On 03/12/2007, James E. D. Cline <jedcline1@...> wrote:
>
> For either of these techniques to be
> useful for long term use up to GEO, there are the big conflicts with
> existing satellites in LEO that would have to be resolved; so a near-
> term compromise approach to get started might be to seriously explore
> Lofstrom's Launch Loop concept to provide electrically powered lift
> to least get above the atmosphere, while not conflicting with other
> users of LEO at this time. However, the need to retain the vision of
> an entirely electrically powered delivery from ground up to GEO needs
> to be maintained for truly economical and environmentally friendly
> large scale placement of construction materials into GEO


The Lofstrom loop concept is capable of injecting payloads directly into GTO
(geosynchronous transfer orbit), and a relatively small kick motor can
circularise the orbit in GEO (delta-v ~1.6km/s). The presence of the kick
motor reduces the payload by 40% or equivalently increases launch costs by
about 70% from those from the loop to LEO; but the launch costs are low to
start with.

Jim Cline
>

--
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. If we lived in a perfectly
imperfect world things would be a lot better.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]