Description:
Creating, developing, building and maintaining kinetically-
supporcted Earthsurface-orbital altitude bridging structures,
is a proposed key to building a nearly self-sufficient ring
of space habitats in orbit around this planet. Thus the
unique lifeforms developed on Earth can be born into the vastly
greater resources of the solar system. Includes: reason to do
it; supportive and destructive energies to such a project
;the path to and through this space scenario; technical
principles of kinetic structures; life in Clarke Belt City.
Keywords:
KESTS,SPACE,HABITAT,RING,MOON,RESOURCES,BRIDGES,CIVILIZATION
 ---------------------------------

.        9togo: RING TRACKS TO RING COUNTRY Corporation
.
.
by James Edward David Cline      SSN 525-82-1047  Canoga Park, CA USA
.
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By building a nearly self-sufficient ring of space habitats in orbitaround this planet, the unique lifeforms developed on Earth can be
born into the vastly greater resources of the solar system. Creating,
developing, building and maintaining kinetically-supported form of
bridging strucures, connecting the Earth surface ecosystem and the
ring of space habitats, is the key massive transportation system link
for this proposed scenario.
.
  This document is divided up into several sections, each to address a different kind of personal interest of readers. Select those which  you like, and skip the rest.
.
1. WHY MOVE EARTH LIVING SYSTEMS INTO SPACE IN A BIG WAY?
.
2. WHAT ARE SUPPORTIVE ENERGIES FOR SUCH A PROJECT?
.
3. WHAT ARE DESTRUCTIVE ENERGIES FOR SUCH A PROJECT?
.
4. A LOOK AT THE PATH WHICH LED TO THE PROPOSED SPACE SCENARIO
.
5. WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE NECESSARY TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM?
.
6. TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES: KINETIC STRUCTURES IN GENERAL
.
7. TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES: KINETIC STRUCTURES BRIDGING SURFACE TO ORBI
T.
8. STEP-BY-STEP SCENARIOS LINKING TODAY'S REALITY TO CLARKE BELT CITY
.
9. LIFE IN ORBITAL RING COUNTRY: CLARKE BELT CITY
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10. CONCLUDING
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1. WHY MOVE EARTH LIVING SYSTEMS INTO SPACE IN A BIG WAY?
.
First we need a hypothetical belief that it can be done, can be
achieved, and done well.  That belief will lift us up out of appearant
dead-end tracks along the way,
 energizing us with a reminder of thewhole picture, the map. Yes, we CAN get there from here.
.
Next, a quick reminder of why we need to do it.  Like humanity
eliminating forever one species of earth lifeforms every week or so,
mostly in the rainforests being slashed and burned for farmland, then
exhaused to wasteland.  Add to the list that the arid wastelands of
the entire world are collectively expanding at the rate of about 40
square miles per day.  The Sahara desert once was a well-watered
savannah.  W
e are burning up many billions of dollars of fossil fuelpetrochemicals every year, and replacing none of it.  Worldwide we
pile up one billion tons of garbage per year, putting it somewhere.
OK, that is enough thinking about this; let's not get down in the
dumps with fascination about such things.  Solutions are at hand,
harmonious solutions.  Believe.
.
The idealized motivation for creation of this space project is to
provide a means for allowing a continued expansion of human
civilization on a massive sc
ale, while enabling the Earth surfaceecosystem to be brought back into its natural functional balance. In
that spirit, the 6 billion current Earth surface human population are
defined as owner-employees of a corporation to define, design,
develop, build, operate, and maintain the ring tracks, ring country,
and restored earthsurface balanced ecosystem. (This task originally
was called "KESTS to GEO Habitat Ring".)
.
With a sufficient transportation link between Earth surface and these
rings of shielded spac
e habitats, the main human civilizations canrelocate to where their burgeoning population will not damage the
surface ecosystem further, and allow the Earth surface biosphere to be
restored to her natural balance. A proposed technology of "kinetic
structures" would provide the sufficient transportation link between
the earthsurface ecosystem and the vast ring of space habitats.
.
Civilization has been experiencing great success, and many believe the
success is too great, the population is overwhelming the
resourcebase. An easy example is the cheap & fast food hamburger, which was
produced in South America and flown in by the millions; and for which
each 1/4 pound burger's meat, it cost the life of 55 square feet of
Amazon rainforest including a 70 foot tall tree and all the creatures
big and small who lived upon it, monkeys, birds insects, other plants
...all gone in a razing fire which paved the way for its conversion
through growing grain ultimately producing a mere 1/4 pound hamburger
and 55 square feet
of infertile wasteland in a year. Wisdom does notseem to be applied adequately in that conversion process. And similar
lacks of wisdom appears typical of the processes going on right here
in America, formerly the land of the brave and home of the free. Ranks
of environmental activists declare Population Control is the answer to
increasing numbers of humans on planet Earth.
.
"Population Control" is to take the forms of fertility control, death
accelleration, massive reproductive harassment and/or migration
.Nature will use the first, second and third processes if humanity does
not consciously and wisely take control, it is said. Nature will
provide vastly increassed forms of disease, starvation, and
reproductive rivalry. Plague, famine, toxicity, fertility neutering,
reproductive harrassment, war, resource depletion ... will surely take
control if technology does not provide real options.
.
This has often happened before. No doubt when the first cave man
family outgrew the cave, similar concepts were felt, e
xpressed andacted upon. However, the ones who were cast out of (or escaped from)
their cave home went on to build their own "artificial caves", vastly
mtre of them than nature could provide, a billion of them by now
around the world, our homes.
