R
rogers_buck
Guest
Moon Chucker. MC is a tower built at one of the poles of the moon. At the top is a giant motor with a boom attached and a variable counter weight. There is a sturdy cable that deploys from the end of the boom and the boom and counter weight are rotated by the monster motor. So, if you want to go to mars a crane loads your space ship onto a track on the boom and you connect to the cable. The motor starts to rotate the aparatus and when it achieves enough RPMs that the parabolic sag as the force of lunar gravity is balanced by the centrifugal force the spaceship drives off the track and starts to get winched out by the cable. Around and around the whole thing goes as the cable plays out for a few kilometers and the rotation rate is steadilly increased by the electric motor. Then, when the desired linear velocity is acheved, the spaceship is released from the cable and goes soaring off to mars. A similar rig on Phobos will send it back to earth when it is time to go.<br /><br />This would be a cheap way to send billots or other cargos back to earth and could also be adapted to capture payloads from earth.<br /><br />To capture a payload, the above scenario is reversed.<br />