Conference 7.286::space

Re: < Note 450.0 by MARX::ANDERSON >
    
>	Upon the return of a rocket, satellite etc to earth, the object
>	will start to burn because of the friction with the atmosphere
>	of earth and the velocity. When the shuttle re-enters, it usually
>	will suffer some burn damage to its tiles. Now assuming what I say
>	is correct, would it be more economical to slow down the re-entering
>	velocity shuttle and/or satellites (parachutes ... ark ark) etc so 
>	they would not be damaged or does it require too much fuel to be worth 
>	the effort ?

You got it right, it is far more economical to pay a little for 
repairing some burn damage than it is to bring up enought fuel to slow 
the orbiter down to some reasonable speed.



>	Sometime back, I remember seeing a program on Nova about something
>	called Mass Accelerators (correct me) being demonstrated at MIT.
>	The whole idea behind them was to create an efficient lift system.
>	Rockets tend to be inefficient because they do not concentrate the
>	blast at the most optimum point but ends up dispersing or wasting
>	much of the energy used. Mass Accelerators could also be used
>	for mining in space. Huge packages of minerals could be hurled
>	into orbit to be picked up by roving spacecraft (or even mineral
>	pirates). This is supposedly the most cost efficient method for
>	getting things into space. Does anybody have any updates on this
>	and what the current state of development for practical implementation
>	of this technology.

I think you mean mass drivers.  They can be quite efficient for 
launching raw mass into space, but if you have something that is G-force 
sensitive, like a human, forget it for now.  

SDI is INTENTLY examining the mass driver concept.  Mass drivers, or 
rail-guns, may be the first missle destruction concept to be used in an 
early SDI Deployment (they still don't have the software too good).

Tony

    	For the mass accelerator (also called a rail gun), see SPACE
    Topics 22, 216, and 305.  As for antigravity, see the NICLUS::SF
    Conference, using the command DIR/TITLE=topicname.  Press the KP7
    or SELECT key to add SF to your Notebook.
    
    	Larry
    

    re reentry
    
    Its not really 'burning' in the sense of combustion. It is heating,
    essentially trading spacecraft velocity for thermal energy, both
    in the spacecraft and the surrounding atmosphere.
    
    The most common pre-shuttle schemes were ablative where the heat
    shield was made of some material that would absorb an enormous amount
    of heat before changing state and/or decomposing. The Apollo
    heatshields were aluminum honeycomb filled with a boron/epoxy composite
    for example.
    
    The shuttle tiles/blankets are quite different. They are made of
    a material with extraordinary heat capacity so they absorb the heat
    of reentry and slowly lose it back to the surrounding atmosphere
    during the slower glide phases. Ideally, the tiles need no
    refurbishment after reentry, they can be used again (the various
    tile replacement exercises have been caused by other attributes of
    the tiles).
    
    It is much cheaper (in terms of spacecraft mass) to burn off velocity
    this way than it is to carry propellant, engines etc. A lot proposed
    planetary missions are planning to use aerobraking (dipping into
    a planet's atmosphere to reduce velocity) and aerocapture (the same,
    but with the intent of reducing the spacecraft velocity to orbital
    velocity). The fuel savings means more instruments can carried with
    the same launch cost.
    
    The film '2010' shows aerobraking when the spacecraft dips into
    the Jovian atmosphere to burn off excess velocity, fwiw.
    
    It has been used before the name aerobraking was coined. The Apollo CM
    on a lunar return trajectory used a 'skip reentry' where it grazed the
    atmosphere and climbed again to reduce speed for a safe reentry
    (the climb also allowed the heatshield to cool). The Soviet Zond
    did something similar. 
    
    gary

    There has also been some speculation about building an elevator to
    orbit.  Fifteen years ago when I was in college two or three of us EEs
    had a BS session about Power Satellites.  It seemed to us the proposed
    method of delivering the power, (convert the electricity to microwaves
    and beam it down to a rectifying antenna covering about 10 square
    miles of desert in Arizona someplace), was grossly inefficient and
    not likely to make the enviromentalists happy.  It occured to me
    that the PowerSat would be in synchronous orbit and so would just
    be hanging in the sky from the point of view of someone on the ground
    beneath it.  So all you need is a looooonnnnggggggg extension cord.
    Plug one end into the satellite, drop the other end to the ground
    and plug it into the grid.
    