.
"uigration" is an alternative option which technology has some
potential for providing humanity, right now. Technology is in sight
of a means for transporting the vast majority of humanity to space in
close orbit of Earth. From there the door to the vast resources
 ofyour solar system await the spark of life to be created of it.
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2. WHAT ARE SUPPORTIVE ENERGIES FOR SUCH A PROJECT?
.
By increasing our mobility, we increase our access to our resources.
Increasing access to resources increases the potential standard of
living, which increases life satisfaction potential. This document
proposes development of a transportation technology which has the
potential for increasing our mobility enormously,
thus potentiallyincreasing our standard of living.
.
The creative energy for this project is to come from a population of
newly functionally balanced human individuals, each to have the
opportunity to be restored to full balanced functionality through the
body/mind integration processes already well developed, typified by
the Educational Kinesiology created by Dr. Paul and Gail Dennison;
and psycho-sensory integrative healing music and sounds typified by
those recorded by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson's Brain-Mind
Researchproductions which integrate sounds of sea mammals in the ocean,
children, and the electromagnet sounds produced by planetary objects
interacting with the solar wind as picked up by the Voyager
spacecraft; and the accellerated learning techniques typified by Zygon
Corporation's learning machine technology. Human functionality has
been found to be greatly improved through a mere teaspoon of
nutritional extract of Amazon rainforest origin, which may
additionally make the rainforest more valuable alive
 than destroyed tomake cheap hamburgers; these nutritional extracts are typified by
products of the Rainforest BioEnergetics Corporation; no doubt many
new pharmaceuticals will be derived through refinement of these
nutrients gathered and used by the indigenous peoples in the Amazon
rainforest for centuries. Also, since the creative energy of human
individuals is strongly correllated with their sexual energy source,
another enabling technology is the new field of electromedicine which
is typified by the si
mple devices which immobilize the HIV agentwithin the human body through non-invasive induction of weak 100 uA
currents in the saline bloodstream and lymph nodes, invented by Dr.
Robert Beck (a biophysicist), thus allowing the universal return of
the natural uniquely human sexual loving between man and woman
everywhere, thus stimulating and releasing the currently-supressed
creative energies for use in creating the subject "Ring Tracks to Ring
Country" Corporation.
.
Does technology have the responsibility
 for creating options forhumanity's survival and well-being? Or does technology's role end with
just creating that which probably will make an adequate profit and for
which investors can be found?
.
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3. WHAT ARE DESTRUCTIVE ENERGIES FOR SUCH A PROJECT?
.
This task for technology would be incredibly expensive, frightfully
risky, and probably thankless. The only benefitors of the success of
this task would be the future humanity and the vas
t interlinked lifeweb of the Earth's ecosystem. None of these potential benefitors are
able or present to vote on the cost, the risk, the thankless
challenges. The productive attention of corporate power struggles,
both internal and external, is not likely to jump on this bandwagon
like it did for the Apollo Progect, or the building of the Panama
Canal. This project is too big.
.
It is easy for civilized people to ignore the task, and dull
themselves with television fantasies and fastfoods, look the other
waywhile the disastor is creeping up so slowly before it strikes,
mercillessly castrating and/or outright killing until the excess
population (and more) is gone. History repeats for those who have not
learned its lessons, those who have not gone on to create better
options and take those options.
.
(It is easier for me, too, to bury my head in the television, instead
of struggling to get people to take unfamiliar paths...there are a lot
more of those people than me, they don't like people rocking the boat,
and they expertly know how to harrass their "opponents". So I writethis document, offer it through the computer network, and then will
sit back and say that I did my part of the job, and if this option for
humanity does not get created, somebody else dropped the ball, not
me. I am really tired of getting ignored by engineering, belittled by
the space activists to whom I have reached out to for decades, and
being ridden daily by the mischievious half-informed Luddites with
their electroacoustical abuse. If
 I cannot even get a woman to sleepwith me, I surely cannot get a planetfull of people to get up and
shoulder this task. However, I can paint a picture and wave it at
them, as a hobby.
.
I am offering the following picture of a promising option which
technology could offer humanity, however. Take it or leave it. In
offering it to technology, it is technology's "ball" now, and good
luck. Of course, I desire to help more, given some encouragement, I am
still available ... however, the past shows no reason to
 expect that,only receive more harrassment, more intrusions into my tiny
earthquake-damaged bachelor's apartment to pilfer my files & other
things, for daring to suggest rocking the boat.)
.
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4. WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE NECESSARY TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM?
.
Some rough parameters of the transportation system can be formed
now:
.
PAYLOAD CAPACITY, BILLIONS OF POUNDS:
.
 For starters, it must be able to move the mass of about 6 billion
 people, or 9 E 11 pounds mass; if their average belongings were 10 times the mass of the person, the belongings to move would be 9 E 12
 pounds, or say 1E13 pounds overall. Double this to include the
 portion of hydrocarbon resources not obtainable from the lunar
 surface. The long-term transportation capacity would be a small
 fraction of this initial capacity. Electric rail systems are far more
 likely to be able to completely do this, as compared with individual
 reaction-engine chemically-fueled frei
ghtors, typified by the American Saturn-5 and the Russian Energia.
.
SAFE AND HIGHLY RELIABLE:
.
 It must be reliable enough to maintain indefinite operation, possibly
 for a century or two. Since the kinetic structures have little or no
 components which are in moving mechanical contact, extreme
 reliability is possible. Offsetting this might be certain natural
 disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and possibly deranged
 sabateurs, which might down an occasional transportation loop. Like
 aircraft,
they will need routine inspection, maintenance, periodic overhaul, retirement of obsolete versions and replacement with new
 models when appropriate.
