Long tether to moon or mars? Whip it! Whip it good?!

[Arugela]

Just saw a thread about a rotovator.

What about a mile long or longer tether with enough force to fling into orbit using a nudge and/or the earth's movement to sent someting attached flying out of orbit in a controlled manner?

One end could be solar sails/solar pannels and some electric based control systems like  gyroscopes. Many of these could exist along the length of the tether. In a programmed sequence each could move to add some momentum to the last one movement making a chain reaction that amplifies the energy until it gets enough energy to release a spacecraft along to the next destination. Like a certain movie, "The Core."

If that is feasible, could it also use certain locations in earths orbit to naturally propel the vehicle more. Say where the earth is slightly bulgier at the time being to gain a little extra oomph.

How long would an object need to be to do this, assuming it even can, and how many way stations along the tether would be needed to add sufficient energy to whip a vehicle out of earth orbit to the moon or mars? Or even up to geostationary orbit or similar.

This could be used to get vehicles to a destination with less onboard fuels or larger payloads.

I'm assuming if you have/use gyroscopes to keep it on a stable path you have energy to release(and potentially the means to control it.). And if you use solar sails for propulsion you can potentially accelerate at certain points or any point to varying degrees to add energy depending on needs. I'm also assuming the deploying and undeploying of the sails would also add energy as would changes in available energy in the sails. And all could be used potentially to control the applied energy to the vessel. Let alone on board fuel and propulsion on the vehicle.

Also excess energy could be stored in batteries for various uses... Maybe even to power up stuff on a ship/station. Could it also fling space stations to other planets? And is there any good electris based propulsion system if it has extra energy to transfer. Or could the energy be applied to stuff on the whip to add extra energy to the given craft? Assuming extra batteries aren't bad because of the mass. Although I would assume that might help with the process.

I'm assuming it's better to use fueless designs to avoid having to carry up fuel. Unless it's collected in space or brought in a removable stage and applied to the whip or vehicle being slung. then you only need to bring extra mass for things for maintenance which can happen seperately from a vehicle launch.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Arugela

[K^2]

In theory, yeah, you could come up with a whip-launcher. But if you can build a megastructure like that, there are easier ways to launch something. If you have an "anchor point" and a tether long enough and strong enough attached to it, just use a magnetic linear drive to accelerate the cargo along the tether. It will be more energy efficient, you can get away with both a shorter and a thinner tether, and you won't be putting the tether under that much stress.

[RCgothic]

This feels like one of those XKCD what-ifs where the inevitable hypersonic impact obliterates everything within 100km of the equator.

[kerbiloid]

Yo-yo.

[Kerbart]

I forgot what novel they use nanobots to do this — Seveneves?

 

[Arugela]

What if you brought it up in spools of smaller material and build a rope out of high tensile material. Or brought up spiders or some other manufacturing process and slowly built it in orbit.

What about an artificial environment and train or just let spider or other other insects do their thing and fill out the structure and let nature build it for you? If it's weight efficient enough maybe it could be brought up cheap and hold the material afterwords. Even self regenerating. could any such material be built in space as a tube. Assuming it's needed and can't be done otherwise. What if the ISS brought up spiders and had them build webs and have the continers slowly turn those webs into a string. Even for a small experimental launcher for low mass slingshots. Or even a rescue tether potentially.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_that_produce_silk

Bees to produce a honeycomb structure... maybe some natural solutions exist if done in large scale. Spiders and bees counter each other. Make a natural eco system and try to use it to make a structure. electricity could easily produce music/vibrations if it can be used to aid in contsruction in any way.

What about smaller version used to redirect earth orbits without burning fuel from a vehicle? Specifically the solar sail tether pulling and redirecting extreme orbital paths? If strong enough they could even slow down reentry vehicle by using that to redirect to diffenet orbits and slow down. Or use the energy to make more complex path changes to direct back out from a planets influence or similar.

 

Would it help get vehicles to stations without wasting fuel efficiency so you could dock at station on entry to a planet? They could be like universal tug boats. I'm assuming they could also do things like S shape turns that the shuttle did to burn off momentum. But it could be done in orbit. Or even done in orbit after using the planets gravity/atmosphere to slow down a bit. Assuming it helps beyond just having solar sails on a ship. Which I'm assuming it might.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Arugela

[DrNut]

I've honestly been considering making something like this in KSP with absolutely no direction in how to do it. I'm not entirely sure if it's possible in game without some sort of mod.