    My idea got shot down, of course, on the grounds that the weight
    of the extension cord would pull the PowerSat out of orbit, to bring
    the whole mess crashing to Earth, which would probably upset the
    enviromentalists also, so I let the idea go.  I wish I hadn't because
    some years later I picked up a science fiction novel by Arthur Clarke
    that described an elevator based on the same concept.  The solution
    is to attach a counter weight to the 'outside' of the satellite
    so that the center of mass of the whole artifact is located at the
    geosynchronous point as shown below: (pardon my character graphics)
                                     _
                                    [_]-counterweight
                                     |    platform
             geosync orbit         __|__ /
                ..........\..'''''[_____]'''''............. 
...'''''''''''''                     |                     '''''''''''''....
                                     |                                  
                                     |
                                     |
                                     |
                                     |
                                     |
                                     |
                                     |
     top of the atmosphere           |
                ..........\..''''''''|''''''''............. 
...'''''''''''''                     |                     '''''''''''''....
                                     |
                _____________--------^--------_____________ 
___-------------           Good Old Mother Earth           -------------____

    In Clarkes book the cable supported two elevator cars.  Note that
    if one car is going up while the other is going down the energy
    requirements can be balanced so that you get a free ride into orbit.
    Everything is stationary relative to everything else, so the elevators
    do not undergo re-entry heating or suffer any great stresses.
    
    As you ride the elevator up the cable you find yourself growing lighter
    and lighter until finally at the platform you are in zero G.  If you
    continue 'upward' to the counterweight you find yourself accelerated
    'outward' away from Earth so that 'down' is toward the stars and the
    planet is 'up' over your head.  This leads to another nifty feature,
    the ability to launch vehicles out into the solar system by carrying
    them 'up/down' into the 'attic/basement' of the counterweight opening a
    trap door and dropping them.  The vehicle will depart on a tangent
    to the counterweights orbit.
    
    The problems with this concept are in the materials area.  The tensile
    strength required of the cable is about an order of magnitude greater
    than the best we have today.  Once that's solved and the initial
    capital costs are out of the way you can get to orbit for pennies
    a pound.
    
    Mike H

>< Note 450.4 by NAC::HUGHES "TANSTAAFL" >
>    The problems with this concept are in the materials area.  The tensile
>    strength required of the cable is about an order of magnitude greater
>    than the best we have today.  Once that's solved and the initial
>    capital costs are out of the way you can get to orbit for pennies
>    a pound.
    
I don't quite remember the numbers exactaly, but I seem to recall that 
the required atomic bonding energy per unit of mass to achieve the 
required tensile strengh is something greater than that of a 
hydrogen-hydrogen bond.  In other words it has to be made with 

*** DRUM ROLL PLEASE ***

UNOBTAINIUM.

Tony

I was lucky enough to be working at NASA when the first shuttle launched
and landed. I was at Langley in Va. at the time we were testing the shuttle
tiles in a wind tunnel (some of you PBS nuts may remember seeing it on TV).
I got one peice of tile at home. we took one peice and heated it cherry red
with a torch. after a few seconds you could gently pick it up by the corners.
it was still glowing red in the center. if you squeezed to hard it would start
to burn your little fingers.

    re .5  necessity of using UNOBTAINIUM.

    Many people have worked on this problem and they all tend to agree.  We
    currently have no economically available materials with which we could
    build the cable.  But, the newer derivatives of Kevlar (and other
    carbon chain molecule composits) are capable of carying the weight,
    barely.  There are experimental materials which can (theoretically)
    perform the task. 

    I don't think that it is unreasonable to believe that we will be able
    to build such a very long extension cord once we get to the point where
    we could build the power plant itself.

Interesting concept this elevator.  Permit me to ask a dumb question.  What 
happens to the stability of such a system when the jet stream crosses 
across it (or any other large scale weather disturbance)?

Rich

> Interesting concept this elevator.  Permit me to ask a dumb question.  What 

A similar idea has appeared in science fiction, the idea taken I believe from
more serious proposals in the engineering/scientific world.  The one I
remember used a monomolecular monofilament strand suspended between an
orbiting object (presumably a geostationary orbit?) and a ground station,
with an elevator that would "climb" the strand.  (Being monomolecular, it
was very strong, and with a low enough cross-section that wind loading would
be a minor problem.  It was also neat for slicing things accidentally or
intentionally...)

Can anyone out there fill us in on the more realistic proposals that these
flights of fancy are based on?

Re:< Note 450.8 by LILAC::MKPROJ "REAGAN::ZORE" >


>What happens to the stability of such a system when the jet stream crosses 
>across it (or any other large scale weather disturbance)?

Not really a dumb question, so lets think about it for a moment.

1.  It only works for satelites in geostationary orbit, that is 22,400 
miles up.

2.  The center of mass must be at the geostationary point for the concept 
to work.

3.  The bulk of the atmosphere is within the 10 miles closest to earth.

From 1, 2, and 3 we can conclude that the vast majority of the mass is 
unaffected by such action as jetstreams, hurricanes, etc. as only 0.04%
of the distance from geostationary to the surfcae of the earth is within 
the atmosphere.  Also, the present concepts for the device, using possible 
materials, call for a large taper, that is wide at geostationary, narrow 
at the surface of the earth, meaning that far less than 0.04% of the 
mass will be in the atmosphere, indeed, far less than 0.02% since the 
0.04% number referes to the distance from the center of mass point. 