.
MUST BE NON-POLLUTING OF THE SURFACE BIOSPHERE:
.
 It must not significantly pollute the Earthsurface biosphere during
 the transportation process. Using an electricly powered transportaion
 system with power which is ultimately derived from space-based
 solar-electric powerplants, this requirement would be met.
 Offsetting this in part would be the polluti
on/damage caused if and when any transportation loop failed and crashed to earth, analogous
 to an aircraft crash, only bigger. Compared to reaction-engine
 alternatives, an electrically powered transportaion system would
 create insignificant environmental pollution.
.
MUST BE CAPABLE OF BEING BUILT QUICKLY ENOUGH:
.
 It must be up and running quickly enough so that people can be
 assured that they can back off from the current massive rate of
 environmental destruction, for example to stop the current
 d
estruction of the rainforests worldwide. Given the promise of a good home in space within, say, 10 or 15 years, perhaps people can endure
 some extra hardships for that long, and preserve the genetically
 diverse ecosystem while continuing a reasonable rate of population
 increase during that time period. To create such a radically new
 massive transportation system in just 8 or 10 years will require a
 new kind of advanced effective workforce. Thus the need for the
 newly-available processes and tools for
 fully functional balanced human well-being which were metioned early in this document, such as
 kinesiological brain-mind balancing, brain-stimulating acoustic
 learning machines, rainforest botanical-derived super nutritional
 extracts, and electromedicine health restoration equipment...all of
 which exist now already, and are continuing to improve through
 further research & development. These human improvement processes
 need to be adapted and expanded to boost enough people out of the
 "couch potato"
mode of existence, into an enthusiastic full balanced functionality, so as to be able to get this enormous transportation
 system up and running soon enough.
.
CARRYING LIVE PAYLOAD:
.
 It must be able to transport humans and all other size lifeforms all
 the way from earthsurface to the orbital location of the habitat
 rings. Shielding needs to be provided through the Van Allen radiation
 belts, and other radiation enroute the habitat rings orbit. The
 habitat rings themselves will be shielded by the surr
ounding raw materials processing slag, and by added mass of non-recyclable
 materials generated by the life processes inside the habitats.
 Besides carrying human families, the transportation system must
 carry herds of cattle, flocks of chickens, giraffes, elephants,
 pods of dolphins, whales and adult citrus trees, for example, each
 shielded adequately from environmental stress during the
 transportation process. Elecric rail systems could have the capacity
 to carry large and diverse lifeforms.
.
CARRY
ING INANIMATE PAYLOAD:.
 It must be able to carry all the large structural components for the
 first complete habitats, until the lunar materials transportation
 and fabrication system is adequately up and running. This might mean
 building habitats for, say, 2 million people in 5 years directly from
 Earth resource materials hauled up the transportation loops, prior to
 the start of robotic fabrication of the remainder to the habitat
 structures from lunar resource materials. Electric rail systems could
 
carry large structural components, and transport large volumes of liquids.
.
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.
5. A LOOK AT THE PATH WHICH LED TO THIS SPACE SCENARIO
.
The promise of the exploration of space is that of the adventure of
exploration of unknown places, the income of material resources needed
by civilization, the discard of toxic radioactive wastes into the sun,
the receipt of energy to power civilization's electrical power grids
without pollution or waste
 of precious petrochemical feedstocks, theplanting of separate niches for life, and that of the relief of the
burden of mankind's civilization upon Mother earth's ecosystem.
.
Many of these are survival issues, but none of them as
attention-getting as the survival issues when a then-hostile nation
put nuclear missles on neighboring Cuba's soil. Then we nervously
looked at the Moon, along with the same hostile nation's increasing
space capability, and, putting the two together, feared the moon might
be used
 as another launch platform for nuclear missles at us. ThePARADE Sunday newspaper supplement's cover pictured such a missle
site, complete with domed personnel quarters, clearly impressing the
majority of us. We initiated the Apollo space program to put our
people on the Moon.
.
However, after some spetacular successes in landing our men on the
moon's surface, we realized that the rival nation was not also doing
so, along with the feared missles like in Cuba. So the last several
Apollo launches were scrapp
ed, and the newspapers reported the onlything of interest found on the moon was the age of its rocks, and so
the general public lost interest in the Moon...its threat now removed.
.sThe Apollo program had been proclaimed a peaceful scientific effort,
even stating on the first spacecraft lander a plaque that said we came
in peace for all mankind. So much data actually was obtained which yet
reposes as knowledge for using the moon's resources to expand
civilization beyond the earth surface ecosystem. We foun
d that thereis much oxygen, aluminum, iron, titanium, silicon and other raw
materials there, and we found we can live and do useful work there,
and make explorations on the surface of the moon, given adequate
preparation for the trip.
.
The Moon itself was not thought to be a satisfactory place to build
nnw cities, because it has a long 14 day-long period of darkness in
which solar power would be unavailable, and that the gravity was fixed
at 1/6 of earth's gravity, not enough to sustain our earthly bodies
'strength. Also, any finished products made there for use on the Earth
surface, would have to be lifted out of the Moon's gravitational well
before decending to earth surface, taking a lot of energy, especially
for the mammoth proposed Solar Power Satellites.
.
