Leaving Earth

pulled by an orbiting locomotive

From on-nor.net/orbitloc.html

Introduction

Getting a payload in orbit is very expensive, as it takes much energy to achieve the
required speed and altitude. But the costs are unnecessarily high because:

•Rockets must deliver strong forces for a short time, and afterwards they are
dead weight.
•The energy must be supplied in refined form – as expensive high-grade fuel.
•Most of the fuel is wasted on lifting and accelerating fuel.
•The huge amounts of fuel necessitate large, multistage, single-use rockets.
The scheme to be presented here enables:

•small rockets to be used, as they can be doing useful work during long periods
•most of the fuel to be replaced by solar energy
•one launch mechanism to be reused for many launches.
Power waste is replaced by intelligence.

The principle is: A satellite with much kinetic energy (in a highly eccentric orbit) gives
some of its energy to a near-ground payload module when passing near it. The
payload module is then pulled into orbit, and the satellite continues in a low energy
(nearly circular) orbit. The satellite's solar cell driven electrostatic thrusters will then
within a few days accelerate the satellite to the previous high energy orbit. The
minimum height above the earth surface (at perigee) should be approximately the
same, but the maximum height (at apogee) will vary strongly, reflecting the energy
reserve of the launch mechanism. If a satellite in low circular orbit gets its kinetic
energy doubled, it reaches the escape velocity and escapes from the earth's gravity. In
practice, the maximum distance should be limited to avoid disturbances from the
moon, and perhaps be adjusted to give frequent enough passes near launch sites used.

If we say that an object at rest far away from the Earth has zero energy, and that
satellites moving closer and closer to the Earth have stronger and stronger negative
energy, we may have a counterintuitive energy scale, but it is now easy to compute
energies for the different orbits: The orbital energy is given by the length of the major
axis (the “maximum diameter”) of the orbital ellipse. Viewing energies in this manner
makes the shape of the gravitational potential well quite apparent: This well flattens
out at high altitudes, so little energy capacity is lost if we avoid these altitudes.

We may conclude that our space locomotive mechanism could weight a few tons and
lift into orbit a payload module having 80-90 % of that weight.

The launch mechanism

A satellite could not go much below 200 km before the drag becomes problematic. The
payload could be lifted by quite conventional aircraft to at least 15 km, perhaps more
than the 50 km the stratosphere stretches to. The gap is bridged by a carbon rope
having two parts. The first part goes down from the satellite to the stratosphere, and
the second part flies horizontally where the payload acceleration takes place. The
payload module grabs the horizontal rope lightly – enough to be accelerated to orbital
speed with a g-force bearable to people who are not pilots/astronauts.

The payload is lifted by an airplane (airplane approach:

dashed line) to attach to the leading end of the horizontal
rope. 
(Fine dotted line: The satellite orbit)

If the payload can be accelerated with 5 g to a speed of 8 km/s, the horizontal

acceleration stretch must be 640 km. This would entail too much rope to align
horizontally in an altitude which is a small fraction of the rope length. But most of this
acceleration stretch could be created during the acceleration – after the payload
module has grabbed the horizontal rope. Increasing the speed by 8 km/s using a 5 g
acceleration takes about 8000/(5x9.8)=163 seconds. If both end parts of both ropes were
reeled up (like commonly used key chains), and each reel could release one kilometer
rope per second, the four reels could give 652 km. (There could be additional, double
reels on the middle of the down-going rope, and on the up-going rope from the
payload module – and even several on each of these stretches.)
The horizontal rope might come flying with something like 50-100 km rope exposed
for grabbing. The last reel would give extra rope for grabbing, and all the reels ahead
would buy extra time for the acceleration process – equivalent to providing really
accelerating rope. Brakes at the reels will help spreading the braking power
dissipation.

Releasing rope at one km/s may be difficult using conventional unreeling. If it is, the
rope can be pulled off from the end of the reel. If one of the four+ unreelings should
get jammed, it shouldn't be too serious if the acceleration then increased to 6-7 g.

