From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Wed Sep 11 2002 - 23:50:48 MDT
On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Avatar Polymorph wrote:
> a) a rotating space tether as a power source via its interaction with
> the Earth's magnetosphere "If the tether is conducting and is moving
> through electric or magnetic fields, then it can be used as a
The key word here is "moving". You're turning the kinetic energy of an
orbiting object into juice. The more you drain, the quicker you deorbit.
Inversely, if you pump juice into the tether, you can raise your orbit.
Both is very handy, since you can avoid using thrusters. In a related
vein, recently a satellite with defunct gyros was fixed by purely a
software patch, which controlled the magnetic coils of the gyros and
created momentum via interaction with Earth's magnetic field.
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