3319: Elevators

Not to be confused with 288: Elevator.

Elevators

|< < Prev #3319 (November 2, 2026)

Title text: "A reusable elevator would also be great because we'd save so much on the bulky and expensive shields that people currently use to avoid bruises and rug burns when sliding down the stairs."

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Explanation

This is one of 65 incomplete explanations: This page was partially created, but my elevator crashed before I finished. Don't remove this notice too soon. You can help by editing the explanation!

This comic imagines what would happen if elevators were named literally, and hence could only go up (elevate themselves), resulting in them being single use, like a rocket going to space. It shows the elevators that have reached the end of their upward journey being ejected out of the top of the building, and then crashing into a heap on the ground. This means that an elevator must be repaired or purchased and (re-)installed every time someone in the building wants to go up. In a typical modern elevator, the cars go up and down for the entire life of the elevator system, which can be decades. Re-use is not an issue because a real-world elevator car is normally suspended from cables attached to its top or a hydraulic cylinder at the bottom.

Some early lift designs did come somewhat closer to the concept of the disposable car elevator. A paternoster lift uses a continuous chain of elevator cars moving at a slow fixed speed as an alternative to the single car design. A paternoster avoids the need for any form of floor alignment or the car calling and control system, which required either an expensive (for the time) relay-based responsive system or an attendant riding in the elevator. Paternoster lifts were popular when the cost of single-car control systems outweighed those of a chain of cars and the accessibility/safety issues of passengers boarding them in motion.

One concept for a disposable lift elevator could be conceptually similar to a single direction paternoster, where a car is lifted a fixed height (i.e. one 'floor') and then held in place while a new car is installed below it. When that car is raised to the same height it pushes the first car up another floor. This creates a single upwardly-moving stack of cars with the topmost car being ejected out of the chute when it reaches the top floor. This could be justified under certain demand scenarios where there will always be a load ready for the next car and a one-floor lift mechanism is the only option available. This system would work in a similar way to the self-assembly of construction cranes or the construction technique of climbing formwork. Even under this highly optimistic scenario, the simple cars could still probably be returned for reuse via an out-of-band process like a slide or zipline.

The comic is probably a parodic commentary on the difference between expendable spacecraft which, for a long time, were the only real means to access space, and reusable spacecraft, which have only fairly recently been developed in earnest, and have significant or (potentially) full reusability, aside from the fuel load and any cargo. A space elevator would be even more like the 'non-disposable' travel system that this comic's characters apparently hope for, but the comic does not reference these directly.

The title text notes that another advantage of elevators that go down as well as up is that people don't need to find another means to descend from the upper floors of the building. Apparently, rather than make the lengthy walk down the stairs, people had been sliding down them, which was presumably faster and less tiring. However, it necessitated the use of shields (which they presumably had to take up with them in the elevator) to prevent injuries from friction burns and blows due to the uncontrolled descent. This parodies the use of shields in space travel to protect against heating during re-entry and impacts on landing.

Transcript

This is one of 41 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. You can help by editing the transcript!

[Cueball and Megan, both shown very small and barely recognizable, are standing at the bottom of a skyscraper which has eight rows of windows above the ground floor. On the roof of the building is a chute ejecting an elevator, as a dotted line shows the path of the elevator falling from the chute towards the ground. On the ground is a pile of crumpled elevators.]

Cueball: It's such a waste.

Megan: If only there were a way to bring them back down intact.

[Text below the panel:]

Skyscrapers were a lot less economical before the development of the reusable elevator.

Trivia

This is the first comic about elevators since 897: Elevator Inspection.

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Discussion

first 66.154.219.128 21:03, 2 November 2026 (UTC)

S3C0ND P0S7! 73.132.167.116 22:05, 2 November 2026 (UTC)

there was a comment here before. anyway, f1rst p0st. sorry if this appears out of the blue, because I cant see the comments 73.132.167.116 02:05, 3 November 2026 (UTC)

Before disposable elevators we had paternoster lifts but they turned out to be too slow to reach escape velocity to the offices. Sternburg.export (talk) 10:10, 3 November 2026 (UTC)

Maybe it is time to rename the elevator, now that it may also be used to descend 129.27.217.99 11:31, 3 November 2026 (UTC)

Except we don't call escalators that are going down anything else. I would allow de-escalator, maybe. 13:54, 3 November 2026 (UTC) 130.76.25.47 13:54, 3 November 2026 (UTC)

Only once? I hereby present the re-escalator!

At first glance, I had thought that "If only there were a way to bring them back down intact" was sarcastic, like they knew full well that they could be, but it was entirely too fun to watch them smash on the ground. 2A09:BAC6:C5EB:1BE1:0:0:2C7:11 16:23, 3 November 2026 (UTC)

I read a book once where they add elevators to a building but to keep order the designer makes one elevator for going down and one elevator for going up. They only got used once.--what's a signature? (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2026 (UTC)
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