Re: Is a space elevator worth its weight in diamonds?


Joe Strout wrote:
In article <1185392365.034200.4710@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Einar <einarbb@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

What is a rotovator?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space tether

Interesting, I didn?t know this. According to that link, an orbital
rotovator could be combined with airlaunch, i.e. a high flying veicles
flying at mac 12 could theoretically attach an object to a grappling
hook of a orbital rotovator which subsequently would fling the object
ther rest of the way to orbit.

That's the basic idea, but of course the concept benefits from vehicles
that can go higher (meaning less drag on the rotovator) and faster
(meaning a shorter/slower rotovator), so a suborbital rocket of some
sort might be ideal -- the disadvantage there being, of course, that if
it misses the rendezvous, it's got to come all the way back down;
there's no second try on the same flight.

Tethers Unlimited (http://www.tethers.com/) has done a lot of
interesting studies on things you could do with tethers (mostly rotating
ones) in space. There's a lot of material on that site worth reading.

Best,
- Joe

--
"Polywell" fusion -- an approach to nuclear fusion that might actually work.
Learn more and discuss via: <http://www.strout.net/info/science/polywell/>

Thank, I´m sure to start nippling at that material :)

Cheers, Einar

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is a space elevator worth its weight in diamonds?
    ... rotovator could be combined with airlaunch, i.e. a high flying veicles ... (meaning a shorter/slower rotovator), so a suborbital rocket of some ... interesting studies on things you could do with tethers (mostly rotating ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Is a space elevator worth its weight in diamonds?
    ... rotovator could be combined with airlaunch, i.e. a high flying veicles ... (meaning a shorter/slower rotovator), so a suborbital rocket of some ... Some of the tether designs sound somewhat massive, ...
    (sci.space.policy)