In article ,
Joe Strout wrote:
In article . com,
"Chance" wrote:

I read about this idea on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerovator. Basically, it is a long
aerodynamic ribbon kept up by 20+ jet engines. Somehow, this could be
used to get into space, but It doesn't sound very practical to me,
though I don't claim to be an expert. I was curious what any of the
technically proficient people here thought.

That's an interesting idea I hadn't seen before. How it could be used
to get into space seems pretty obvious to me: you send a payload up the
ribbon, and then let it go off the end when its velocity vector is
pointing in the desired direction. It has orbital velocity already, so
it would need only a small burn to boost it into an orbit that won't hit
the aerovator the next time around.

I'm no expert either, but it seems like these guys have done their
homework. I'd classify it as "intriguing," and I hope more people in
the field take a look.

Some time ago, one of the people here gave a talk in which
the proposal was a ribbon maintained by two ground stations
and two space stations. Once in place, its own speed would
maintain it, with only a little power needed by the stations.

This was claimed to give the equivalent of a space elevator
at a height of about 200 miles.
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Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558