GeSp892

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Number: 892 Name: LONGTRANS

Address: J.E.D.CLINE1 Date: 890704

Approximate # of bytes: 17640

Number of Accesses: 12 Library: 3

Description:

Presentation of three long space

transportation structures:

1) The Mooncable Project;

2) Two-Body-Orbiting-Skyhook;

3) KESTS/GEO Habitat Ring.

Also addressing some math

questions re KESTS. Extensive

reference list.

Keywords: Mooncable,Skyhook,KESTS,GEO,Colonization

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

File: LONGTRANS July 3, 1989

by J. E. D. Cline

Second part of talk prepared for presentation to Space

Studies Team.

Space, extraterrestrial space, is essential to a

continued expansion of a civilized human population while

taking the load off of the environment that gave us life.

Indeed, it might be said that Mother Earth is very pregnant

with humanity, and must give birth soon or both Mother and

child will perish! In that service, then, the following

inspirations are offered to you.

This part of the talk will be devoted to a view of

three unusual space transportation concepts. The first is a

captive form of tensile structure, or tether, attached to

the surface of a lunar body and supported by an adjacent

gravitational well; the second is a free spinning tether

shuttling back and forth between two unequal gravitational

fields; and the third looks like a tether but is actually a

very long dynamically supported compressive structure,

connecting the bottom of a gravitational well with its

associated geosynchronous orbit. They are the Mooncable

Project, the Whirler SyncRelease concept, and the KESTS

Umbilical GEO Habitat Ring concept.

The picture of two objects in space connected by a long

thin structure, is a common element among the subject

concepts. The fundamental characteristics of each of these

structures involve associated concepts, such as the

Mooncable's zero-gee casting at L-1 of foamed material into

atmospheric re-entry shapes; and the enormous ring of space

habitats in GEO being accessed directly from the Earth

surface by the KESTS structure concepts.

THE MOONCABLE CONCEPT:

The Mooncable concept is a long tensile structure

balanced across the L-1 libration point between the Earth

and the Moon, and attached to the lunar surface at one end.

With essentially equal weights in either direction from L-1,

it hangs in place, forming an energy tunnel from the lunar

surface to a slightly lower gravitational energy level 1/6

the way into the Earth's gravitational field. The structure

is made of fiberglass, which has a strength of 500,000 lbf

due to being made and used in a hard vacuum...there is no

air to force its way into the surface microcracks that are

the primary breaking mechanism on Earth. The structure is

tapered to provide a constant-stress-crossection, thickest

where it passes through L-1. Conductors along the length of

the structure couple energy generated by payload braking

down the Earthside of the cable, over to the Lunarside of

the cable to lift more payload up to L-1, in a process

analogous to a siphon. In the initial version of the

concept developed in 1971-72, Lunar nickle-iron meteoric

debris was to be hauled up to the manufacturing site at L-1,

where solar furnaces melted this natural stainless steel

and foamed it into molds casting it into re-entry glider

shapes. After being dropped off the earthside end of the

Mooncable, and remote-controlled atmospheric entry and

gliding to near seaports, tugs would go out to retrieve the

floating glider, haul it to port and saw it up for use in

building freeway crash bariers, fireproof homes, and impact

absorbing car bodies, for example. Pockets cast into the

gliders would transport smaller amounts of other exotic

materials and devices, such as hollow ball bearings, to

Earth markets. Large spacecraft would have been built at L-1

for manned exploration of the solar system in relative

comfort. It was to be built in a bootstrap process, where

one of the remaining Saturn V boosters would be used to

launch a craft to L-1, where a micro-diameter Mooncable of

fibergalss would be despooled in both downward directions,

and in the process soft-landing a robot glass-factory on the

Lunar surface at that end of it. From the solar furnaces

in that robot fiberglass plant, up would be lifted fibers to

gradually increase the girth of the Mooncable....

The TWO-BODY-ORBITING SKYHOOK:

This is a modified Moravec-Skyhook useful for

transferring payload from the surface of a moon to a point

dominated by the parent planetary body, using the greater

gravitational field of the nearby planet as an energy pump

to sustain the process. A permanently orbiting spacecraft

would dangle a long tether to briefly touch the farside of

the Lunar surface as it passes by, grabbing awaiting

payload. Then the combined whirling masses would continue

on around the Moon in an orbit that passes near the Earth.

At the precise instant that the whirling tethered mass pair

has the payload deepest in the Earth's gravitational field,

the payload would be released, restoring the kinetic energy

to the spacecraft that was given up when the pickup was made

off the Moon. The tether would be reeled in or let out

before release, to compensate for varying payload mass when

restoring kinetic energy to the spacecraft. The

spacecraft-skyhook would then continue on back to pick up

another payload off of the Moon.