I think the above is right.

Tony

    Regardless of the relative amount of material in the atmosphere, there
    is still the apparent problem of weather affecting the structure.  If
    the structure presents any cross-section to air flow at all, it's
    entirely possible that the material could be damaged or destroyed to
    the altitudes affected by weather.
    
    Speaking of which, how much strength is really required if the object
    at the peak of the structure is geostationary?  A satellite in
    geostationary orbit has a structure of zero strength keeping it in
    place.  I'm missing where the strain on the structure is coming from.
    
John

Re: < Note 450.11 by SARAH::BUEHLER "Unbeliever" >

If the material is strong enough to hold itself up, I doubt any weather 
will effect it.

>    Speaking of which, how much strength is really required if the object
>    at the peak of the structure is geostationary?  

I think the above question shows your unfamialiarity with the concept.  

>    A satellite in
>    geostationary orbit has a structure of zero strength keeping it in
>    place.  

Not ture, geostationary orbit is a special case of orbit where the 
orbital period equals the rotational period.  In all orbits there is 
force acting on the body in orbit, gravity form the planet and the 
orbital velocity.  In essence an object in orbit "falls" around the 
planet.  Thus a "beanstalk" has to be a 22,000 mile long rope 
accelerated at a varring rate approaching 1 G through its length.  This 
requires materials stronger than any known today. 


>I'm missing where the strain on the structure is coming from.
    
Tony

I'm still missing something here.  If a cable runs up to the geostationary 
orbit point,  only the section of cable that is 22,000 miles high will be 
in the geostationary orbit.  The rest of the cable will be below that 
orbital plane *but* it will still have an orbital period of just 1 day.  
Since it's orbital period is too slow for it's altitude, it will have 
weight (ie. it will not BE in orbit).  Since this weight is attached to the 
section of the cable that IS in geostationary orbit, it will pull that 
section down UNLESS there is an equal (in "weight") amount of cable beyond 
that geostationary point.

Figuring in some simplistic math (that's the only kind I'm capable of).

If 1 meter of cable weighs 10 pounds at sea level.  The same section of 
cable will weigh 0 lbs in geostationary orbit (since everything weighs 
0 lbs. in orbit)

22,000 miles = 35,404,600 meters

Assuming that the weight loss along a continous cable from sea level to 
geostationary orbit is constant, this means that for each 1 meter in 
altitude the cable loses 1/35,404,600 of it's 10 lbs or 2.824491733**-7 
lbs..  I think this weight loss would be constant.  Therefore the total 
apparent weight of the cable at the point of the geostationary orbit would 
be ((35,404,600/2)*10) lbs. or 177,023,000 lbs.  This is 88,511.5 tons!

To balance this, you would have to continue the cable beyond the point of 
geostationary orbit.  Since this section of the cable would be going faster 
than the speed necessary to maintain an orbit at that altitude it would 
tend to pull away from the Earth because of the positive centrifugal force. 
You would need an appropriate amount of weight at the end of the cable to 
balance the weight of the cable below the geostationary orbit.  This 
doubles the apparent weight on the cable at the geostationary orbit point 
to 177,023 tons.  Now that's a lot of weight for a cable that weighs just 
10 lbs. per meter to hold!

Add to this the risk of the cable breaking for any reason, running into an 
old satellite, having a meteor cut it, and you run the risk of a
catastrophe.  When that happened the cable below the cut would fall to 
Earth and the cable above the cut would seek it's own orbit (at a higher 
altitude, if it wasn't already travelling at escape velocity).  Gives a new 
meaning to the term "HEADS UP!".

Similar forces would exist if you built a solid structure.

Given these demensions of the problem, it looks like a long time before this 
type of device is built if ever.  Am I missing something?  It's looks like 
pure SF to me.


Rich

Re:< Note 450.13 by LILAC::MKPROJ "REAGAN::ZORE" >


>I'm still missing something here.  

Yes, I guess so, please let me try to help.  First remember that there 
is a difference between weight and mass.

>If a cable runs up to the geostationary 
>orbit point,  only the section of cable that is 22,000 miles high will be 
>in the geostationary orbit.  The rest of the cable will be below that 
>orbital plane *but* it will still have an orbital period of just 1 day.  

This is right on.

