Scientific Return of a Lunar Elevator · HackerPapers discussionshttps://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1609.00709/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMTScientific Return of a Lunar Elevator — mentioned by fanf2https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42102927urn:hackerpapers:mention:1609.00709:42102927Sun, 10 Nov 2024 22:07:16 GMT<p>Reference 5 is https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.00709 They are proposing a tether that’s about 300,000 km long and 48,000 kg mass, so 0.16g/m Which seems very small. Density is about the same as water, so the diameter is about 0.12mm which (for fishing line) has a breaking strain of about 10N. UHMWPE’s strength is about 6 GPa, so (0.00012)^2 * 6e9 is about 100N. Hmm.</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1609.00709/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>physics.pop-ph