So more satisfactory sites for the envisioned industrial colonies were
found at L4 and L5, located the same distance from the Earth as is the
Moon, yet without the moon's gravitational well to contend with. Towns
built there could spin like a wheel,
 inside of which would be the sameeffective force as earth's gravity, enabling conventional life
activities, such as bathing and going to the toilet, very necessary
frequent activities which are very difficult in free-fall without
gravity to move things downward. With a means of getting the raw
material from the Moon's surface over to the industrial towns at L4
and L5, they could build the massive multigigawatt power stations for
providing electricity to the many civilizations on earth surface.
These power
 plants would need to be moved to the unique orbit aroundEarth that is synchronized with the rotation of the earth, so that
objects placed in it appear to hang motionless over the Earth's
equator without effort. Proposed by Arthur Clarke, communication
satellites have inhabitated this GEO orbit for decades already.
.
Even this Geosynchronous Earth Orbit itself, also known as the Clarke
Belt, could be a site for industrial towns, given adequate
transportation facilities for materials and personel. GEO is a
lotcloser to Earth tnan is the Moon, L4 or L5. Yet at this time it is an
extreme effort to place even communication satellites there; how could
we possibly build towns and cities there? At a cost of $1000 a pound
delivered there, it would cost $150,000 to put an average weight
person there, not to mention the cost of taking his/her luggage along,
and building a home there.
.
In 1983 the "L5 NEWS" published an outline of an outrageous
transportation concept, called "The Texas and Universe Railroad", by
Earl
e Smith. Although there were many holes in the concept aspresented there, it proposed building an exotic form of a railway that
circulates quasi-elliptically between Earth surface and GEO. Since
there are no known materials strong enough to build such a bridge
extending 22,300 miles up, the tracks for the railway would be built
on a bridge structure supported by the stored high speed kinetic
energy of mass circulating within it, analogous to a combination of a
high-shooting water fountain and a circulating
 pulley belt, only usinga belt made of iron links in this form. Iron could be pushed and
pulled by appropriately pulsed magnetic fields, thus accellerating and
guiding the iron belt in its path; the belt in turn supported a
electrically powered train rail structure.
.
The concept has continued to evolve enormously, primarily as described
in KESTS-related files here on the GEnie network. With the payload
capacity of such electrically powered transportation systems, the
first of the 10,000-person-each indust
rial towns in GEO could then bebuilt entirely from materials imported from the earthsurface. With
those industrial towns already 22,300 miles up in space, the task of
setting up raw material delivery systems on the Moon or maneuvering a
nearby asteroid to there for processing into the structural components
of more similar towns in GEO.
.
The real possibility for truely massive space colonization thus opens
up, without need for any new discoveries in fundamental science. Just
a lot of R & D in a new field,
that of "kinetically supportedstructures", the field of the electromagnetic coupling of masses
traveling at fast orbital velocities in vacuum along channels within a
structure, so as to exchange energy needed to support the weight of
the structure in a gravitational field, and couple energy to move
payload vehicles along the surface of the outside of the vacuum stream
channels.
.
Some distantly related R & D has already been done, that
of O'Neill's electromagnetic mass driver technology. Particle
accellera
tors also use some of the general principles ofelectromagnetically manipulating fast masses. The need to create
transportation systems adequately free of the low frequency pulsing
magnetic fields which are damaging to the human biosystem, linked to
some forms of cancer such as leukemia, is also pointed out.
.
With the real possibility for space colonization within a mere decade
or two, given an adequate active enthusiasm by humanity for the
project, it is not necessarily true that there is no hope that the
average person living in the present time will be able to live in acomfortable space colony. (However, that enthusiasm is conspicuously
missing at the present time, note.)
.
And it is not necessarily so that massive space colonization in our
time cannot remove the population/resource pressure on the Earth
surface ecosystem in time to provide ecological balance and genetic
diversity. Thus the massive process of cutting back the human
population, already currently in process using the HIV disease and
anothe
r subtle process, is not necessarily needed anymore to protectthe Earth's ecosystem from destructive imbalance by an expanding
minimally-competant human civilization population.
.
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6. TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES: KINETIC STRUCTURES IN GENERAL
.
A kinetic structure, as referred to in this document, basically is a
compression bridge structure that inherently carries the energy which
propels vehicles along its outside surface. In general, a Kinetic
Structure would maintain its shape against forces acting againstitself by using the kinetic energy of rapidly moving mass within
itself to resist those forces. The mass stream's intrinsic path is
maintained by automatically re-optimizing the velocity of each of the
elements at thrust points along it's path. Energy coupling to these
elements is electromagnetic, except chemical propulsion can be used
during one form of the initial massive distributed energy input during
erection of the structure.
.
GENERAL
SHAPES OF KINETIC STRUCTURES.
The direction of motion of the rapidly moving masses determines the
forces which determine the shape of such a structure. A static shape
is created by the balance of these internal kinetic energy forces with
externally applied forces.
.
One common example of a static kinetic structure is that of an
inflated balloon, which maintains its shape by using the energy of the
rapidly moving mass of the gas molecules within itself. It tends to be
spherical in shape due to the random om
nidirectional moving masseswithin itself. Lining the moving masses up to all go the same
direction, forming a narrow stream approximating ballistic
trajectories at orbital velocities, we begin to see potential for
traversing great distances, even upward beyond the atmosphere and
back.
.
If a long piece of string has its ends tied together, it can lie
crumpled in a heap on the table. However, if it is picked up and then
somehow vigorously spun around its own center, it would tend to
stretch out into the sha
pe of a circle by the action of thecirculating form of its kinetic energy.
.
This long, thin shape lends itself to the formation of bridges, which
would balance the force of gravity on the structure and its carried
loads by using the force of balancing deflection of the mass of the
rapidly moving mass stream within the structure of the bridge.