KESTS/ GEO HABITAT RING: Kinetic-Energy Supported

Transportation Structures, and implications for massive

early true space colonization:

The KESTS--acronym for Kinetic-Energy Supported

Transportation Structures--are so novel to our conventional

reaction-engine-technology-thinking, and so ripe with

evocative implications for massive transportation links

between Earth surface and Geosynchronous Earth Orbit, that

perhaps it is worth starting thinking the concept from

scratch. So let's mentally synthesize this together, right

now. Picture a small object, frozen in motion as it passes

you faster than orbital velocity. It is going so fast that

it would escape out beyond GEO, were it not for the presense

of the atmosphere, which would disipate its kinetic energy

as it burned it up like a meteor. Now add to this picture a

tube in which the hurtling object moves; the tube occupies

the exact trajectory path of the speeding object, and

excludes the air from the object's path, so the object

doesn't burn up. Now let the hurltling object multiply

itself, become a constant stream of similar objects, all

moving in the vacuum inside the tube along the trajectory

path. Add appropriate electromagnetic and electrostatic

fields between the tube and the stream of speeding objects

which flows within it, such that the fields prevent the

objects from physically touching the tube wall, and also

drag slightly upwards on the tube, supporting the tubes's

weight in the Earth's gravitational field. Let there be a

second stream tube attached to the side of the first one,

which has its stream going in the opposite direction from

the first one. Picture this pair of fast stream tubes as

they form a path almost horizontally past you, curving out

and away from the Earth's globe, reaching out to GEO above

the equator on the far side of the Earth from you. Create

accellerators here on Earth and along its loops in space,

supplying energy to replace losses in the system. Now

picture payload boxcars travelling along the outer side of

this pair of tubes, which are lifted and held away from the

kinetic energy stream, by the same magnetic fields that hold

the tube away from the stream pair. See these boxcars

carry people and materials between Earth surface and GEO.

See space settlements being built in GEO out of materials

brought up along the KESTS. Perhaps these space settlements

are similar to the Island One Stanford Torus designs, each

a self-sufficient habitat for 10,000 people. See many of

these KESTS, linking each nation to some part of the GEO

Habitat Ring, being built now mostly out of Lunar materials.

Mass drivers/catchers, or Mooncables, or Two-body Orbiting

Skyhooks, or more KESTS on the Moon, are providing

economical transfer of material from the Moon to build the

structures in GEO. Picture the huge robot assembler-

factories building the segments of the Banded Torus growing

to eventially completely ring the Earth in GEO, 1.5 million

of the Island-one's, each one providing home for 10,000

people and the agriculture and industries to support them

there. Picture billions of people living in this GEO Habitat

Ring, generally living in peaceful, constructive harmony

together. See a spacefaring civilization starting to reach

out from there toward the other resources in the solar

system, bringing a multitude of Earth's lifeforms along with

the people as they go. Feel the adventure of building the

KESTS and GEO Habitat Ring, much as it felt to help build a

treehouse as a youth, and the sense of safe haven there high

above the ground.

Thank you for building this picture with me.

Consider starting small. If the stream tube is only 20

thousanths of an inch in diameter each, it would only

occupy a volume equivalent to a cube 50 feet on a side,

coild on the Earth surface before rising up toward GEO.

Such a tube might use a steam composed of a fiberglass

filament with steel particles embedded periodically along

its length. If instead of looping around the Earth, it went

upward to a reverser of the stream which would have to be

light enough to be lifted by the thrust of the force the

stream bouncing back down the second tube back toward the

Earth, where it would be re-accellerated again for its

upward direction travel. Shifting the CG of the reverser

with respect to the force of the stream reversing process,

would provide a steering mechanism. Such a tiny version

could go up and come back down when task is finished; it

could be used to deliver respectable amounts of fiberglass

to GEO; bundles of them could be used to support huge

payloads.

One short-term use of these KESTS is perhaps the one

most likely to attract the attention of contemporary

America: providing large amounts of electrical power to

earthsurface power distribution networks. The KESTS is used

as an energy delivering system. The principle is that

SSPS, Satellite Solar Power stations, hovering alongside a

KESTS to provide power to maintain its support and materials

transport function, would also pour accelleration

electromagnetically to the downward direction stream. The

energy from sunlight up there is converted into kinetic

energy. At the earthsurface terminal, electrically

conductive coils resist the pulses of magnetic energy driven

by the mass stream's magnets, slowing the stream there

slightly, and absorbing the kinetic energy by converting it

into the current generated by the pulsing magnetic field of

the stream. This electrical current would be rectified,

inverted, and synchronized with the 60 Hz power grid

frequency, for delivery to whoever uses electrical power.

Advantage is that no fossil fuels are consumed, no nuclear

energy is required, and no intense microwave beams from

space are used.