>Since it's orbital period is too slow for it's altitude, it will have 
>weight (ie. it will not BE in orbit).  Since this weight is attached to the 
>section of the cable that IS in geostationary orbit, it will pull that 
>section down UNLESS there is an equal (in "weight") amount of cable beyond 
>that geostationary point.

This is where you lose it.  The idea is to have the center of mass in 
geostationary orbit.  

As I said earlier, right now you have to make the cable out of 
unobtanium, the strength/weight ratio required is on the order of a 
hydrogen-hydrogen bond.  

It definately is science fiction for a number of years to come, perhaps 
forever for earth, it is much more possible as an orbital system for 
mars or the moon.

Tony Scolaro

    In regard to the apparent weight loss of an object in orbit vs an
    object at sea-level...
    
    Remember that the mass of the object is unchanged. A 1-meter length
    of cable with a mass of 5 kg still has a mass of 5 kg while in orbit.
    
    Though I am not familiar with the physics of orbital mechanics,
    I believe that the problems with the geosync-cable concept lie in
    dealing with the large mass (rather than weight) of the structure.
    
    John B.

RE:< Note 450.14 by MORGAN::SCOLARO "A keyboard, how quaint" >

Thanks Tony, You've confirmed what I thought about having the geostationary 
orbital altitude being the center of mass for the system.

Rich

    I used to have the same problem with the idea of mass and weight
    until I experienced "weightlessness" while a military flight crew
    member.  Weightlessness is fun and just as pictured by the NASA
    films.  
    
    
    Its only when the cabin of the aircraft hits your "mass" that it
    hurts.  In other words when you and the aircraft are doing the same
    thing, every thing is ok.  But pushing off a wall or slowing down
    after pushing off still takes the same effort to move your "mass".
    
    At the point of center of gravity (Actually gyration) minor aircraft
    motion is not a problem.  But step to the rear or nose, and that cabin
    can come at your "mass" rather quickly and accelerate you like it
    or not.  
    
    So my friend UNOBTAINIUM holds the cable mass in place, and moments
    keep it their...Les
    

re: beanstalks, etc.

Yes, there is a lot of Science Fiction here.  That's where the most  
readable references are.  Read the NICLUS::SF conference for more,
but look to Larry Niven's "Neutron Star", "Integral Trees," or "Descent
of Anansi" for some "practical" orbital mechanics.
Hint: It's all in the tides.

In One of Pohl's "Heechee" books, terrorists bomb the Earth station
end of a beanstalk, wreaking immense havoc and destruction.
Yes, 10lbs/meter times 23,000 miles is a LOT of potential energy.

- tom]

    This is the closest note I could find to match this, so I'll put it
    here. Please move it if there's a better spot for it.
    
    I got this in the mail this morning and I'd like to see what others
    think of it.
    
    Enjoy,
    
    Charlie
    
    <reprinted without permission>
VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH:                           [Mike Taylor, VNS Correspondent]
=====================                           [Nashua, NH, USA               ]

 The man who defies gravity (and scientists, and skeptics, and Newton)

 Scotland to Sydney in 17 minutes ? Mars in 1� days ? It could happen
 thanks to the engineer Sandy Kidd's anti-gravity invention. Stuart
 Bathgate meets the man who British Aerospace are at last taking seriously.

 In 1903 the eminent American astronomer Simon Newcomb "proved" on paper
 that heavier-than-air flight was a mathematical impossibility. Later that
 year the Wright brothers flew a Kitty Hawk.

 This gap between accepted scientific theory and reality is all too
 familiar to Dundee-based engineer Sandy Kidd. In a book published this
 week, Beyond 2001, Kidd provides a fascinating account of the process that
 eventually led to his producing a self-propelling giroscopic device - the
 Kidd machine - which, it is said, will revolutionize the laws of physics.
 In particular, Kidd's claims that Newton's Laws of Motion - sacrosanct for
 centuries - do not hold true for all instances.

 The machine's value though, is not just theoretical. Employing constant
 acceleration, it could shrink the solar system. Traveling to Mars would
 take a day and a half. Neptune - some seven years distant by rocket -
 would be reached in under a fortnight. Distances on Earth too, could
 become meaningless: instead of commuting by rail from, say Linlithgow to
 Edinburgh, a journey of 15 minutes, the owner of a Kidd machine could
 travel to work daily from Sydney - it would only take two minutes longer.

 All this is possible because of what is known as 'anti-Newtonian lift'.
 The classical physics dictum that "every action must have an equal and
 opposite reaction" is observable in everyday life: you can only jump into
 the air by first pushing down on the ground; a rocket can escape our
 atmosphere only by producing a phenomenal thrust. Yet Kidd's machine does
 not require thrust to lift itself into the air. It is not lifted by
 aerodynamics. It does not depend on a hot-air cushion. Incredible as it
 sounds, Kidd's machine rises by losing weight.