Arranging the mass elements to all move along the same direction with
each other, a mass stream is formed. Instead of the spherical balloon
structure, the mass strea
m forms a long relatively thin structuralshape.
.
DYNAMICS INVOLVING THE KINETIC STRUCTURE
.
Consider the long thin path of a stream of mass elements moving at
orbital velocities which are electromagnetically coupling their energy
weakly to their surroundings. This electromagnetic coupling of energy
allows their guidance and accelleration/decelleration. Decelleration
energy exchange provides a mechanism for supporting vehicle trackways
along its path, coupling energy to propel vehicles along those
trackway
s, supporting the weight of surrounding evacuated tubing alongatmsopheric portions of the path, and resisting deflection by external
lateral forces.
.
If an external load is applied at some point against that mass stream,
it would find itself resisted due to its deflection of the direction
of the mass stream at that point. A small portion of the kinetic
energy of the elements of the rapidly moving mass stream is used up in
that resisting mechanism. If the circulating system has the ability to
restore the o
riginal position and velocity of the elements of the massstream, such as at the two endpoints of a parabolic arch spanning some
area, then it has the ability to maintain its structural integrity
against such external forces. Such forces could be the weight of
evacuated tubing surrounding the path of the parabolic arch, payloads
moving along it, and wind loads. For balance, the path of the stream
needs to be like a highway, supporting equivalent traffic flow in both
directions along side-by-side lanes. This
 is necessary both to cancelout the longitudinal component of external loads applied at a point,
and also needed because in an arch against the pull of gravity, only
the upward-moving stream can support loads.
.
(There is an exception to this. If the external load supplies energy
to actually accellerate the downward mass elements even faster
downward, it would produce an upward stpporting force on the external
load. An example of this is in supporting the weight of a solar
electric powerplant located on th
e side of the arch. Such a powerplantwould increase the energy stored in the rapidly moving mass stream;
the additional energy could then be extracted elsewhere along the
stream, thus also providing the function of a power transmission
line.)
.
ELEMENTS OF THE MASS STREAM
.
The design of the mass stream elements needs fit several criteria.
First,they need to contain a permanent magnetic field source, because
this is generates current in coils which it passes through so as to
give off energy, and is also th
e field which is thrust against whenthe mass element is being re-accellerated and guided. Probably several
sets of permanent magnetic field sources will be needed so as to more
easily define its position and velocity when it is being course and
velocity corrections by the earth surface accellerators. Second, they
need to be able to withstand physical contact with other elements in
the mass stream; probably there will be a periodic wear parameter
observed, and those exceeding specs would be culled from the
streamand replaced with refurbished ones. Third, there are different types
of mass elements. Most are simply kinetic energy quanta; others serve
specialized functions such as carrying small specialized payloads
material within themselves and others being payload on a one way trip
to be raw material for structural components.
.
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7. TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES: KINETIC STRUCTURES BRIDGING SURFACE TO ORBIT
.
The shape of the kinetic structure is de
termined by the geography ittraverses; in this case, the spherical shape of the planet. Each
kinetic structure would consist of a minimum of two contra-rotating
mass streams which are laterally coupled all along their length,
roughly taking the shape of an ellipse which touches the earth surface
at its lowest end, and circling the planet, touches the altitude of
the habitat ring at its highest end. This shape requires the least
magnetic field strength at the bending points on or near the
earthsurface, wher
e the greatest deformity from the elliptical shapeis needed to avoid dual surface contact sites.
.
PLANETARY BODY ACCESS STRUCTURAL SHAPES
.
Besides the vertical loop and the parabolic arch shapes, there is
another basic form. If the mass stream is sufficiently large as to
extend upward at an angle from some point on the earth's surface, it
could continue on to be gradually bent by the earth's gravitational
field to circle the earth to return to its point of origin, such as
from a point on the equator circ
ling around the earth back to itself.All the way around the Earth, extending far out into space on the
opposite side of the planet from its surface contact central point.
Non-equatorial surface contact points might need a mirroring point on
the opposite side of the equator from itself.
.
APPLICATIONS OF PLANETARY BODY ACCESS KINETIC STRUCTURES
.
Such large kinetic structures could provide a transportation
capability millions of times greater than what we currently have. This
massive capacity would totally
change mankind's relationship withspace. The experience of building and utilizing a Stanford Torus space
settlement in the Clarke Belt, constructed entirely of resources from
the earth surface, could teach us a lot which would help in the design
of more of the settlements, as well as learn technological and
sociological techniques useful on Earth herself. The first space
settlements in the Clarke Belt, permanently connected to earth surface
by the kinetic structures, create a beachhead for returning the th
eMoon, this time to create the industrial resource base for building
the main structure of vast numbers of those settlements in the Clarke
Belt. For example, building just one continuous string of Island-One
type 10,000 resident-each stanford torus space settlements all the way
around the earth-circling Clark Belt, would provide residential areas
and supporting agricultural areas for up to 15 billion people. This
would enable a vastly expanding human civilization while taking their
load off of Mother Earth
..
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8. STEP-BY-STEP SCENARIOS LINKING TODAY'S REALITY TO CLARKE BELT CITY
.
.                     CAN WE GET THERE FROM HERE?
.
.            ******* YES!  IF WE CHOOSE TO, WE CAN! *******
.aParts of the path to space are made already. We have the space shuttle
in current routine operation from ground to low earth orbit and back.
