why is there a space elevator

@Maria White Brin as far as I know did the third book in a trilogy of Foundation novels, but I would not call the Foundation universe a part of Brin’s universe of creation even though he certainly is a great and respected writer. My comments on Huxley and Rand were just me riffing and not intended to be taken seriously. I apologize if I mislead anyone.

Rand and Huxley? When did they crash into Asimov's and David Brin's universe?

It was a project to commemorate the Legacy of the original Emperor Cleon. On a world as overcrowded as Trantor, they need orbiting platforms and connected places like the space elevator. It will happen here too if we don’t destroy ourselves or are not destroyed. Think of the fuel saved by launching directly from space instead of a rocket? It will be done by the clone hybrid of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. It will be called the JOBSGEM. The first one will be created in South Africa, then China, Australia, E.U., but based in Russia, Brazil and Nevada. The U.N. Will unofficially run it, but it will strictly be the tool of Copirateocracies bordering on Religious Fundamentalism as even science will have it’s name changed and breakaway society forms following values exposed by Ayrn Rand and Aldous Huxley.

Space elevators are part of FOUNDATION canon! David Bryn's FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH describes not one, but five space elevators on Trantor, named Orion, Lesmic, Gengi, Pliny, and Zul.

- Brin, David. Foundation's Triumph (Second Foundation Trilogy Series Book 3) (p. 51). HarperCollins e-books.

We are seeing a big chunk of car manufacturing not happening because of shortages of a cheap display chip. So don't be so sure that if something major happened to Taiwan, a major earthquake for example, we wouldn't see a demonstration of what a planet-wide single point of failure looks like. And this isn't just a Taiwan issue. In the electronics industry, there are a number of factories that manufacture a number of essential components and sensors that are required worldwide and aren't made anywhere else.

Part of the issue is that we don't see the issue because trade secrets get in the way. So it's hard to estimate what might cause a serious supply-chain freeze and what the consequences could be. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of lives lost in numbers similar to a nuke. If somebody has proof that there is a negligible chance of a planet-wide catastrophic event due to the wrong disaster happening in the wrong place, I'd love to know about it.

I do know that supply chains are often compared to traffic, and that when traffic jams happen, they usually start quite suddenly after a time of only slower flow of traffic. I also know that the supply chain traffic has been slowing for about five years now, because I work in the electronics industry. I could point you to the RS Components or the Farnell website and suggest that you look up a few common electronics components and see if you are surprised to find lead times on some pretty common ones, but I don't suppose you know what components would be good to look for, would you?

I think it's unlikely that the writers of the show, after putting so much effort into it, have no idea of what kind of bombs were used to bring down the space elevator. But even if my theory isn't canonical (yet), then what? Is there anything to stop me having any notions about antimatter that I like? As long as we can have a conversation that makes sense to me, I'm happy enough.

None of you have proposed an alternative idea to antimatter to explain what the bombs could be. If you have one, just say it. As I said before, "nano-explosives" is a name, not an explanation. And as Thorn said before, nukes wouldn't be small enough.

I don't have any strong notions about how good the security of the space elevator was. Clearly, not perfect, since it was brought down. I only argued that it was probably less-than-perfect because the Empire is falling.

Since Trantor had enough space traffic to justify a space elevator, then space travel must be cheap enough. Gaal doesn't look like she has a lot of money. People using the space elevator instead of a shuttle after an interstellar trip are no different from people catching long bus ride, instead of a taxi, after getting a plane.

If you think that if TSMC's main factory was bombed, chips would simply rise in price, you are in for a serious surprise if that ever happens. Many of the chips made there are simply not made elsewhere. It's generally assumed that the factory could be brought back to operations in a reasonable time, but I don't know if there have been any contingency plans made, or how good any contingency plans are.

I'm not aware of how big was the chunk of Trantor's interstellar commerce that was brought down with the space elevator. If you have any insider fan info, just say it.

"If the space elevator has low maintenance costs (and I see no reason why they would be high), then it should be cheaper to get the space elevator than a shuttle, and people would catch it for the same reason they catch a long bus ride instead of a plane."

In my 20 years of work, the people who take long bus rides are those who can't afford a plane (or want the scenic view, assuming that we're talking about the Rockies and not the Plains). Almost all vendors either take the plane or the train, if it's the Boston-to-DC corridor, for the sake of business.

Imagine one's a businessman from Alpha Centauri, after a tiring hyperspace journey to the Capital, now has to wait another 14 hours with a boring view (esp after the 1st couple of hours), just to get to his ground taxi/livery service to get to the hotel or the conference center. I'd demand my space shuttle immediately, upon arriving at the elevator platform.

"Calling something "nano-explosives" only gives it a name, it doesn't say where the energy for the explosion comes from."

The show is simply trying to indicate that they were hidden and not caught immediately by the sophisticated security systems in place. Nano means miniaturized and not easily perceived like a suitcase bomb.