 "Taking angular momentum and turning it into linear momentum without a 
 reaction is just not allowed," says Kidd - "but that's what my machine
 does."

 Needles to say, since that night in 1984 when he first got the machine to 
 work in his own garage on the outskirts of Dundee, reaction from the
 academic world has been almost universally hostile. At first, the tactic
 was to laugh it off, with the claim that Kidd was spinning a yarn, not a
 giroscope. Then, various, increasingly desperate, attempts were made to
 prove that Kidd's device, did, after all, conform to the known laws of
 physics. None of them have been successful.

 Now, six years on, with the publication of 'Beyond 2001', and of an 
 independent laboratory report on his machine, Kidd says that it is time
 for the academics to put up or shut up. "They just want to think that if
 they jump up and down and tear their hair out I'll admit I'm a liar. A lot
 of them are like children when you've taken away their toys. It really
 gets to them. How can this unqualified nitwit make this machine?"

 It's a refreshingly honest self-description. Kidd realizes all too well
 the apparent uncertainty of the situation: an engineer with no academic
 training potters about in his shed, cannibalizing washing machines and
 lawn-mowers for spare parts until he stands accepted physics on its head.

 His interest in the entire project began, he says, in the air force.
 "There were a lot of times with nothing to do, times of boredom when you
 just lie in your pit and ask 'Who am I? Why am I here?' - all these
 two-steps-to-the-loony-bin questions. So you had to find some other
 interest. In my case, I honestly believed that man would find an
 alternative means of space travel."

 It was the very fact that Kidd had not been 'brainwashed', as he puts it,
 by an academic training, that led him to ask the right questions in the
 first place. He also has an implicit awareness of the importance of the
 old saying, that the greatest wisdom of all is to appreciate the depth of
 your own ignorance. 

 "When I hear scientists say we know all there is to know about the laws of
 physics it annoys me. How can they be so arrogant? We don't have a clue.
 Nobody's ever seen an electron. We don't know what gravity is. We don't
 know what inertia is. We only scratch the surface"

 Events have moved on apace since the successful lab tests with which the
 book concludes. Whereas previously Kidd had achieved the lifting effect
 without knowing how strong that effect could become, in the last six
 months, he says, "I have proved it can be as good as you want it to be.
 It's only limited to the strength of the material."

 Of equal importance is the fact that he now knows why the machine works -
 not only because it will help to make technical advances, but also 
 because his wife Janet - "I couldn't have done any of this without her" -
 is threatening to leave him if he doesn't stop constructing new, improved
 models. "She said that years ago," says Kidd, trying to laugh off his
 wife's assertion. "Aye, but I mean it this time," she replies.

 The Kidd machine works for reasons entirely different to those he first
 thought of, although clearly, with the enormous potential involved, he is
 not about to divulge those reasons to the general public. "Let's just say
 that a physicist or mathematician who isn't brainwashed or hidebound will
 be able to look at the machine and accept that my explanation for why it
 works is correct."

 If anyone is still skeptical, Kidd is willing to stake more than personal
 pride on the veracity of his claims. "I'm prepared to bet my house against
 their house," he says. "All those academics can take me up on that if they
 still refuse to believe me. They'll be furious when the book comes out -
 and the more fury the book raises, the happier I'll be - but I doubt if
 any of them will take me up on that bet."

 There is a theory of scientific advancement known as "steam-kettle time"
 which asserts that once the conditions are right, a certain invention is
 more or less inevitable.

 Scattered around Europe and North America are dozens of people working
 independently on the same project. At least two others, Kidd thinks, have
 achieved anti-Newtonian lift. "A lot of people have been working on
 'anti-gravity devices' for the same reason as me," he says. "The rocket is
 a crude, inefficient, dangerous device. There has to be a better way."

 Now the timescale for commercial development of that better way is 
 'directly proportional to wallet - it all depends on how much money
 someone is willing to put into it." While it was announced yesterday that
 British Aerospace will help fund further tests, the Australian company BWN
 with whom Kidd has worked for several years will retain a keen interest in
 the device's development: the engineer will soon return to Australia, with
 his wife, to supervise more research.

 Kidd's device, then, is an idea whose time has come. And, one might say
 paradoxically, not before time. Anyone who struggles for so many years to
 achieve what is said to be impossible, who perseveres despite the diverse
 difficulties detailed in Beyond 2001, must either be mad, or know that he
 is right. Sandy Kidd is not mad. Very soon now the final verdict will be
 delivered.