We have the years-orbiting Soyuz space station example. We have the
Apollo footprints on the Moon. We have pers
onally seen and touchedrocks brought back from the Moon. We have precision robot spacecraft
checking out the Moon again, asteroids and our other planets. We know
we can live out there, and out there are energy and materials
resources abundantly awaiting life!
.
.               FROM HERE-AND-NOW TO THERE-AND-THEN
.
ASprogression from the present-day space scenario (in which the Space
Shuttle routinely is used to move small amounts of people and goods
back and forth between Earth surface and Low Earth Orbit)
, to a ClarkeBelt City, might be:
.
OUTLINE OF STEPS:
.
** Determination of humanity to resume expansion of civilization
** From space shuttle technology, create modular wet-launch system
** Build small artificial gravity modular toroidal space habitat
** Research and build "siphon" type Lunar to Earth orbit transport
** Create stored-energy bridges of the surface-to-surface type
** Create the first surface to Clarke Belt orbit kinetic structures
** Build first 10,000 person "Island One" type space habitat
** Convert kinetic structural support energy source to solar thrust** Develop lunar material resource base, using 2-body skyhook
** Convert lunar-to-Clarke Belt transportation link to massive link
** Create robotic construction system to build 1.5 million Island-1's
** 15-billion-humans live in Ring Country & 1 billion on earthsurface
** Restoration of the Earth surface ecosystem to long term balance
** Earth surface as a cherished balanced genetic biodiversity resource
** Expanding outward to other solar
 system vast resources.*STEPS IN MORE DETAIL:
.
Humanity decides to actively move the majority of people to
near-earth space, out of the direct path of the earth's fragile
ecosystem, instead of continuing down the present course of events of
depopulation of the planet through fatal disease and artificially
induced incompetance. Instead, the Clarke Belt City is chosen as a way
to preserve an expanding human civilization population in nearly
earthlike artificially constructed space habitat environments, whil
ealso preserving and healing the Earth surface ecosystem.
.
Pre-assembled sections of a toroidal space station design are put
into low earth orbit by the creation of a flyback engine/control type
wet launch module vehicle, largely using the existing proven Space
Shuttle technology. The wheel-shaped space habitat is first built on
the ground in the form of pre-fitted modules linked in a circle. The
design of each module is for dual use, the other use is for being the
fuel tank and payload of an unmanned eng
ine & control module whichlaunches them into low earth orbit. The unmanned engine/control
module flies back to the launch site for the next module's launch,
much as the present space shuttle returns to the Earth's surface.
(Refer to Genie Spaceport library files "Centristation III" and #2931
"Centristation IV".)
.
Use these unmanned wet-launched prefitted modules to build
artificial gravity space stations made of circles of these linked
modules to prove out the hypothesis that earth surface gravity and
atm
ospheric pressure in a rotating toroid can provide functionalstability in a group living situation which includes other life forms
in a harmonious synthesis. (Centristation III & IV)
 .
The bulk of the physical structure to be built in the Clarke Belt
around the Earth would need to be built out of space resources. The
Moon is handy and has plentiful resources of such materials as
aluminum and titanium. This material needs to be moved from the Moon's
surface to the vicinity of the Clark Belt efficiently and
 with aminimum of pre-industrialization of the Moon. Investigate forms of
materials-pumps utilizing the greater depth of potential energy of the
adjacent earth's gravity well, to lift materials up out of the Moon's
gravity well. One way to do this is to store the energy as angular
momentum: an Earth-Moon two-body orbiting Skyhook one-direction
materials pump, which picks up packaged payloads from the far side of
the Moon on a tether, payload and spacecraft tethered whirling
together around their common cen
ter-of-gravity as they continue aroundthe Moon and into Earth's gravity well, the spacecraft regaining its
energy through appropriately timed release of the payload from a
lengthened tether deep into Earth's gravity well. Hans Moravec created
the original spinning skyhook concept. (Refer to #475 "Space
Inspiration" and #927 "Longtrans 2" files.)
 .
Creation of stored-energy bridges on Earth surface to develop the
technology into a high reliability system, while also providing new
modes of long range transp
ortation of large amounts of fuels, waterand other resources. Development of emplacement techniques. Keith
Loftstrom conceptualized related structures of "launch loops." (refer
to files #475 "Space Inspiration" and #2466 "Kinetic Structures III")
 .
Fabrication of the first stored energy bridges to the Clarke Belt
create the links to the new land: the Clark Belt. Earle Smith
conceptualized a form of kinetic-energy supported bridge from Earth
surface to the Clarke Belt. (Files #475, 747 and 2466 are are som
e ofthose on the subject.)
.
First Clarke Belt "Island One" type 10,000-person space settlement
built from Earth materials, brought up on a stored-energy bridge. This
develops the functional structural design with components built
comparatively easily on the Earth's surface. Outfitting the interior
of the space settlement to include as many earth-normal features as
possible. Tests out agricultural systems, condominium homes on the
interior slopes, and creative stable harmonious social system...and
millions
 of the other necessary things needing to be tested out theretoo. (This general type structure can be found in detail in NASA
SP-413 "Space Settlements: A Design Study", and also in "The High
Frontier" by Gerard K. O'Neill. See also GEnie files such as #747 Hwy
to Earth GEO Ring")
.
Long term electrical power to support the kinetic energy bridges
needs to come from space resources instead of relying on Earth
resources, so development of solar power electromechanical thrusters
supporting these bridges needs
 to be done. They would use solar energyconverted into electrical energy to accelerate the downward direction
of the kinetic mass stream so as to replenish the energy consumed by
the support of the bridge structure and for moving payloads along it.
