Space Elevator

> Space elevators are actually a possible idea being considered by scientists. > The hard part is making a strong enough cable. And finding enough elevator music...

Most engineers would bring up a lot more issues than just finding a strong cable. Also, most attempts with e.g. carbon nanotubes have been abandoned ages ago https://www.newscientist.com/article/2093356-carbon-nanotube....

- We don't have a good ascent mechanism other than rockets - and then we might just use rockets without building an elevator. - We don't have a good (and safe) descent mechanism. - Maintenance? Protection from space debris? Protection from oscillations? Ground-protection if the elevator collapses?

This is dyson-sphere level of fiction. We can do back-of-the-napkin calcualtions on how things would work, but the practicalities make it completely impossible or impractical.

Kim Stanley Robinson's description of a Martian space elevator falling and wrapping twice around the entire planet convinced me that they aren't a good idea.

https://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/content/clarke

A version of this also happens in the first season of Foundation, the Apple TV series based on Asimov's novels.

Would you recommend that show to the HN crowd? The books are super well liked around here, for good reason.

Apple's put out a staggering amount of content the last few years, I wasn't even aware this one debuted!

I’ll give apparently a controversial take. The show is great. If you’re going into it expecting the books to be the guiding source material you’ll be severely disappointed. If you go into it assuming you’re watching a show that roughly takes high level concepts from the books but is its own thing and let it stand on its own, I think it’s worth watching.

I'm fine with series not following the books. But the show bugs me because it has great production values -- particularly the third season -- and great actors. But the writing and plotting is all over the place ranging to very bad. It is a bit dumb and always pretentious. It's the 70's version of Battlestar Galactica of our age.

This is the issue that I have with many Apple TV+ shows. The production value is always very high, but it has no correlation with whether the writing is actually good.