 - Beyond 2001: The laws of physics revolutionized, By Sandy Kidd, with Ron
 Thompson, is published on Thursday by Sidgwick and Jackson, �14.95

 {contributed by Craig Cockburn, From Scotland on Sunday, 5-Aug-90}


<><><><><><><><>   VNS Edition : 2131    Thursday 16-Aug-1990   <><><><><><><><>

  Kidd's ranting and raving about closed minded scientists is nothing new. It's
the most common complaint heard from back yard quacks.

  All he has to do is patent his invention and explain how it works and as soon
as it's duplicated in a few reputable labs (MIT, NASA, etc) he'll get the
recognition he deserves.

  Of course these people always have reasons why they can't tell others
how to duplicate the experiment. If he's true to form, the book will have
lots more ranting about closed minded scientists and no details

  Most likely it will go the way of cold fusion.

  George

	Unless of course, he is just rightfully (can you blame him) upset about
folks with closed minds. Having been there in a different forum I can 
understand this kind of frustration. The fact that he persevered in spite
of the laughter and closed minded attitudes of the poeple he delt with says
alot. Whether it says that he is a genius or a very dedicated hoax artist
remains to be seen. Lets also keep in mind that a great many inventions that
are accepted today, were laughed at by the scientific community of the day.
Also keep in mind that because work is done in a backyard, does not mean
he's wrong. No where do the laws of physics state that reseach must be
done in a lab to work! 

							-Charlie

  I have never heard of a case in modern history where the scientific community
"laughed" for a long time over a ligitimate discovery. There have been many
cases where a subset of scientists gave someone a hard time for questionable
reasons, but you can always take your discovery elsewhere. 

  If this were ligitimate, he could have gone to any number of Universities,
demonstrated his machine, and explained how it worked. Sure there would have
been raised eyebrows, but someone at one of those Universities would have taken
his description and tried to duplicate the experiment. 

  If it worked, others would have tried. The fact that no one can duplicate his
experiment means that it is either rubbish or he is being over protective. In
either case, the criticizm is justified. 

  George

    I heard he was so upset that he created an anti-anti-gravity
    machine and put it smack in the centre of the earth, just so
    no one could every use his anit-gravity machine again...
    teach-um....
    
    more details in his second book
    
    jb
    

	Don't get me wrong.. I am not claiming that what this guy is doing
is real. All I'm saying is if I had a way of revolutionizing the moving
of people and material as we understand it, I would be VERY careful too!
Imagine how carefully you would guard the secret of the "transporter"! Do
you believe that that will never happen? When it does, the guy who comes
up with it will likely guard the secret until he can be sure that he gets
the $$$ from the invention. Criticize him all you want, if he's
wrong and a quack we have lost nothing, and you get to be right. But what
if the surface evidence is wrong and he really does have something here.
Mankind stands to gain alot. Frankly I would check it out very carefully
before tossing him overboard as a "backyard quack". Who gives
a rip if he has a degree or not? If it works, the royalty checks won't
cash any differently if he doesn't have a degree. In fact, many people
have become very successful because the based decisions on fact, and not
what was popularly believed. One case in particular is Aristotle (sp?)
Onasis. When the rest of the world was bailing out of shipping after WWII,
he bought everything he could find and borrow money to get. The results
were pretty clear.. 

	BTW, what do we loose by waiting him out and seeing what he has?

							-Charlie

    
    What really cracks me up is the people who are saying this guy is full
    of it without even reading the book or looking at the facts. You should
    be VERY ashamed of yourself. Go read a book. 
    
    John Searl has already done this anyway.
    
    /prc

    re: .25
    
    The problem with everyone "going and reading the book" is that this may
    be just what the guy is after---book sales!  Rather than be suckered
    into buying every crackpot's book I would rather keep silent when
    presented with astounding claims, until they are verified by someone
    trustworthy.
        John Sauter

	Yeah, no way I'd buy his book.  If its a real invention, all he has to
is patent it and his claim is protected.  If its already patented, let me come
forth with it for a reasonable investigation.  If he hasn't patented it yet,
he should -- and then come forth for a reasonable investigation.

	There is a background to my cynicism.  A couple years back a friend of
mine (who, self-admittedly, is not good at either science or finances) was told
by another friend of this great invention that will revolutionize the world's
energy resources and that he could buy shares in this company cheap before they
go public.  Make Millions!!!  Once it goes public, each share will be priceless!
Ground floor of Xerox or IBM all over again!!!  Needless to say, my friend got
interested and wanted to go talk to the inventors.  I'm happy to say he realized
his lack of science and/or finance background and so invited me along.  To make
a long story short, the inventors story was that their product would pump out
energy captured from the earth's magnetic field and that it was going to be
going public *tomorrow* -- so buy your shares today for the meger price of
$2500, since once they go public the shares will be selling at 10 times, a 100
times that price or more!  But no, we won't show you the invention -- even under
a  non-disclosure -- until after you've bought your shares...  And, of course,
their litany included the usual "the scientific world and the public utilities
are out to muzzle us since this would upset the status-quo too much, we're not
a big government lab that rakes in billions from the Feds and this will put
the public utilities out of business..."  