The thrust of that acceleration would be against the weight of the
power converter, being located along the bridge at points below
synchronous orbit. Excess electrical poser is delivered to
earthsurface power grids via the excess velocity of the downward mass
st
ream. (Refer to related information on Solar Power Satellites, aswell as files like #2466.)
.
Lunar industrialization, with a stored energy bridge transportation
system to replace the two-body orbiting Skyhook.
.
Massive transportation of lunar materials to the Clark Belt using
lunar stored kinetic energy bridges for the major part of the trip.
.
Robotic construction of more Island One space settlements in GEO,
the Clarke Belt. These 10,000-person-each wheel-like space settlements
would be linked together
like the chairs on a ferris wheel, eventuallyall the way around the planet in the Clarke Belt. Robotic construction
builds the repetitive toroidal shell structures, then would be spun up
to earth normal interior gravity, pressurized from Earth atmosphere
components, then the interior outfitted in the way things are built on
earth surface by people and machines.
.
Great living for humanity in the Earth-surface-like Clark Belt
City! It is essential that the functionality and appearance of the
interior of the
se space settlements resemble normal Earth environmentsas much as possible, not only to maintain our long term humanity
there, but also to enable ecological balance with the other imported
diverse current Earth surface ecosystem balancing lifeforms, our
biological partners in space as well as on land and in the sea.
.
Restoration of Earth surface ecological balance by City dwellers
would become vacation volunteer activity, a periodic pilgramage back
to Earth surface to heal the wounds we have inadvertently
 alreadygiven to Mother Earth.
.
Humanity looks inward...and outward. Peaceful co-existence and
capacity for creative solutions to the endless new requirements as the
City ecosystem evolves and harmonizes, will require the dwellers to
understand themselves and their relationships with that within which
they live. The inherent deep subconscious urges toward tribalistic
territoriality and win-lose upsmanship need to be understood and
updated by each City dweller to avoid default disintegration processes
of t
he mammalian sub-mind. Thus prepared, they can then harmoniouslylook outward toward the great resources of our solar system, which yet
await life.
.
**********************************************************************
.
9. LIFE IN ORBITAL RING COUNTRY: CLARKE BELT CITY
.
Such large kinetic structures could provide transportation capability
millions of times greater than what we currently have. This massive
capacity would totally change mankind's relationship with space. The
experience of building and uti
lizing a Stanford Torus space settlementin the Clarke Belt, constructed entirely of resources from the earth
surface, could teach us a lot which would help in the design of more
o
 the settlements, as well as learn technological and sociological
techniques useful on Earth herself. The first space settlements in the
Clarke Belt, permanently connected to earth surface by the kinetic
structures, create a beachhead for returning the the Moon, this time
to create the industrial resource base for building the ma
in structureof vast numbers of those settlements in the Clarke Belt. For example,
building just one continuous string of Island-One type 10,000
resident-each stanford torus space settlements all the way around the
earth-circling Clarke Belt, would provide residential areas and
supporting agricultural areas for up to 15 billion people. This would
enable a vastly expanding human civilization while taking their load
off of Mother Earth.
.
Here at GEO we can build space colonies, space habitats or
settlements.
  If we build the wheel-shaped Island One Stanford Torusspace settlement design envisioned by NASA in 1975 (ref. NASA
SP-413, although for use at L-5 then), there is room for 1,475,000 of
these wheels, if strung together like pearls on a necklace for mother
earth, circling the earth above the  equator, 5 earth radii above the
planet's surface.
.
The space habitats each provide comfortable near self-sufficiency for
10,000 people each, as designed by the 1975 summer faculty fellowship
program in engineering
systems design (ref NASA SP-413). Thesehabitats rotate to provide artificial gravity and are passively
shielded.  In geosynchronous orbit, they sit stationary relative to
the Earth's surface.  There is room in the first string of them in GEO
for 1476000 of them, providing a comfortable limit population of 15
billion people...room enough for everyone now on Earth and for whales,
elephants, redwood trees, and mosquitoes too.
.
We could, for example, use a continuous coaxial string of "Island One"
space habit
ats, or a "banded Torus" stretching all way around GEO..
Each Island One Stanford Torus space habitat provides space for
housing, agriculture, community activities, and light industry within
a 130 m (426.5 ft) diameter tube bent into a wheel 1800 m (5906 ft) in
diameter. Passive shielding is 6 feet thick on a side, and with 150
feet for sunlight input, each habitat or layer uses up 590 feet of
GEO.  The circumference of GEO for one layer of these habitat sections
is pi * diameter; diameter is the radius of
 Earth 3950 miles plusgeosynchronous orbital altitude of 22300 miles, times 2, equals
52500miles; times pi equals 165000 miles, which multiplied by 5280
ft/mile, gives 870850000 feet. Each habitat layer uses up 590 feet
apiece, so that is room for 1476000 Island Ones.  Since each habitat
layer comfortably houses 10,000 people, the comfortable population
limit for this first layer is 1476000 * 10,000 people, or 1.48E10
people, or about 15 billion people, 4 or 5 times the whole Earth's
present population.  P
lenty of room! Then we could add more layers.....
The first Stanford Torus Space settlements could be built from
materials from the Earth, perhaps one could be built for each nation,
with its own elevator to/from Earth. The vast majority of the Stanford
Torus's would need to be built out of materials found off-planet.  GEO
would be a great place to build great spacecraft.  So from the first
space colonies at GEO, we would launch hunter-gatherer spacecraft to
go get asteroids for building more Stanford Toru
ses and create a majortransportation system from the Moon's surface, providing oxygen,
aluminum, titanium for their structures, and rubble for the passive
shielding around each torus.