Grabbing a rope that comes flying at perhaps 10 km/s is serious business, even though
the friction will quite soon be shared by several rope dispensers. The heating of the
rope will be well distributed along very much rope, and carbon can withstand
temperatures up to about 3600 °C. The braking clamps will need special arrangements
for spreading and radiating heat.

Friction losses can be greatly reduced if pulsed clamping is used – by alternating

between full and zero clamping, combined with springing action for smoothing out
the movement. This would be a mechanical equivalent to the pulse modulation
electronics employed for increasing the efficiency of high-power circuits. It should also
be possible to design a non-contact force engagement device. If the rope could have
conductor coils, or at least conducting mass permitting eddy currents, it could work as
a linear (motor/)generator, perhaps using the Inductrackprinciple.

Movement options

It would be advantageous if the launch mechanism were rotating, so that its lower part
were moving backwards in relation to the satellite when passing the launch (clamp)
site. Atmospheric drag will cause such rotation.

Advantages of rotation before attachment of payload:

•It keeps the upper rope straight in whatever direction is desired at clamp time.
•The lower part of the mechanism can spend less time in the atmosphere.
•The horizontal rope will come with a lower speed – perhaps 1-2 km/s lower.
Disadvantages:
 •It will be difficult to get the lower rope up in horizontal position.
•Even if the back end of the lower rope were lifted to correct height, the middle
part would hang down, as this rope would no longer be weightless.
When a payload module attaches itself to the lower part of a non-rotating launch
mechanism, rotation will then start anyway, but not so fast. Rapid rotation after
attachment has the advantage that the payload module can be thrown away, as by a
sling, in various directions simply by letting go of the rope at the right moment – after
0 to ½ rotation around the satellite. After ½ rotation, this sling rotation speed is added
to the speed of the satellite. If the sling rotation speed is 3 km/s, a satellite in low Earth
orbit can throw a payload to the Moon. If half a rotation can be done near perigee, the
payload will have a good orbit, getting a perigee well above the atmosphere. If there is
no rotation, the gravity gradient should keep the upper rope straight, with the lower
bodies somewhat ahead of the upper. At grab time (at perigee) the air resistance will
pull the lower bodies backwards.

Recharging the mechanism

When a large payload module has been launched, the satellite will be in a low and
nearly circular orbit, and its energy has to be increased. This implies rockets pulling up
the apogee (without lifting perigee). It may be ok to give the mechanism several days
for this, so ion thrusters or magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters may be used for this
purpose. They are weak, but very efficient. They don't really use fuel, just some
propellant to throw away. These thrusters are driven by electricity, so by using solar
cells, fuel needn't be supplied. But even if conventional rockets are used, they would
be quite efficient, as fuel can be delivered to them by conventional aircraft. When a
special service/fueling vehicle has attached itself, the ropes are fully reeled in, and the
entire mechanism can receive fuel and maintenance.

Flexibility

A large range of operating modes is available through adjusting parameters like orbit
and rope lengths. One important mode is cargo delivery, in which case high
acceleration like 20 g can be used. The horizontal rope can then be short, and the
mechanism can rotate rapidly – for sending cargo by the slingshot procedure as
mentioned above.

The recharging process can continue to give an orbit beyond the highest Earth orbits,
so that the mechanism can fly to the Moon by itself and go into operational orbit there.
The slingshot procedure can there occasionally be used reversed – for receiving
payloads thrown from Earth.

During recharging, the orbit may by tilted gradually, even up to polar orbit, so airports
anywhere on Earth may be the point of departure, using a short airplane trip at
takeoff.

The structure of the mechanism

The main body, the upper part, is what we have been calling the satellite – although
the entire launch mechanism constitutes one satellite.

It needs:

•mass – for imparting its momentum to the payload

•thrusters/rockets for regaining lost momentum
•solar cells for powering the thrusters
•a reel for the down-going rope
A large amount of fuel (or another liquid later supplied in the same manner) may be
employed simply for increasing the mass.

The central body needs reels for both the upwards-going and the backwards-going
rope. It also needs air control surfaces (stabilizers/elevators), and some small rockets
for position control.