	My friend was getting dollar signs in his eyes, but I managed to talk
him out of borrowing the money from other people (egads!) to buy the shares.
A year later or so I saw an article in the newspaper where this company had
been ordered to cease and desist their claims since it was all a scam.

	So yeah, I'm a cynic of anyone claiming to have THE BIG invention that
solves energy issues but is claiming that they can't use the normal invention
channels since the world is out to get them.  And no, I wouldn't put bucks into
this guy's pocket by buying his book.  If its a real invention, I'll wait and
read about it in scientific journals.

								-craig

Re. last few:

In fairness to any non-physicist playing with gyroscopes, I would have to say
that it is very easy to be fooled into thinking that such an object is behaving
differently to what Newton's Laws suggest.

I once got involved with such a project when at university studying physics.
The inspiration for this was a certain Professor Eric Laithwaite, who was a
professor of electrical engineering  or somesuch at a University in the UK. He
was backing the development, by another backyard researcher, of a device which
consisted of a trolley with a gyroscope mounted on it. The device was claimed
to defy Newton's Third Law (I wonder if it is the same device?)

Anyway, my second year tutor had a bee in his bonnet about disproving this idea
of Laithwaite's (who claimed to be an engineer, not a physicist, and only
interested in using mechanical effects, and not in understanding them). My
tutor's idea was to construct a trolley like the one Laithwaite was interested
in, and then to run experimental tests on the thing, alongside a theoretical
analysis of how it should behave according to classical mechanics (ie. Newton's
Laws). We had the physics department's technicians build us a trolley like the
original one, and mounted a gyroscope on it. The device looked as follows
(excuse the funny shaped wheels!)

|=================================O===============================|
|          ^                      |                               |
|<-Gyroscope supports             |                               |
|                                 |      Gyroscope                |
|                                 |    /                          |
|                            [=========]                          |
|                                 |                               |
|                                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|    /~~~~~~\                                      /~~~~~~\       |
+----|      |--------------------------------------|      |-------+
     \______/  <-------Wheels--------------------> \______/

The gyroscope was supported such that it was free to precess about the axis
through its attachment point, and the wheels were also free to rotate in either
direction.

The claim was that, if the gyroscope was set spinning, and then made to swing
so that it precessed, the trolley and everything mounted on it would move along
in one direction. Since this motion  happens without there being a net force
exerted by the wheels along the direction of motion, Newton's Third Law is
broken.

Needless to say my tutor, being a hardened physicist, refused to believe in
such a violation of known laws of physics. He suspected that the motion of the
trolley would be complex, but that it would move so far in one direction, and
then back to its starting point, and then the same distance in the opposite
direction. The total centre of mass of the gyroscope/trolley would remain
stationary (thus avoiding violation of Newton's Laws).

Our results were inconclusive for two reasons. Firstly, in order to test the
contraption properly, it is necessary to place it on a surface which is flat to
a very high degree. This proved to be impossible to achieve in the restricted
timescale of a second year project (we only had a couple of weeks, from what I
remember). In the absence of a flat surface, the motion becomes that of a
gyroscope/trolley on an inclined surface, and in this case, there are
gravitational forces providing a bias to the motion. The flatness of the
surface was tested by  making the gyroscope oscillate in the forwards/backwards
direction, and checking for a net forward motion. This is clearly a situation
where Newton's Laws apply (if they don't, then NASA should worry :-)), and yet
the trolley still moved in one direction, showing that the surface was not
level. We were also able to demonstrate that the surface was not completely
flat, but slightly bowed upwards. We never managed to correct these problems.

The second problem was in the theoretical analysis. Rotational motion is
extremely difficult to handle, and gyroscopes in particular are fiendishly
complex devices to model. The gyroscope/trolley object is particularly
difficult, as the gyroscope doesn't have a single dimension in which any point
of it is fixed. In the vertical direction, its centre of mass moves up and down
according to the angle of the shaft to the vertical. In the direction of
motion, the fixed quantity is the combined centre of mass of the whole body.
And in the sideways direction (ie. across the direction of motion), the
gyroscope axis is fixed at its point of attachment to the support.

The conclusion of our experiment was that we were unable to determine to what
extent such a body obeys Newton's Laws. However, we were able to show quite
convincingly that it is very easy to be misled as to how it does behave. In
particular, the body's extreme sensitivity to any kind of gradient makes it
imperative to do experiments under conditions where the flatness and gradient
of the surface can be measured independently with extreme accuracy. I would
suggest that an optically flat surface is required, and that it should be
levelled by optical means to ensure that it is level to a very high degree.

