  4. A strong economy<\/li>\n
  5. A highly educated population<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    He does not mention one of the reasons why ‘conventional wisdom’ (I really like using that term when referring to a Space Elevator) says that one should NOT locate a space elevator in such a location as that because of ease of access for terrorists.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I think this is a very real concern.\u00a0 A space elevator (like an airplane) is very susceptible to nut-jobs with explosives and physical isolation will be, IMHO, one of the major ways that such risks can be minimized.<\/p>\n

    Dr. Mitchell’s study is also available for download<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    \"\"I mention this 8-year old study in today’s blog post because of this<\/a>, an item mentioned at the end of Appaji Reddem’s article in The Hindu<\/a> where he states that ‘according to [unnamed] sources’, an “…elevator to space…still is under the active consideration of the government<\/em>” of Singapore.<\/p>\n

    I’ve posted a comment on the story asking about the “sources” for this information – their doesn’t seem to be any other way to contact the author.<\/p>\n

    It would be very nice if it were true but they’re going to have to deal with the materials problem, just like everyone else…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    89 miles, that’s how far the capital of Singapore is from the equator, the latitude where ‘conventional wisdom’ says a Space Elevator should be built.\u00a0 Not very far at all.\u00a0 And this is one of the main reasons why a 2006 study by Dr. Paul T Mitchell, then a Visiting Senior Fellow at the S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1982"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1982\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spaceelevatorblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}