"people have been known to build planet-wide single points of failure, such as the main factory of TSMC in Taiwan that produces a significant amount chips in the low nanometer range, or some of the facilities around the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia."

Yes, which is why there's South Korea, Japan, USA, and a few other places which makes chips. Granted, not at Taiwan's high capacity but still, if Taiwan fell, chip manufacturing would simple increase in price. Computing, on the whole, would not collapse.

And as for Saudi, they produce only 9.2 billion out of a global production rate of 76.1 billion barrels per day.

In contrast, a huge chunk of Trantor's interstellar commerce and livelihood was placed at risk by the Space Elevator.

If the space elevator has low maintenance costs (and I see no reason why they would be high), then it should be cheaper to get the space elevator than a shuttle, and people would catch it for the same reason they catch a long bus ride instead of a plane.

On the question of antimatter bombs, as far as I know, there are no noticeable sources of concentrated antimatter in the galaxy, so collecting antimatter from somewhere isn't practicable. The other option would be making antimatter, but the amount of energy used to make it would be greater than the amount of energy that you could generate from it. The antimatter could be used for bombs but not as an energy source.

Calling something "nano-explosives" only gives it a name, it doesn't say where the energy for the explosion comes from.

The space elevator is a single point of failure, but then, people have been known to build planet-wide single points of failure, such as the main factory of TSMC in Taiwan that produces a significant amount chips in the low nanometer range, or some of the facilities around the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia.

The question on the cracks on the Empire is an entirely new one that deserves its own thread, so I'll open it.

Bravo! Nice explanation. And yes, the rule of this show is that whatever the screenwriter wants to happen happens simply because said writer thinks it would be dramatic, or visually cool, or *thinks* it's still a nifty science fiction idea even if it's been proved archaic. So, in this case, the writer wants a 9/11 sort of big tower coming down. Enter the 26 mile high space elevator, never mind if it makes no sense.

It's lucky for the screenwriter that I find all this nonsense highly entertaining. 😉 otherwise I'd have stopped watching after episode 1.

The elevator was a plot device, nothing more.

Here's the problem with the space elevator in reality ... it's a retro-20th century notion, popularized by Arthur C Clarke some ~70 years ago.

IMHO, it's already archaic from the perspective of Sci-Fi.

When ppl are capable of commandeering a shuttle craft into orbit, within minutes of ground departure, why would they want to queue up for a 12-14 hour vertical train ride (no sleeper carriage), the same amount of annoying time it takes to go from NYC to Tokyo with today's subsonic jet airliner? And this doesn't even take into account the additional travel time it takes to get from let's say planet A in the Alpha Centuri system, to planet J in the Sirius system on a star cruiser.

Star Trek already closed this issue by ppl taking a small shuttle into space and then, taking off on a long distance star cruiser to hop around from star system to star system.

Trantor, being the megapolis that it is, will have no trouble having shuttle mini-spaceports at every urban nexus, with rides into high orbit to dock onto jacked up space stations to board interstellar vessels. In a way, it'll be a lot like today's major airports but in space instead of on the ground where yes, security can isolate potential terrorists, coming and going from the planet.

One or two lone bombers, with nano-explosives, wouldn't be able to cripple the entire planet's space travel if it wasn't for that single point of failure.

My best guess at the kind of bomb that could be small enough to be hidden in somebody's body and still cause that kind of damage is some sort of antimatter bomb.

I think the bombers didn't get detected because the Empire is falling. If everything was all right in the Empire, the attack wouldn't have succeeded, but because there were problems, the bombers found the cracks in the system, whatever they were. And actually, that's more or less what Hari Seldon says.

I'd like to know how a space elevator of that size could be brought down by two bombs carried under the skin by two men. How big could those subcutaneous bombs possibly be? Kinda hard to make them nuclear. And if they're not, they couldn't take out enough to bring it ALL down. This isn't like a 9/11 and the twin towers being taken out by a plane. It's an enormous structure that's not subject to gravity in the way an earthly building would be.

And how in the world did those two get past security? Where's the guy with the wand taking them aside and patting them down?

Once the space elevator has been built, it's really efficient. But building it takes a lot of expensive materials and energy. It's like a highway: once it's built, it's the best way to drive between two places. But villages don't have highways going to them, because the effort of making them isn't justified for the traffic they get.

but then, why wouldn't everyone in the whole galaxy is using elevators. the most energy-rich planet is using it but the other planets, some of them really backwards in technology, are doing fine without elevators. so in this universe, this means that the elevator is not that useful, since the others can do without.

A space elevator is an energy-saving device. The minimum amount of energy required for lifting a given mass to a given height above a planet can be precisely calculated. A space elevator is a device that allows you to lift that mass for an amount of energy so close to the minimum, that it should be better than any other method of propulsion, including exotic technologies we don't know anything about.

So the question should be rather: Why wouldn't everyone on Trantor use the space elevator to go into space? But presumably there are practical limitations on its use.