I would also suggest that any mathematical analysis of such a body should look
carefully at the effects of small deviations of the surface from the perfectly
flat ideal.


Dave Hazel

	I must agree with those who suggest that no money be paid for reading
this guys book. There is a real possibility that this is all the guy is after
is book sales. But, if it were available from the local library, I would
gladly take it out to read it.. Yes, the library will buy more copies if alot
of people take it out, and yes thats money in his pocket, but one must take
some risk! :-) I am glad to risk that much to find out whats in his book..
There are many scams out there, but if we don't check this stuff out, and
assume that everything is a scam, we will never find the gems amongst
the fools gold! 

								-Charlie

    re: .29
    
    That is a risk, in theory, but in practice there is always somebody
    willing to buy the book and read it.
        John Sauter

    Topic 151 and replies concern Kidd's device.

    
    Topic 151 also has a description of the device I came up with in 1984
    as well.  You can compare it with the way Kidd does his and then 
    we can compare notes.  I work for DEC in Bedford, Mass. system
    FSTVAX::MOUTON for mail and whatnot.  Additional
    explanation/application info would be readily discussed, if interested.
    
    cj mouton
    

Article: 49981
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: [email protected] (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
Subject: Mass driver literature (was Re: Transportation on the Moon.)
Sender: [email protected] (The Background Man)
Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 21:42:38 GMT
 
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
>(Rajesh Batra) writes: 

> We have been given a Senior Design Project based on a fictious
> premise that ice has been found at the North Pole of the Moon.  Our moon base
> (it's the year 2016, by the way) is located at the equator. Our Mission is
> to bring back this ice from the North Pole to our production facility plants
> (located at the equator as well) for extraction of Hydrogen and Oxygen. 
> [...] We have come up with several ideas including Pipelines, 
> Rockets, and Rail Guns. We are delivering about 2 tons of rock 
> (containing ice) a day.
> 
> If anyone can direct me to abstracts that have been written concerning
> Rail Guns please do not hesitate to email me. 
 
[I e-mailed Rajesh, but it seems this might be of interest to others, too.]
 
Interesting design problem.  Offhand, it seems wrong to drag the ice
to the equator and do the processing there, but if that's your
assignment... 
 
(Also, if you have the infrastructure to build a railgun launcher and
associated power supply, logistics, operations and maintenance stuff
at the poles, you can probably afford to build your chemical
engineering plant there instead!  Then you can ship anything you want
anywhere on the Moon or beyond, using the same H2-O2 rockets you use
to supply your base, refueling them at the Pole. Solar cells or
mirrors on a tall tower can give you power 28 days around the clock
there, too.) 
 
Hope Cincinatti has some good engineering libraries;  if not, talk to
your librarian about the Magic of Interlibrary Loan.  And get a roll
or two of dimes for the photocopier.
 
Start with Arthur C. Clarke, "Electromagnetic Launching as a Major
Contribution to Spaceflight," *Journal of the British Interplanetary
Society*, v. 9 n. 6, November 1950, p. 261-267.  Unless you want to
start with an extremely obscure 1937 science fiction novel called
*Zero to Eighty* by Akkad Pseudoman, a pseudonym (Oh, no kidding.) for
E.F. Northrup.
 
Generally speaking, the best places to look for information are the
"Princeton Conferences,"  with titles like *Proceedings of the Nth
Conference on Space Manufacturing*, published by the AIAA.  
 
I have the title of only one of them explicitly: *Space Manufacturing
5: Engineering with Lunar and Asteroidal Materials*, edited by Barbara
Faughnan and Gregg Maryniak, AIAA (1985).
 
Also, every couple of years, there is a big conference on
electromagnetic launcher technology, and it appears in *IEEE
Transactions on Magnetics* as an extra-thick issue.  For instance,
IEEE T on M, V.27, No. 1, January 1991.
 
I have some specific early references (I met Henry Kolm in 1979 and he
sent me a bunch of papers).  
 
Kolm, H., "An electromagnetic `slingshot' for space propulsion,"
*Technology Review*, Jun 1977, p. 61-66.
Good semi-technical overview.
 
Kolm, H., Mongeau, P., "An alternative launching medium," *IEEE
Spectrum*, April 1982, p. 30-36.
 
A bunch of papers in the first two Princeton Conference on Space
Manufacturing (1977 and 1979) by Kolm, Kevin Fine, Peter Mongeau, and
Fred Williams.
 
Looking at my records, the Princeton conferences have so much stuff on
this it's not worth typing the titles individually.
 
     O~~*           /_) ' / /   /_/ '  ,   ,  ' ,_  _           \|/
   - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / /   / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
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