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GeSp4366 ********************************* Number: 4366 Name: 3TOGO Address: J.E.D.CLINE1 Date: 940322 Approximate # of bytes: 9555 Number of Accesses: 1 Library: 3 Description: An expannded progression of a way to utilize space technology to enable continued expansion of civilization while restoring theEarth surface ecosystem back to healthy balance. Keywords: KESTS,settlement,SPS,shuttle,ecosystem,bridge --------------------------------- 3TOGO By J. E. D. Cline 940321 It is not necessarily true that there is no hope for the average person to be able to go live in a comfortable space colony in this lifetime. 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. Transportation is one of the key items for these possibilities. There must be ways to transport people and materials adequate to the task. Transportation of hundreds of millions of people and billions of pounds of materials. Transportation sufficiently economical, rapid and safe. What if it were possible to build and operate transportation bridges from Earth surface to space, particularly to the orbit which is stationary relative to the equator, known as the Clark Belt or GEO? End points of such a bridge would be stationary relative to each other. Step off of the bridge at the top terminal onto appearantly stationary flooring. The floor of a building that could be very, very big. Consider the possibility of an unusual way to support the structure of bridges. Instead of building with tensile and compressive members, which have limits in their strength of materials and thus limits to their size, consider the possibility of using stored energy within the bridge structure to support it. Consider the immense kinetic energy of a massive pair of orbital velocity mass streams, flowing in vacuum, within channels along the length of such a bridge structure. The kinetic energy of those mass streams are electromechanically coupled to the structure of the bridge, providing support for the bridge structure and its live loads, and supplying energy to move those live loads along its length from the Earth's surface up to the Clark Belt and back down to the Earth's surface, in a parallel pair of endless loops. Most of the kinetic energy would stay in the loops instead of being used each time around the loop. Such a transportation system would use electrical energy instead of chemical energy. An early form of a proposed kinetic energy supported Earth to space structure, proposed by Rod Hyde, would have lifted the mass of every human being on this planet into near space using only the electrical power equal to that consumed by the city of Los Angeles over a period of two weeks. This was a vertical tower structure toward low earth orbit altitudes. What if it were possible in the long term to support such bridges from the electricity generated by solar satellite power technology? What if it were possible to build a 10,000-person condo-like city in this Clark Belt, from materials brought up from Earth surface on such a stored-energy bridge? What if it were possible to build one and a half million of these 10,000-person condomium cities around the Earth in the Clark belt, mostly made of materials brought from the Moon? What if this were just the beginning of a spacious city around the Earth above the equator; a Earth restored to a garden planet of the vast potential of great harmonious genetic diversity? Is lethargy our only enemy, the only thing blocking humanity from being born into the spatial resources around the planet, born to be a new partner for Mother Earth? What is the problem? It is not necessarily so that space colonization cannot solve the resource population pressures in our time. Turn on your computer; start bending metal. Hey, let's build and let's go for the great life in the Big City built like we want it! ---------------------------------------- Parts of the path to space are made already. We have the space shuttle in 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 robot spacecraft checking out asteroids and our other planets. We know we can live out there, and out there are energy and materials resources abundantly awaiting life. A progression from the present-day space scenario might be: 1a Creation of flyback engine/control type wet launch module vehicle using existing proven Space Shuttle technology, to specifically lift pre-assembled sections of a toroidal space station design. 1b 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 atmospheric pressure in a rotating toroid can prpovide functional stability in a group living situation which includes other life forms in a harmonious synthesis. 1c The bulk of the physical structure to be built in the Clark 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 vecinity of the Clark Belt efficiently and with a minimum of pre-industrialization of the Moon. Investigate forms of materials pumps utilizing the greater depth of potential energy into earth's gravity well, to lift materials up out of the Moon's gravity well. One way stores the energy as angular momentum: an Earth-Moon two-body orbiting Skyhook one-way materials pump, which picks up packaged payloads from the far side of the Moon on a tether, paylooad and spacecraft tethered whirling together as they continue around the 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. 1d 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 transportation of large amounts of fuels, water and other resources. Development of emplacement techniques. Keith Loftstrom conceptualized related structures of "launch loops." 1e Fabrication of the first stored energy bridges to the Clark Belt create the links to the new land: the Clark Belt. Earle Smith conceptualized a form of kinetic-energy supported bridge from Earth a surface to the Clark Belt. 1f First Clark 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 need to be tested out there too. 1g 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 energy converted 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. 1h Lunar industrialization, with a stored energy bridge transportation system to replace the orbiting Skyhook. 1i Massive transportation of lunar materials to the Clark Belt using t lunar stored energy bridges for the major part of the trip. 1j Robotic construction of more Island One space settlements in GEO, the Clark Belt. These 10,000-person-each wheel-like space settlements would be linked together like the chairs on a ferris wheel, eventually all the way around the planet in the Clark 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. 1k Great living for humanity in the Clark Belt City. It is essential that the functionality and appearance of the interior of these space settlements resemble normal Earth environments as much as possible, not only to maintain our long term humanity there, but also to enable ecological balance with current Earth surface ecosystem lifeforms. 1l 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 already given to Mother Earth. 1m 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. Such understanding will prepare them to harmoniously look outward toward the great resources of our solar system, which yet await life. 2a .... An Excalator Hi page titled GeSp4366 by J E D Cline started on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 5:34:13 PM US/Pacific Copyright © 2008 James E. D. Cline. Permission granted to reproduce providing inclusion of a link back to this site and acknowledgment of the author and concept designer James E. D. Cline. |
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