I'd appreciate any comments and suggestions, and would be happy to answer any questions.
Considering a horizontally spinning ring which has all points going faster than the tangential velocity necessary to overcome the pull of gravity at that orbital distance from center of Earth. If instead, launched as a spinning payload in a vertical launch, then split when at orbital altitude to provide delta-vee through conversion of tangential velocity into equal and opposite linear velocities, the technology also could significantly reduce launch propulsion fuel requirements.
by James E. David Cline
A PARADOXICAL PAYLOAD WEIGHT-REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY Here is a paradox on what seems to be a potential space transportation device. Of course it can't work, but why not?
Let's mentally create the device through an imaginative evolvment: start with a imaginative picture of a horizontal evacuated tube, say, one yard (or one meter) long. At each end place a sufficiently powerful reflector to let a stream of mass bounce back and forth between the reflectors, travelling in the evacuated tube. The mass stream is travelling at or above orbital velocity, say 20,000 mph at sea level, along its horizontal path.
Since the mass stream is travelling horizontally and at orbital velocity, it is effectively in orbit around the Earth and thus it adds no weight to the device, right?. If the mass stream is travelling above the orbital velocity for that distance from Earth center, then it would appear to have negative weight, and thus able to exert a lifting force upon the device containing it (the tube with the reflectors) since the tangential velocity would be greater than that necessary to overcome the gravitational attraction of the Earth.
To reduce the power needed for the end reflectors, make the mass stream path bounce along an equilateral triangle, needing 3 reflectors. And then between 4 reflectors forming a square. Carrying this process of adding sides to the polygonal path, we reach a limit of a circular shape,requiring minimal reflector strength.
Continuing to modify this device, let the mass stream become a solid spinning ring, spinning in a horizontal path at or above the speed of orbital velocity (at sea level, say, where the gadget is being tested) within an evacuated toroid. Make the spinning ring of material of sufficient tensile strength and diameter so as to not break up. Since all points on the spinning ring are travelling in orbits around the Earth, the ring would appear to have no weight;and if its speed is increased even faster, it would even exert lift force on the evacuated toroid it travels within (again, the velocity of each point on the horizontally spinning ring is greater than the velocity tangent with Earth's center needed to balance out the pull of gravity there), assuming very low friction electromagnetic bearing surfaces between toroid and spinning ring. If the upward force exceeds the weight of the evacuated torus, up it goes! (Of course, we know it couldn't go up, for that would be like anti-gravity, and we know that is impossible. But why won't it work? That is the question.) Has anyone carefully measured the weight of a horizontally-spinning gyroscope, before and after spin-up?
AUGUMENTING DELTA-VEE USING STORED KINETIC ENERGY:
It may also be possible to greatly reduce launch vehicle propulsion system & fuel requirements, by similarly storing the delta-vee energy required for orbital velocity in the form of kinetic energy of a splittable spinning ring pair of satellites.
Consider a situation where a ring of material is sitting motionless some 90 miles over some point on the earth, the circumference of the ring spinning around at a speed equal to the orbital velocity at that altitude, about 19,000 mph...it is interesting to contemplate that here we have an object which has all of its component parts moving at orbital velocity yet is actually not in orbit. This offers a way to significantly reduce the fuel requirements to launch certain kinds of satellites. If the spinning ring were lifted from the earth's surface vertically to an orbital altitude, and then split into equal parts, each part would suddenly be in orbit due to their tangential velocities being converted into linear velocity.
To put an object into earth orbit, starting at the earth's surface, one has to add energy to it several ways: a) the energy required to lift it to the orbital altitude, say 90 miles up; b) the energy required to push aside some 15 lbs of air per square inch of frontal crossection; and c) the energy required to accellerate the object by the 19,000 mph required to stay up there in orbit. This last item "c" perhaps could be stored as kinetic energy of the spinning ring, instead of as chemical propulsion fuel energy.
Thus this idea suggests a way to eliminate the need for the fuel to accellerate the object by 19,000 mph. This energy is stored in the form of kinetic energy in the spinning ring, spun up electrically on the ground before launch, and released by the splitting of the spinning ring when lifted by the rocket to a vertical altitude of 90 miles or so. Since fuel is needed to lift the fuel used to accelerate a satellite to orbital velocity, a large savings in fuel and engine requirements would result. Some of the savings would be offset by the toroidal vacuum housing and the magnetic suspension system. But it appears that a splitable pair of spinning satellites, lifted within a shroud aboard a conventional launch vehicle, could store all or part of their orbital velocity energy requirements in the form of their spinning kinetic energy. (The retrograde satellite half of the split sponning ring could be a dummy mass headed for re-entry.) The functional satellite, already lifted by conventional rocket means to an orbital altitude, is released from its balancing mass at precisely the instant required the satellite would have to be built to withstand the enormous gees while being part of the spinning pair of masses, as well as the sudden shock of instantly going from this great accelleration to free-fall at the moment of release
In these scenarios, we have explored both a paradoxical seemingly weight reduction device, as well as a way to reduce launch costs.
Copyright C 1995 James Edward David Cline SSN#525-82-1047