Non-rocket spacelaunch, or How to get to LEO more efficiently
Now that the space shuttle is in its last days, and we are more and more concerned about green house gases and the environment, I feel it may be the
time to start thinking of better ways of sending men and material in space. Maybe the governments have UFO-type aircraft capable of going to orbit and
to space by other means that those that are accepted by mainstream science, but we don’t know for sure yet.
Ever since I was a kid and read a lot of novels by Arthur C. Clarke, I have been thinking of the space elevator. Material science and nanotech are
slowly but surely making that was once a wild dream a real possibility.
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files.abovetopsecret.com...[/atsimg]
A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a celestial body's surface into space. Many variants have been
proposed, all of which involve traveling along a fixed structure instead of using rocket powered space launch. The concept most often refers to a
structure that reaches from the surface of the Earth to geostationary orbit (GSO) and a counter-mass beyond.
The concept of a space elevator dates back to 1895 when Konstantin Tsiolkovsky[1] proposed a free-standing "Tsiolkovsky" tower reaching from the
surface of Earth to geostationary orbit. Most recent discussions focus on tensile structures (specifically, tethers) reaching from geostationary orbit
to the ground. This structure would be held in tension between Earth and the counterweight in space like a guitar string held taut. Space elevators
have also sometimes been referred to as beanstalks, space bridges, space lifts, space ladders, skyhooks, orbital towers, or orbital elevators.
Current (2009) technology is not capable of manufacturing practical engineering materials that are sufficiently strong and light to build an Earth
based space elevator. This is because the total mass of conventional materials needed to construct such a structure would be far too great. However,
recent conceptualizations for a space elevator are notable in their plans to use carbon nanotube-based materials as the tensile element in the tether
design, since the measured strength of microscopic carbon nanotubes appears great enough to make this theoretically possible. Current technology could
produce elevators for locations in the solar system with a weaker gravitational field, such as Mars.[2]
From:
en.wikipedia.org...
Sure, the cost and science of building such structure would be staggering but IMHO if we are serious about space exploration we have to find a way to
go to orbit more efficiently. There are other ways that are proposed, some like the skyhook (
en.wikipedia.org...(structure) ) that
are similar and could be made in this century. Other means are more out of science-fiction novel .
One of my favorite is the orbital ring. It could replace most of the satellites in orbit and could also be used to clean-up our immediate vicinity of
the junk we’ve been sending up there.
An Orbital Ring is a concept for a space elevator that consists of a ring in low earth orbit that rotates at slightly above orbital speed, that
has fixed tethers hanging down to the ground.
From:
en.wikipedia.org...
Anyone here have better ideas ? Should mankind start thinking seriously about the possibility ?
Even though I personally believe the government are not telling us everything they know about space and spaceship , if a international consortium of
private companies were to assemble and start planning stuff like that, maybe it would force some disclosure. If we can stop spending trillions of
dollars on useless wars and invasions we could do that as a project for humankind.
Salute
[edit on 6-11-2009 by grandnic]