The rear body – at the trailing end of the horizontal rope – needs one rope reel. It also
needs position control devices like those the central body has. It should also have an
airbrake for straightening the rope in the upper atmosphere. The airbrake and/or
braking rockets will be needed for preventing the last part of the horizontal rope from
coming flying forwards upon the payload module when this decelerates the entire
mechanism.
The rockets on these two bodies may also be used for orbit rising.

The ropes should ideally be made of carbon nanotubes, but conventional carbon ropes
should be ok. The extra weight will help giving the mechanism high momentum, but
for the rope after the payload, heavy rope will cause energy loss due to the stronger
braking needed at the end. If the rope could open up like a tube or rope ladder, it
would not be so easily cut by a small meteorite or orbiting object.

The payload module should have a central grabber with two payload containers, one
on each side. The payload will then be less endangered by that energetic rope, and the
rope can pull near the mass center of the payload module. One of the two containers
may routinely be a fuel tank.

A rope grabber (brake) may be permanently on the horizontal rope (initially at the
front end), and have a hook (a skyhook) on its bottom. The payload module can then
sit and wait on the ground, attached to the lower end of a rope which has a loop on the
upper end. The loop us lifted up to the path of the skyhook by e.g. a (moderately
dirigible) balloon. Also this rope could have reels at the ends, and then also these reels
would contribute reducing the forces and power dissipation at the grabbing point. But
the many reels wouldn't work well together if their inertias added up simultaneously.
Slippage at the grabbing point will remedy this by yielding more while reels start
spinning.

Safety

To ensure against dangerous acceleration, the payload module's connection with the
grabber should break if the acceleration exceeds e.g. 10 g.

That long and strong rope would be dangerous if it were dragged along the ground, so
it should then be released automatically, and it might be chemically treated to ignite if
flying rapidly though a high oxygen concentration.

At Lagrange points

It may be advantageous to have large but simple structures – a few rope-connected

bodies – placed at fixed positions in relation to the Earth. The Lagrange points are well
suited for this, particularly L1 and L2 for the Earth-Moon system, or for the Sun-Earth
system. These are unstable for movements along the axis going through the two large
masses, but stable for for movements orthogonally in the orbit plane. Along the
dimension of unstability, a long structure spanning across the Lagrange point will be
stretched out, because the saddle point gradients (particularly at L1) cause separation
along this dimension. (See the first figure in the Wikipedia article Lagrange points.)

But it will generally be more interesting to have such large structures oriented with a
large surface facing the Sun. If a large surface is required, there should be long rods (or
inflatable tubes) orthogonally to the rope – optionally holding apart two parallel ropes.
A membrane – e.g. a flexible solar panel – stretched across this structure will look like
a hammock. If such a structure is placed in L1 between the Sun and the Earth, it can
keep facing the Sun throughout the year, unlike similar structures in Earth orbit or in
an Earth-Moon Lagrange point. If such a sunshade covers a few percent of the Earth, it
should significantly reduce global warning.

Ropes forming a sun-oriented surface will not be stretched out by the potential
gradients at the Lagrange points. The ropes may be hollow – flexible tubes which are
straightened out by a gas released inside them. The gas will leak out, so the tubes
should be chemically treated to become rigid after having been exposed to sunlight for
a while.

To Mars

Just like the whole mechanism could go to the Moon, it could go to Mars. An
important advantage of flying to Mars with such a rotating mechanism – with a few
space ships separated by long ropes – is: The crew can get a decent artificial gravity
without spinning too fast.

The rotation should be in a plane orthogonally to the flight direction. The outer bodies
should have thrusters which can be directed for forward movement and for (propeller-
resembling) rotation. The solar driven, low-power thrusters recommended above are
well suited for traveling to Mars. They will be used for acceleration during the first
half of the journey, and for deceleration during the second half.

A body near the center (near the rotational axis) may also be a suitable carrier for
propulsion thrusters. But this stabilized position may rather be reserved for the
antennas – for communication with Earth. The extreme width of this multi-hulled
spaceship enables a good separation between radio antennas and thrusters, whose
ionized gas jet, when directed backward towards Earth, would severely disturb radio
communication. (If these jets still disturb communication, backwards-directed jets may
have to be replaced by combinations of somewhat outwards-directed jets.)

