From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Tue Dec 31 1996 - 07:47:05 MST
Terry Egan wrote:
>
> There is another idea (popularized by R. Forward in various publications)
> that he calls the "Space Fountain" or "Indian Rope Trick". It looks like it can
> be built to any altitude and it fails gracefully; this not something that can be
> said about either the Lofstorm Loop ( didn't one of the HeeChee books by Pohl
> have the hero at ground zero of a Lofstorm Loop failure?) or the Lorrey Loop.
> In addition, the Lorrey Loop would seem to require a vast amount of material.
>
Actually, it could take less than any of the others. it all depends on
how many cars you want in the loop at one time. you could start with
just one, and keep adding them. its essentially a huge juggling trick,
so you can use that analogy to see how you could keep adding cars until
you reach the capacity of the system to process them. What it will
require is a vast amount of momentum put into the system, to keep things
flowing. Once you get it going, the only energy you need to put in is
that to match the momentum losses induced by new cargo put into the
system. The cars would already have the momentum. Additionally, let me
change the geosynch station, it would not need to be so big, unless it
were handling a loop at full capacity.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
President retroman@tpk.net
Northstar Technologies Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com
Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com
Website: http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/
Now Featuring:
My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA)
http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/MONEA1.htm
MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday
http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/mikymas1.htm
Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH)
http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/TRANSHNH.htm
------------------------------------------------------------
Transhumanist, Inventor, Webmaster, Ski Guide, Entrepreneur,
Artist, Outdoorsman, Libertarian, Certified Genius.
------------------------------------------------------------
If I saw further than others, it is because I had an
unjoggled view from standing on my own two feet.
- Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:35:56 MST