From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Tue Aug 27 2002 - 19:56:32 MDT
Charles Hixson wrote:
> And it's a lot cheaper to build. Perhaps the space elevators should
> be saved for smaller bodies, like the moon and Mars.
Both of Mars' satellites are below isosynchronous orbit and fairly
low inclination. Bad news for a space cable.
The moon has a sidereal rotation rate that is so slow that a
synchronous cable would need to be long indeed. Consider
that the earth is in lunar synchronous orbit. Of course one
might make a cable whose center of mass passes thru the
Lagrange point, in which case it wouldn't need to be all that
much longer than GEO cable.
spike
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