The size and rotation of this mechanism enables conventional rigid solar panels to be
replaced by a large, flexible “solar sail” panel, which could be large enough to connect
to (and thus power) two or three bodies. (A really large sail like this could also give
propulsion from the solar light pressure, but only for an outwards journey.)

When the mechanism reaches Mars, it could put down and pick up a landing module
by operating just like in Earth orbit. When passing a Mars moon – Phobos or Deimos –
it could adjust the rotation so that one end of the mechanism would be nearly
stationary relative to the moon. It would then be possible to deposit equipment on this
moon, and pick it up later – for instrumentation, mining, etc.. And a non-gravitational
swing-by is possible if a moon (or asteroid) is permitted to hit and snag a rope. The
relative speed can't be high, but a significant momentum change can be obtained if the
rope hangs on through e.g. half the orbit.

Mars is well suited for picking up and depositing cargo/passenger modules by means
of ropes swinging down to the surface. This is due to the thin atmosphere there: Its
pressure at the mean surface is .6 % of the Earth's. And on the highest point (Olympus
Mons) it is only 5 % of this again. The lower bodies of the mechanism will just need
large wings.

Dealing with asteroids

Such a rope mechanism would also be useful for dealing with asteroids – mainly
for collecting minerals or ice. This could mean:

•Examining them (with laser beam heating and spectroscopy?)

•Catching small asteroids (and optionally dispatching them by sling, giving them
a controlled landing on Earth by reversed use of a rotating rope launcher)
 •Landing on large asteroids. With favorable/controlled asteroid rotation
conditions (especially on a sun-lit pole) heating by focused sunlight might melt
the surface for processing.
This could be done in the main asteroid belt beyond the Mars orbit – mainly for getting
what is needed on Mars. But many asteroids are close to the Earth's orbit, and they
should be checked out first – for minerals needed on the Moon and Earth.

When mining during the space flight, it should be easier to find matter suitable for ion
thruster acceleration than to find fuels.

Rope-based structures can control and manipulate objects along a wide path. When
the movements of these objects are accurately mapped in advance, intelligently
adjusted rotation can be used instead of frequent rocket-propelled speed changes, and
the rope-based structures, having a catching net on one end, will be well suited for
handling quite rapidly moving objects.

Such asteroid handling activities will also make it possible to protect Earth against
asteroids coming on a collision course. One elegant method for course modification
could be to use a long rope (either elastic, or extendable, braked by a friction latch)
with coarse nets at both ends. One net catches the dangerous asteroid, and the other
net catches an asteroid having a suitable correcting course.

Applying high voltages to parts of the rope enables acceleration of the whole assembly
by means of the Biefeld-Brown effect. (Experiments by Townsend Brown in
France showed that this effect also works in a vacuum.)

Comparison with the space elevator

The proposed space elevator, with a more than 36000 km long rope going straight up
from the Earth's equator, has for some strange reason become positioned as a serious
solution for economical space launching. That long rope will experience high gravity
forces and must have varying thickness. Our orbiting alternative, however, will need
less than 2 % of the rope length, and with less worrying about thickness variation and
strength.
The elevator will have a low launch capacity because the cable will be occupied by a
slowly moving vehicle (which will have energy supply problems). The orbiting device
can have high capacity if it uses conventional rockets.

The elevator rope will stand in a stream of several thousand satellites and fragments
passing by at about 8-9 km/s, while the smaller orbiting alternative will go with this
stream, have exchangeable parts, and can reel in its ropes in periods of inactivity.

Such a grandiose elevator will certainly be tempting for terrorists, and very difficult to
defend. It could be attacked with explosives, by shooting, or with an airplane with
knife blades on a wing edge. An orbiting device, however, will be far better protected.

Olav Næss, November 2009

Updates:
April 7th 2010: New paragraph: At Lagrange points
April 14th 2010: Small vs. large rockets mentioned in Introduction