Re: shuttle disaster
On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 01:41:01AM +0000, Pigeon wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 02:37:53PM -0600, John Hasler wrote:
> > Pigeon writes:
> > > It would be under tension, because the upper station is outside the
> > > geosynchronous orbit. So the bit above the break would fly off into
> > > space, and the lower bit would fall back.
> >
> > The tension would taper from nominally zero at the base to maximum at the
> > attachment to the counterweight.
>
> Unless I'm totally screwed up I don't think this is right...
> everything below the geosynchronous orbit is orbiting too slowly to
> stay up on its own, everything above the geosynchronous orbit is
> orbiting too fast to not fly off unless anchored. So the maximum
> tension is where the cable crosses the geosynchronous orbit; there are
> minima at BOTH ends.
>
> In theory, you wouldn't need a lumped counterweight - you could simply
> extend the cable until the "loose end" had enough mass. This makes the
> presence of a minimum at the outside end more obvious!
Isn't geostationary orbit ~22000 _miles_ above earth? That'd be one
hell of a cable.
--
Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:nnorman@incanus.net
I retract that silly statement. Somebody slap me.
-- Roy Smith
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