ISS is supposed to be a launch pad for many a future endeavour, though inherently, two large free roaming masses in space is not necessarily the best way to go. There can be many problems with building, launching, reconnecting a space shuttle (or whatever we might have by then) to large floating space entity. Besides, the moon's gravity is nothing compared to Earth's. Seriously, if you got kicked in the balls hard enough, you'd be in space right away (a la Armaggedon).
Joined: Wed 10-09-2002 6:14PM Posts: 1289 Location: Romeoville, IL
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Now this may be a dumb question, so bear with me here.
I'm not quite sure where I was reading this but it sure seemed like a cool idea for helping keep a space station in orbit with near zero cost to the station for fuel.
The idea went something like this: Using these long tether like cables you can take advantage of the earth's magnetic field and generate power, but that would eventually pull you out of orbit. Another use for it was to feed power in reverse through the system via solar panels (big banks of them, mind you) to rise further up into orbit to stabilize your orbit since it tends to decay naturally.
Is this idea really feasible? I know my description is pretty sketchy but thats mostly what I remember.
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Joined: Fri 01-24-2003 7:13PM Posts: 1652 Location: down the hill
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the electric tether idea was to gather electrons from the ionosphere with a very long tether, and use those electrons (and the electricity generated by dragging it through the atmosphere and picking up electrons) to fuel/power a constantly running electron ion engine. it would be very low thrust, but possibly enough to keep it up.
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Joined: Fri 09-05-2003 10:24AM Posts: 3589 Location: Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the p l a i n s !
Source: Altman Hall
The thrust force of an electron ion engine is the same force as the gravitational pull of an 8.5x11 sheet of white copier paper on your hand at sea level. (at least as of 2000)
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