R
rogers_buck
Guest
I like this idea so much, I think it deserves its own crackpot thread for discussion.<br /><br />The basics of the idea are as follows:<br />A long (perhaps several km) run of robust metal cable anchored at one end to a central hub. There is a counter balancing mass opposite the cable attached to the hub.<br /><br />This is an engineering detail, but let's pretend there is a solar generator in the hub and the electricity it produces is used to set the cable-hub-counter weight system in rotation by thrusting against the earths magnetic field with controlled currents in the cable. Whatever the means, the cable-hub-counter weidth system spins up to a high RPM that is just short of snapping the cable.<br /><br />Once the thing is spun up a mag-lev payload sled is released onto the leading edge of the cable (direction of rotation). The slippery magnetic field of the mass will allow the mass to slide down the cable, but the fact that the mass is not moving with the same angular motion as the cable will produce a sort of corriolis force between the cable and the payload that will convert the angular momentum of the cable into forward motion for the payload.<br /><br />This conversion of angular momentum of the cable to forward motion of the payload is integrated over the entire length of the cable as it encounters the payload and the mag-lev field. All of the angular momentum of the entire cable and some percentage of the counter weight's angular momentum will be converted to the forward momentum of the payload.<br /><br />This is the principle of a bull whip. The crack of a bull whip is the tip of the whip passing the sound barrier as it is propelled forward by the kink converting the angular momentum of the whip into forward movement of the kink. The payload is the kink. There is an enormous amount of energy available in this system to hurl payloads in free or orbital space.<br /><br />The physics here aren't that difficult to calculate for a few test cases, but I'd like to see