That's the least of the worries facing the construction of a skyhook. I don't think Heinlein's Kenya Beanstalk is possible. It would have to stretch out so far to defeat gravity that it would hit so many satellites. That's the first issue that pops to mind.
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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Its not really how radiation work, radiation don't move trough a tube and material don't necessarily get radioactive from being irradiated, actually the cable would contribute stopping radiation, and radiation resistance is definitely something you need to consider in a space elevator material.
Induced radioactivity is mostly the result of contamination from radioactive materials. Whilst it's possible to induce radioactivity from gamma rays directly, you're talking "background noise" levels of radiation. Which is to say, the cable isn't going to become notably radioactive, and even then, the part that does, will be the part that isn't protected by the atmosphere. And for people to navigate those areas of space safely, we already need shielding to protect us from the suns electromagnetic radiation, so a small increase in radiation from the cable isn't going to make much of a difference to anything.
you'd get baked like Marie Curie's ovaries
It wasn't just the ovaries, it was the whole Marie
(and Pierre too, but he died from an accident before the radiation could kill him)
Compare that possibility to the radiation from sunlight. I wouldn't worry about radiation, I would be more concerned about altering earths rotation, or damage caused if the space elevator were to collapse.
Yeah the dearth of destruction left by it falling would be insane. I assume it would have to be built along mainly west coasts to mitigate risks. But maybe itβs more important to be somewhere with less hurricane/cyclone risks, and with really stable bedrock obviously.
Dearth means βa striking lack of,β as in βdearth of evidence.β (No evidence)
By the necessities of its design a space elevator has to reach geostationary orbit, which would make it tall enough to wrap around the planet twice if it fell. Wouldn't really matter if you built it on a west coast or not.
Actually, a good ways passed geostationary orbit if I remember correctly. It needs centrifugal force to keep the cable taut, since it won't be supporting its weight from the surface.
A geostationary orbit is ~35,000km from the surface of the earth. The circumference of the earth is ~40,000km.
Ah thanks, I was a dingus and looked up the diameter instead of the circumference. Still doesn't really matter where you build it. No matter what it's fucking up a a good portion of the equator if it falls.
It still can't really fall. It'd be moving incredibly fast sideways. Fast enough to miss the Earth for a while. Geo stationary orbit is the point where orbital speed matches Earth's rotational speed, so if it's anchored at the ground, then it's at orbital speed if at GEO. The higher the orbit, the slower the orbital speed. So using a higher orbit to maintain tension means it'd be traveling beyond escape velocity, held down by the cable. A break would release the mass into the solar system
Ada answered the question, but consider your question.
You said "leaving a spaceship with no suit". If your idea is that something left in space becomes dangerously radioactive then any space station or space ship would itself become dangerously radioactive.
So the answer is, no, things in space don't become dangerously radioactive. Also things in contact with radioactive substances don't themselves become radioactive except under extremely specific circumstances. Your house didn't become dangerously radioactive because of the radioactive americium-241 in the smoke detectors.
We have a free eternal source of energy.
It's called solar.
If a space elevator became a reality, the real problem would be that it can get destroyed easily by terrorists or even just a defective satellite in low earth orbit crashing into it.
And then you have a 20000 mile long cable wrapping around earth at supersonic speeds.
Oops we accidentally cut earth like a big wheel of cheese
Yum!
If a space elevator happened, I would certainly make sure I don't live in its flattening path around the equator
Just build it on one of the poles
wouldn't it be a 125β250 mile cable tops?
No, the upper end needs to be in geostationary orbit, which is at a distance of 35786 km (22236 miles).
Otherwise the cable will just wrap around the equator as soon as you launch it.
And even if you used a rigid rod instead of a cable, spacecraft released at the end would just fall back to earth cause at that low altitude it doesn't rotate with escape velocity.
How do you anchor the end in space so that you don't just retract the cable every time you try to use it?
If you figure that out give NASA a call, theyβd be real interested.
That's the neat thing about geostationary orbit. If the station at the upper end has enough mass, its own centrifugal force keeps it anchored in its orbit.
It's passed geostationary orbit. Geostationary orbit is balanced, but it needs centrifugal force pulling out. So, you need to be going faster than the orbit wants, hence, further out.
Except that you would drag it out of geostationary orbit every time you used it? Like no matter how heavy it is your still moving it closer every time you pull on the cable. You would need to constantly thrust equivalent to the mass of the cable and whatever the cable is pulling. At that point aren't you still basically just launching shit?
The more you think about it the dumber it gets. You would need to constantly move reaction mass to to the platform to create that thrust, but you'd have to use that thrust to counter the mass that you are bringing up. It's all the same problems as conventional rocketry.
Think of earth as a rotating bowling ball, with a string attached, and a tennis ball attached to the other end of the string. The craft you launch is an ant walking along the string.
Its legs push against the string, but that's nothing compared to the rotation of the bowling ball that keeps the string tight.
Technically, the ant's climbing will slow down the rotation of the bowling ball over time, but this won't have a noticeable effect for many millennia.
Right, except that a bowling ball weights about 6kg and a tennis ball weighs about sixty grams, so we would only need to build a platform that weighs 1% of the total mass of earth.
The trick with a space elevator is that the cable needs to be very thin. The material needs to be strong. That's just two reasons why we're still far from putting that to any real use.
I don't think having a small line through our atmosphere will slowly poison us. The extra radiation that would make it through is probably a rounding error. The material would have to be such that it doesn't attract radiation. And even if we discovered that this could be a problem, if we have become smart enough to build this space elevator, we'll probably be smart enough to figure out a way to filter it out.
No extra radiation would make it through because that's not how radiation works.
I think I read somewhere that we do have the technology to create a Dyson sphere but it would be too much of a massive undertaking time and labor-wise at our current level.
Not Dyson sphere (also a sphere is literally impossible), though maybe space elevator. If we weren't already so close to Kessler Syndrome, anyways...
We do not. We canβt even move solar energy from earth orbit down to earth at any scale that would be economically viable or really even useful.
We lack the material science to build something that large but still light enough to be physically stable AND somehow collect and transmit energy.
We also lack the technology to stop it from being destroyed by space debris even if we could somehow build it.
Any time you talk radiation, you need to be specific about what kind of particles, how much energy they have, and how much of it there is.
Most of the stuff in orbit is charged particles (electrons and small atoms) and low energy photons. Those get stopped by relatively thin layers of shielding, but if you're not careful you'll get cooked from raw heat.
Ionizing radiation like neutrons or x- and gamma-range photons can radioactivate materials, and take more shielding -- think feet of water or a couple inches of lead. Nuclear reactors have that, but spaceships don't. Fortunately unless you bring a reactor with you they're rare enough that it's not really necessary.
Substances become radioactive when they get hit by some kind of ionizing radiation and change into an isotope that itself emits radiation. Conducting radiation like a wick isn't really a thing.
Electrons and small atoms are kinds of ionizing radiation when they're flying around with enough energy. Also, it's not the photonic type that makes something else radioactive (mostly). It's the particles. Look up what neutrons are doing in nuclear reactors. They "contaminate" things that aren't normally radioactive because neutrons 'stick' to their atoms and make the atom unstable because now it's a different, most likely less stable isotope.
you need really spicy photons for activation to happen
in space you also have protons some with relatively high energy. most of these come from solar wind and also can cause activation