Recent content by GTOM

So what it will do, ultimately?

And what makes that stabile? At the end farer from planet, bigger speed than lower end, but weaker gravity field. Wouldnt that rotate further until it oscillate around parallel position? Lets suppose km long rod, straight, aligned with Sun.

And what makes that stabile? At the end farer from planet, bigger speed than lower end, but weaker gravity field. Wouldnt that rotate further until it oscillate around parallel position?

Lets suppose we could place a long rod in orbit, at the distance of Moon. Which would be the stabile position of the rod, perdendicular to the orbital path, or parallel to it? I think parallel, to minimize tidal forces between the two opposite parts of the rod.

the nasty part is when air hit it. At another place, they said no present day material withstand that if cargo reach orbital speed in thick air.

Well, for story purposes, it should be destructible from the ground.

i dont want to bring some sort of unobtanium to explain how it can hold the weight. the structure should be still ruinable without nukes.

It describes a rocket in the stratosphere phase. Could it really withstand such big acceleration?

I write an sf story, and an important part is an attack on a big, expensive space launch system on Earth. But what system could be built without pretty much magic? Looks like space elevator couldnt be made even from carbon nanotubes. Maybe a space cannon, that could launch cargo to space with...

I wondered about a story option: they say stealth without some magic heat sink is irreal, even if a ship could mask heat radiation in one direction, the enemy can easily scatter lots of small probes in space. However what if a spy could get the coordinates of the recon probes? They couldnt just...

I cant edit it anymore. So the martians want to capture or destroy cargo. If it is close to belt, only destruction can happen, since either it have a bomb, or the asteroid send missile after it. Even if martian unmanned interceptor station manage to be stealthy close to belt, it is very hard to...

I also thought if moon is on one side of the sun and mars is on the other side, that is a safe launch opportunity. Although Mars could also launch from a few friendly asteroids. From neutral ones too if the ship isnt an obvious warship, but a cargo ship with fighters in bay.

But if catch happens close to belt, they can simply send a missile after redirected cargo. Since cargo wont have big acceleration, it will be hit and reach mars in form of a meteor shower. A ship that is fast without cargo, can catch it halfway, the crew and its drone fighters can disable...

i think such dirty tricks are good justification that redirect cargo should be trusted to manned ships (together with no strong AI).

So you advocate piracy. Although i think that rather requires ships. With all theese difficulties, is it still reasonable that mine on Earth isnt cheaper? (Well they have to face attacks on Earth too, but rather from guerillas.)