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To: saganite

wait, wait, wait...

The Moon orbits the Earth. Are they proposing a static elevator between the two? I see this ending poorly, yet expensively at the same time.


3 posted on 09/28/2005 1:25:10 PM PDT by BostonianRightist (I looted New Orleans and all I got was 40 of these lousy taglines.)
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To: BostonianRightist

No, no, no...

Sattelites are already routinely placed in a "geosynchronous orbit." Sattelites stay in orbit because their inertia (improperly called, "centrifugal force") cancels out gravity. The closer to the earth they are, the faster they spin relative to the earth. So there is a point, hundreds of miles high, where the speed they are travelling matches the rotational velocity of the earth. This allows a satellite placed on the equator to stay precisely over the same point of land.

The idea would be to balance a ribbon stretching downward with extra mass above the orbital plane so that the mean mass of the satellite (including the ribbon) remains at the level of a geosynchronous orbit, but yet the ribbon reaches all the way to the earth. Then you can create a dumb waiter to lift small loads from the earth to the sattelite, where gravity is much, much weaker.

The problem with space flight is that nearly all your fuel is burnt just getting you to a low orbital level. Worse, the mroe fuel you carry, the heavier your ship is, so you have diminishing returns severly limiting the ability to travel into space. (Hence, massive rockets were needed to carry a lunar module scarcely bigger than a pickup truck.) If you can get as a high as a space elevator, the rest is a snap.


7 posted on 09/28/2005 1:43:13 PM PDT by dangus
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To: BostonianRightist
This is old... and moronic.

The only way to travel in deep space is to 'place' yourself at your destination... there won't be any rocket... or propulsion-type vehicle involved. In essence... you will project a 'traveling-labratory' to pre-calculated coordinates.

IMO... that's exactly what UFO's do.

23 posted on 09/28/2005 2:33:14 PM PDT by johnny7 (“I'm American, honey. Our names don't mean sh_t.”)
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