Reddit Reddit reviews Fear the Sky (The Fear Saga Book 1)

We found 5 Reddit comments about Fear the Sky (The Fear Saga Book 1). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Fear the Sky (The Fear Saga Book 1)
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5 Reddit comments about Fear the Sky (The Fear Saga Book 1):

u/sprcow · 7 pointsr/theydidthemath

I am curious what serious research has turned up on this subject, but I've read two science fiction novels that discuss a space elevator disaster:

In Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, a space elevator extends from the surface of mars and is severed, causing it to fall to the surface, wrapping around the planet and inflicting terrible destruction.

In Stephen Moss's The Fear Saga, a space elevator from earth is cut, but instead of falling to the surface, it floats off into space.

My understanding is that the latter scenario is more likely. The "Spaceward Foundation" asserts that:

> In fact, if the Space Elevator tether were ever to break, us Earth dwellers will be hard pressed to even know that it did.
>
> Consider this:
>

  • First and foremost, if the tether breaks, everything above the break-point will "fall" upwards, escaping into space. Since most of the dangerous environments are near the bottom of the tether, only a short bit will collapse back down to Earth.
  • Remember that other than the atmospheric portion of the tether (the bottom 50 km) the rest is fashioned like a thin ribbon - closer to Saran Wrap than to a round tether - hardly a harbinger of doom. As it tries to go through the upper atmosphere, the ribbon will break into small pieces which will flutter to the water and then slowly sink.
  • The tether falls along a miles-wide corridor pointing Eastwards of the anchor station. The nominal (20 ton) Space Elevator tether weighs about 10 grams (a third of an ounce) per meter, and so over any square kilometer, the amount of material will be miniscule.
  • Perhaps the closest analog to a tether break is a small cargo ship sinking. While we do not like the idea of letting material loose in the ocean, as an aftermath of an extremely rare potential accident, it is an acceptable outcome.
  • Carbon Nanotubes, to the best of our present knowledge, are best categorized as "irritants", and the amount of material involved does not pose a significant risk to anyone. Remember that there's a 100 miles "no fly" exclusion zone around the base of the Space Elevator anyway.
  • Finally, there will 4-5 climbers on the tether. While the top ones may be able to remain in orbit, the rest will start falling towards the Earth. Manned climbers will of course have the ability to soft-land, and cargo climber might be allowed to simply splash down.
    > The biggest problem we'll face if the tether breaks is that the Space Elevator will be gone, and we'll have to build another one! For this reason, one of the first things that a Space Elevator will do is lift up a spare elevator, safely store away in orbit, and ready to be deployed in case the main one breaks.

    While we're on sources of unknown reputability, here's a conversation on /r/askscience on this topic from a couple years ago.
    >
    > A space elevator consists of three parts: the terminus up at geosynchronous orbit (or a little higher), the car that moves up and down, and the cable.
    > The terminus wouldn't fall. It's essentially just like a satellite that orbits freely.
    > The car that moves up and down would most likely mostly disintegrate on entering the atmosphere, in much the same way that the Space Shuttle Columbia did. In terms of effect, you can probably compare it to the meteorite that landed in Russia a while back.
    > I think the largest risk is going to be from supersonic whiplash from the cable, which would be under tension. How that behaves depends on where it breaks.
u/Clack082 · 2 pointsr/Futurology

That would be pretty awesome.

In the book Fear the Sky, a surfer dude working at an astronomy lab discovers something somewhat similar if you'd like to read something along those lines.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00JYMJQ78?ie=UTF8&redirectFromSS=1&pc_redir=T1&noEncodingTag=1&fp=1

u/JimmyLegs50 · 2 pointsr/bestof

There's an awesome trilogy of books called The Fear Cycle. The author must have done a crap-load of research, because the story includes a lot of just-over-the-horizon technology, including space elevators.

u/shakajumbo · 1 pointr/audiobooks

I think you'll really enjoy the Fear the Sky trilogy by Stephen Moss. Best scifi audio book I've heard in a while, and the Narrator RC Bray (who also did the Martian) contributed another masterful performance.