Orbital Elevators & Orbital Rings within the ST Universe

[Kamen Rider Blade]

We've only seen a Orbital Elevator portrayed a few times in ST.

Once in Voyager where Neelix claims he can help fix it.

Once in Lower Decks.

What would be the real value of Orbital Rings & Orbital Elevators IYO?

IMO, it would be a cheap way to get mass goods into space, awaiting for transport between Cargo Vessels for transporting goods into and out of your planet.

Think of the Orbital Rings as the equivalent of massive Cargo Ports for Bulk Container Ships that we use today to move goods via Large Ocean Freightors.

Moving goods via Orbital Elevator Train and then moving it into a Orbital Ring Warehouse could easily let cargo vessels move mass goods without expending lots of energy costs to use the transporter to move goods.

We all know Tranporters are fast, mostly safe, & very time efficient.

But energy wise, it can't be that efficient given the theroetical amounts of energy you need to disassemble a target object at an atomic level and reassemble it.

Especially compared to using automated droids to move everything around.

The energy costs would have to be on completely different scales and at that point, you're trading energy cost for time to get into orbit for quick preparation to be loaded onto a cargo vessel waiting in space.

What do you think?

Orbital Rings with specialized facilities would be a nice intermediate step to quarantine any individual, have medical exams before we let them transport back down to Planetside.

This way you can potentially limit any harmful bacteria, viruses, nano-machines from entering your Planetary Eco-system.

It would also be a nice way to handle Planetary Mass Transport and function as a large Space Port for people.

 

[blssdwlf]

For planets that have some efficient form of planet to orbit propulsion like impulse engines it may not make sense to commit resources for an orbital elevator.

An orbital ring might be a nice showcase of technology though.

Not sure about them being useful for quarantine/stopping harmful, invasive stuff though. An orbital elevator means the dangerous stuff doesn't have to risk burning up in the atmosphere to reach the planet surface. An orbital ring could end up being an uninhabitable quarantine ring if something got out of control and it'd be difficult to move it away from the planet...

 

[publiusr]

Anti-gravity would kill those, sadly

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Anti-gravity would kill those, sadly

What do you think is the energy cost of Anti-Gravity Cargo Haulers lift per kg compared to Electric Motor powered Linear Trains?

 

[publiusr]

That all depends on how much energy anti-gravity uses. In some fictions, it is a material effect that uses no power at all…as in the wood cladding of the Limerick Rake from IRON WOLF. Even so, wheels are probably still in use, and do not need large towers or exotic materials.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

That all depends on how much energy anti-gravity uses. In some fictions, it is a material effect that uses no power at all…as in the wood cladding of the Limerick Rake from IRON WOLF. Even so, wheels are probably still in use, and do not need large towers or exotic materials.

We know in Star Trek that you have to put in some energy to generate gravity for the gravity plate generators and some energy to lift stuff off with Anti-Gravity.

How much it is, that's never stated to my knowledge. I could be very wrong that last part.

 

[Deks]

We know in Star Trek that you have to put in some energy to generate gravity for the gravity plate generators and some energy to lift stuff off with Anti-Gravity.

How much it is, that's never stated to my knowledge. I could be very wrong that last part.

Given that gravity tends to work under extreme circumstances onboard a ship (during major power failures no less) suggests its very little... and/or that once you give it energy it could alsoe store it efficiently and for long periods of time.

Even when Captain Gomez' Obena class ship lost all power in Lower Decks we saw that the ship still had ample amount of air left for the crew, along with artificial gravity and heat.

My guess is that since everything onboard a SF ship is recycled, excess heat from reactors is recycled back into the system and used in a variety of ways... some of it is probably stored by a variety of passive systems slowly releasing it into the interior to provide life support for the crew to supplement regular heat generation and also in case of a power failure the crew won't freeze to death (at least not too soon).
Similarly, artificial gravity plating probably needs very little and can store a lot of energy which can then be used to maintain artificial gravity in a passive manner after power failure.

We've seen in ST: Enterprise that on shuttlepods, waste heat from the impulse engines is used to heat up the interior of the shuttlepod... though its probably also separately generated by a dedicated system... the impulse engine heat generation is likely used to supplement that system during normal ship operations to reduce power draw.
Similar systems in the 23rd and 24th centuries, though I'd expect them to be vastly more advanced and efficient.

As for orbital elevators and rings in ST... well, its not like UFP doesn't have the capability for doing that, maybe its just they don't need it.
With advent of efficient and quick atmospheric liftoff and entry using shuttles etc... and eventual development of transporter systems about 100 years after achieving Warp, maybe it was deemed that construction of orbital elevators was unnecessary.

Transporters may not actually require all that much energy to run in the 24th century... and even if they do, if we're talking about planteray systems where you'd expect orbital elevators to be used, then I'd have to say its trivial because they have multiple choices in terms of energy that can power these systems... say Geothermal for one thing (ridiculously massive amounts of energy there)... space based solar, fusion based power (3 large fusion generators power DS9 and all its systems, including transporters... so yeah).

Its also possible that Earth and many species may have actually built orbital elevators before, but once they reached a stage of where they can build a complex ship like the NX-01 and were already transporting inorganic material for a long period of time prior to that, its possible they used those systems for a period of time, and then disassembled them because of better and faster technology.