.
I would like to think that we can find 6 billion peaceful, harmonious,
mutually supportive, constructively productive, technologically
creative, scientifically competent, ecologically reaponsible
individuals to conceptualize, design, engineer, build own, operate,
and live in the first GEO Habitat Ring with its space elevato
rs..
**********************************************************************
10. CONCLUDING
.
Life expands and evolves into its environment, converting the
environmental resources into living, conscious protoplasm systems. The
resources of our solar system await the possibility of being processed
into living material. The rich diversity of genetic material now
existing within the Earth's surface ecosystem are key processors for
initializing the building of a solar system ecosystem. The great human
populatio
n civilization now within the cradle of Mother Earth, has theopportunity to leave the cradle to explore and grow and evolve beyond,
as life always does if successful.
.
A means for massive continuous transportation between the earthsurface
cradle of mankind, and nearby space, needs to be created. The proposed
technology of kinetic-energy supported structures offers this means.
Off-center rings of orbital-velocity mass streams circulate
endlessly between earth surface contact points and orbital points as
hi
gh as the geosynchronous orbit called the Clarke Belt..
In orbits at those high points of those kinetic structures, self-
sufficient living habitats can ring the planet.
.
Essential to this project is a transportation system sufficient to
transport most of the billions of humans living on earthsurface in the
near future, bringing the surface population down to that which its
ecosystem can indefinitely support in balance. Based on a population
density/culture which generates no products non-recyclable by th
esurrounding biosphere, and which uses no external resources including
energy resources, making the solar energy influx the daily limit for
indefinite energy consumption, resulting in an overall earthsurface
population density resembling that of the indigenous peoples of the
Amazon rainforest and the Australian Aborigial culture. This means
that only one person out of every 600 people now alive on the planet
can continue to live there indefinetely; the other 599 of every 600
people of the current populatio
n size must either die or leave. Themajority of people would be offered a highly attractive option of
having primary residency in the habitats ringing the planet, visiting
the earthsurface only on vacation. This way, human civilization can
continue to thrive and expand, without suiciding Mother Earth's
ecosystem further. The transportation system will need the capacity to
move most of those billions of people, along with their household
belongings and sufficient amounts of certain elements such as hydrogen
and nitrogen for their indefinite support in near space. The vastmajority of the material used to build the habitat rings will come
from the surface of the Moon, which requires another large
transportation system, mostly one-way from the Moon to the habitat
rings.
.
The continued existence of the Earthsurface-to-near-space
transportation system will result in the surface not being a closed
system after all, since surplus electrical energy derived from space
solar energy can be supplied to earth electrical
 power grids at thepoints of contact of the transportation loops. Some mineral resources
which become exhaused on earthsurface can be resupplied from lunar
resources via the habitat rings, and within the limits of the
transportation system, space habitat-ring-grown agricultural products
could feed some excess of surface human population without disrupting
the delicate ecosysteem balance. Thus the indefinitely sustaninable
earthsurface population might be increased from say 10 million up to
perhaps 100 mill
ion people total. This means that around 6 billionpeople must have the opportunity to relocate in the near-earth habitat
rings.
.
From the above, it would appear that electric rail transportation
systems between earthsurface and as far as the Clarke Belt, are
pivital to the subject means for preserving the Earth ecosystem's
diverse balance while also continuing to expand human civilization.
.
As the strength of conventional materials is far too weak to be able
to support such a rail structure, and electric
 transmission lines toolossy over such lengths, the kinetic structure concept offers a means
for supporting and powering the electrtic rail loops from
earthsurface to space and back. The major part of a kinetic structure
actually is a stream of mass moving at a tremendous orbital velocity
within a vacuum throughout its length. Thus it must also support the
weight of evacuated tubing in the portion within the earth's
atmosphere. The weight of the mass stream does not need to be
supported because it is subst
antially in orbital free-fall all alongits length, except at points where it is electromagnetically
accellerated, and insofar as a tiny fraction of its kinetic energy is
used up in the support of the weight of the rail structure and
payload-carrying rail vehicles travelling upon it.
.
The sufficient transportation system link needs to be created from
scratch. A proposed new technology which appears to be able to
satisify this need, is the construction and operation of
transportation structures supported by
 stored kinetic energy..
In this key transportation concept, payload is carried on high-speed
low-friction magnetic-levitation train tracks which are in turn
supported by a pair of path-defining and vacuum-guaranteeing tubes,
through which a continuous stream of electromagnetically coupled mass
elements flows at orbital velocities, say 20,000 mph at the points
intersecting the earth surface. This mass stream couples a small
fraction of its energy to support the surrounding tubular structure
and to propel t
he payload vehicles along the tracks. Such a structureseems able to be built in a continuous loop with the earth surface at
its low end, and the orbital altitude of the civilization habitat ring
at its high end.
.
This purpose of this document is to summarise the previous work on the
proposed space project of building a Clarke Belt City connected to
Earth surface points by electromagnetic railways supported by kinetic
structure technology, and restoring Earth ecological balance.
.
The need to create such a
 system now is urgent, while we still havethe technological capability to make it, and before accellerating
forces of nature and despotism produce an increasingly incompetant,
semi-hypnotized, loveless population... a tragic turn of events for a
species which has had a tremendous potential, and made incredible
achievements before.
.
LET US CONSIDER CHANGING FROM LEAPING ROCKETRY TO SLIDING SPACETRAINS.
.
J. E. D. Cline     940920