GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

29-10-2005, 12:29 PM

(Nick Maclaren) writes:

In article ,
Gary Woods wrote:
"JennyC" wrote:

Or the "chicken wire seed" and "sky hooks"

They're what you use to hang up the bucket of prop wash.

I suggest looking them up on the Net :-)

It is pretty unlikely that it will be possible to build a sky hook
on the earth in the forseeable future, but people are doing serious
calculations on how it could be done and what it would cost. The
recent discovery of buckytubes means that it is at least theoretically
possible for a feasible amount of resources.

Of course, getting a suitable carbonaceous chondrite into place,
processing it into buckytubes and spinning the line is a little
beyond current engineering!

Tut, you're behind the times! The current designs need about 20 tonnes
in geostationary orbit (three launches of a Proton/Ariane V/shuttle
class launcher) to form a seed cable. Once that's in place you start
running small climbers up it with more cable to expand it to full
size.

Anthony