I would also imagine the efficiency of transporters and shuttles probably surpasses that found in orbital tethers and rings.

Shuttles and runabouts can achieve Warp in the 23rd century... transporting goods from planetar surface to space or vice verse would be dead easy by the mid 22nd century when shuttles were mainly limited to impulse, and lets face it, I don't think Earth would have bothered with transporting that much stuff from Earth in the first place. Why? Well, when you have impulse engines that can travel thousands of km/s, it stands to reason you will likely use local asteroids and planets to mine materials for starships, etc.

Simply speaking, UFP is probably beyond the stage where they would need orbital rings and elevators, and likely transitioned to using transporters and shuttles to transfer stuff from space to a planet or vice verse ver early on. Earth in particular might not have seen the use in making orbital tethers... but as I said, its possible SOMEONE may have made it and it was there, just never seen... until it was disassembled... or is just in part of Earth's orbit we never get to see?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Given that gravity tends to work under extreme circumstances onboard a ship (during major power failures no less) suggests its very little... and/or that once you give it energy it could alsoe store it efficiently and for long periods of time.

Even when Captain Gomez' Obena class ship lost all power in Lower Decks we saw that the ship still had ample amount of air left for the crew, along with artificial gravity and heat.

My guess is that since everything onboard a SF ship is recycled, excess heat from reactors is recycled back into the system and used in a variety of ways... some of it is probably stored by a variety of passive systems slowly releasing it into the interior to provide life support for the crew to supplement regular heat generation and also in case of a power failure the crew won't freeze to death (at least not too soon).
Similarly, artificial gravity plating probably needs very little and can store a lot of energy which can then be used to maintain artificial gravity in a passive manner after power failure.

We've seen in ST: Enterprise that on shuttlepods, waste heat from the impulse engines is used to heat up the interior of the shuttlepod... though its probably also separately generated by a dedicated system... the impulse engine heat generation is likely used to supplement that system during normal ship operations to reduce power draw.
Similar systems in the 23rd and 24th centuries, though I'd expect them to be vastly more advanced and efficient.

As for orbital elevators and rings in ST... well, its not like UFP doesn't have the capability for doing that, maybe its just they don't need it.
With advent of efficient and quick atmospheric liftoff and entry using shuttles etc... and eventual development of transporter systems about 100 years after achieving Warp, maybe it was deemed that construction of orbital elevators was unnecessary.

Transporters may not actually require all that much energy to run in the 24th century... and even if they do, if we're talking about planteray systems where you'd expect orbital elevators to be used, then I'd have to say its trivial because they have multiple choices in terms of energy that can power these systems... say Geothermal for one thing (ridiculously massive amounts of energy there)... space based solar, fusion based power (3 large fusion generators power DS9 and all its systems, including transporters... so yeah).

Its also possible that Earth and many species may have actually built orbital elevators before, but once they reached a stage of where they can build a complex ship like the NX-01 and were already transporting inorganic material for a long period of time prior to that, its possible they used those systems for a period of time, and then disassembled them because of better and faster technology.

I would also imagine the efficiency of transporters and shuttles probably surpasses that found in orbital tethers and rings.

Shuttles and runabouts can achieve Warp in the 23rd century... transporting goods from planetar surface to space or vice verse would be dead easy by the mid 22nd century when shuttles were mainly limited to impulse, and lets face it, I don't think Earth would have bothered with transporting that much stuff from Earth in the first place. Why? Well, when you have impulse engines that can travel thousands of km/s, it stands to reason you will likely use local asteroids and planets to mine materials for starships, etc.

Simply speaking, UFP is probably beyond the stage where they would need orbital rings and elevators, and likely transitioned to using transporters and shuttles to transfer stuff from space to a planet or vice verse ver early on. Earth in particular might not have seen the use in making orbital tethers... but as I said, its possible SOMEONE may have made it and it was there, just never seen... until it was disassembled... or is just in part of Earth's orbit we never get to see?

A very long & wordy way of saying Orbital Elevators & Orbital Rings are "Obsolete" and not in use anymore.

 

[Ronald Held]

A very long & wordy way of saying Orbital Elevators & Orbital Rings are "Obsolete" and not in use anymore.

Those are given up when a race switches from rockets to more cost efficient means of propulsion?

 

[Deks]

Those are given up when a race switches from rockets to more cost efficient means of propulsion?

I don't see why not.
We also need to realize that in Trek, Earth and most member planets in UFP are self-sufficient and invented use of impulse engine technology and fusion prior to development of Warp (usually). Meaning that orbital habitats and various facilities would be directly getting stuff from space itself (there would be no need to transport material from the planetary surface because construction facilities would be set up in Earth's orbit, the moon, etc.). And with advent of impulse engines and even shuttlepods in the 22nd century, you can easily transport people from Earth to orbit and beyond... faster than what it would take to transport people using say a tether.

We saw in ST: VOY how 'slow' a maglev tether was in comparison to a shuttle when it came to getting to and from a planetary surface... so yeah... shuttles seem to be much faster and therefore more efficient.

If they set up automated construction bots for example, you'd send them to scour nearby asteroids and planets for useful resources and use them for constructing stuff in space directly.
At that point, why would you need orbital rings or tethers to transport material from the planetary surface if the materials are being delivered from other parts of the solar system via shuttles which can also deliver them to the planet (if necessary) much faster?