From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Aug 28 2002 - 18:09:34 MDT
On Tuesday 27 August 2002 18:56, spike66 wrote:
> 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
I was thinking of using one of those moons as the weight at the upper end of
the needle. Probably be better to re-orbit them so that they merged, though.
Then pick a good height for the weight, and use an ion-rocket to move it to
there while the rest of the gadget was being constructed. I didn't figure a
time-line though, so that might not be practical.
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