GeSp4367

Number: 4367 Name: 4TOGO

Address: J.E.D.CLINE1 Date: 940322

Approximate # of bytes: 10112

Number of Accesses: 11 Library: 19

Description:

The way things are going, only a few of us will be able to

go to space. But it isn't necessarily so. Here is a potential

path to space, one wide enough not just for a few, or even

a few dozen, but wide enough for...everybody. Here is a reason

to go, de

scription of an adequate transportation technology, anda kind of place to build for millions to live there in comfort.

An integrated overview of a wide path to space and back.

Keywords:

KESTS,HABITAT,SETTLEMENT,BRIDGE,TRANSPORTATION,TOROID,SPS,SKYHOOK,LAUN

CHLOOP

---------------------------------

3TOGO

By J. E. D. Cline 940322

IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO, THAT WE CAN'T GO

It is not necessarily true that there is no hope that the average

person living now will be able to live in a comfortable space colony.

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.

EMIGRATION PATH

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 TO...

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?

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

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!

----------------------------------------

CAN WE GET THERE FROM HERE?

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

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

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 ....

Some GEnie Spaceport Library References:

2931 Centristation IV

927 Longtrans2

2466 Kinetic Structures III

747 Hwy to Earth GEO Ring

An Excalator Hi page titled GeSp4367 by J E D Cline started on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 5:31:40 PM US/Pacific

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