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Comments on Rotating Space Elevator
Striking concept may sound similar to sfnal technologies used by Forward and Pohl. (Read
the complete story)
| "Don't forget such variants as the ED Tether, which is much shorter, and not actually connected to the ground. It orbits, while also spinning around its own epicenter, and then uses interaction with the ionosphere to boost itself slowly towards higher orbit. This one would be placed in LEO, reaching down just far enough that a ship designed to fly like a plane could fly up, match velocities with the lower end of it as it spins by, and hitch a ride up to orbit. You then need to either wait a while, as the tether slowly boosts itself back up to orbit, or use it to deorbit a vehicle that wants to come back down, before you can risk using it to boost another vehicle to orbit, but, it is a useful and relatively cheap alternative.
http://www.tethers.com/EDTethers.html
(And I thought that this use for "untethered skyhooks" was described in Pournelle's book "A Step Further Out", which is a collection of lectures he gave back in the late 70's and early 80's)" (Ashley 5/27/2009 7:04:15 AM) |
| "Ah, found what this site is calling the ones Pournelle described: Bolos or Rotovators.
http://www.tethers.com/MXTethers.html
So it looks like this concept has been around since at least the 80's, if not earlier, and the ED variants have been around since the late 80's." (Ashley 5/27/2009 7:15:47 AM) |
| "The Lofstrom launch loop is a separate concept to this. This idea spins the tether link you would a skipping tope, but vertically (with one end attached to the ground and one to the geostationary anchor). The launch loop spins a loop along it's length, using the centrifugal force to widen the loop (lifting it up, but not out of the atmosphere).
Rotovators/skyhooks are again different, with the tether remaining straight and rotating around it's centre, alternately dipping into the atmosphere at it's ends.
As far as I can tell, this is a truly new concept. I'd hate to think what additional requirements it puts on the already high required tether strength though. I wonder how the energy required to lift loads is compensated for (I assume that lifting a weight up the elevator slows it's rotation), unless there is an odd resonance affect or it somehow works akin to gravitational slingshotting and borrows momentum from the Earth instead of from the tether." ( 5/27/2009 7:49:41 AM) |
| "Yes, a Lofstrom loop is a separate concept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lofstrom_launch_loop" (Winchell Chung 5/27/2009 1:33:18 PM) |
| "The launcher in Forward's DRAGON'S EGG was more like a space fountain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain" (Winchell Chung 5/27/2009 1:33:49 PM) |
| "I'm not clear on this term 'slide' ..." (um 5/30/2009 10:46:05 PM) |
| "How do you spin this loop and the most important question is: which force drives you (or a payload) up from the earth against gravity without an extra kaunching force? The stirring coffee cup idea is just nonsense. It just drags down to earth the counterweight in space. Or?" (Arno Schrauwers 6/9/2009 1:31:12 AM) |
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