To those who find special pleasure in deriving

equations and playing with math, here are some interesting

areas:

1) Derive the stream parameters in terms of stream

density at the Earth terminal. This would make it easy to

then model KESTS of 5 thousandths of an inch diameter, or of

5 feet in diameter.

2) Derive equations for weights to hang on the

quasi-elliptical KESTS to either side of perigee, bending

the stream so as to make necessary only one contact point on

the Earth surface. Also consider cyclical adjusting of the

weight position to compensate for the pull of the Moon and

Sun on the considerable mass of the stream.

3) Derive equations for the magnetic field required to

turn the stream around 180 degrees. If the weight of the

necessary magnets and control equipment is less than the

force of thrust as the stream pushes against the reverser,

the up it goes! This would make possible different

configurations of KESTS, analogous to Rod Hyde's

"Starbridge" concept, as well as make possible the

upward-steering emplacement concept as in the Microelevator

concept, a KESTS to GEO that can be raised and lowered at

will. Other forms of reversers can be considered, even

simple compression springs, although this would limit the

stream form to discontinuous packets of mass which would

bounce off of the spring one at a time.

4) Examine the possible use of an electrostatic field

to hold the stream away from the atmosphere-excluding tube

walls. If it is feasable, then consider having the tube

change to a mere skin, motionless to the surrounding

atmosphere, sliding on the enclosed mass stream, and

resisting the atmospheric pressure by transferring that

inward pressure to the electrostatic field to the radial

incompressability of the mass stream. This skin would have

negligible mass compared to the stream within it, yet would

still serve the function of blocking contact with the

orbital-velocity stream with the Earth's atmosphere.

5) Calculation of the system energy roughly would be

1/2 MV squared, using the velocity at the Earth terminal

exit, and the mass that of the entire orbital stream. The

energy would then be divided into part potential energy in

the stream as it rises losing velocity, and in losses from

supporting the tube/skin, and losses due to moving the

payloads up and down the KESTS.

REFERENCES:

MOONCABLE PROJECT:

"A New Dream for Our NASA: High Efficiency Transportation

From the Moon Can make Moon/Null-g Products Low Priced on

Earth", by J. E. D. Cline, Feb. 27, 1972.

"The Mooncable" A Profitable Space Transportation System" by

J. E. D. Cline, March 25, 1972.

Correspondence from Francis Kemmett, Director of the Staff,

NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, deferring

consideration of "The Mooncable: A Profitable Space

Transportation System"; dated June 23, 1972.

Article describing Mooncable Project, submitted to Carolyn

Henson at the L-5 Society for publication in L-5 NEWS, Nov.

26, 1978. Rejected due to lack of prior formal presentation

to AIAA.

"Intro to Mooncable" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #480,

"Mooncable Project 14", by J. E. D. Cline (J.E.D.CLINE1),

GEnie Spaceport Library file #530, Sept. 9, 1988.

"MOONCBL-LOFSROM-RESPONSE", by Keith Lofstrom (TRANSONIQ),

GEnie Spaceport Library file #542, Sept 18, 1988.

TWO-BODY-ORBITING SKYHOOK:

"Skyhook!" by Hans Moravec, L-5 NEWS Aug 1978 pp1-3,12.

"The Rocket/Skyhook Combination" by F. Burke Carley and Hans

P. Moravec, L-5 NEWS March 1983 pp. 4-6.

"Space Inspiration", by J. E. D. Cline, Testimony given to

the National Commission on Space, Nov. 14, 1985, GEnie

Spaceport Library file #475, July 2, 1988.

"Conceptual Synthesis" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #634, Nov 20, 1988.

KESTS/ GEO HABITAT RING

The Launch Loop" by Keith H. Lofstrom, L-5 NEWS Aug. 1982 pp

8-9.

"The Starbridge", by Rod Hyde, talk given to Silicon Valley

L-5, (1984?)

"The Launch Loop" by Keith Lofstrom, ANALOG, pp.67-80.

"The Texas and Universe Railroad", by Earl Smith, L-5 NEWS,

Nov. 1985 pp.9-11.

"Power + Transportation", by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #553.

"Microelevator Vers 2", by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #581.

"Microelevator Import", by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #592.

"GEO'S UMBILICAL" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport Library

file #629.

"GEO HABITAT UMBILICAL 2" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #690, Dec. 29, 1988.

"HWY TO EARTH'S GEO RING" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #747, Feb.9, 1989.

"High Suburbia Commute" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #819.

"Passive Stable KESTS" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport

Library file #880.

"GEO TREEHOUSE" by J. E. D. Cline, GEnie Spaceport Library

file #881.

/J. E. D. "Jed" Cline / 5632 Van Nuys Blvd. Ste 110 / Van

Nuys, CA 91401 / (818) 909-0143

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