Wednesday, December 15, 2021

High dive

The Lightcraft is for any (light!) freight over an atmosphere-bearing planet in the 8-10 m/s2 range. It shortchanges Tsiolkovsky but doesn't totally cheat him: it still needs propellant to push that last push from Mach Ludicrous Speed to actual orbit.

Consider a barge in a very eccentric orbit around the planet, such that it skates the upper stratosphere. When done and back out of atmo, tethers redirect the payload back to a high-apo[Greek word for Keplerian focus] trajectory, which barge then falls back to the atmo for another load.

So: no more propellant. On Earth, if 5550 kg: we now allow 800 kg payload. I assume more if Venus and Titan especially since the upper atmosphere extends higher.

Same model can be used for a scoop to get volatiles like nitrogen and oxygen into low-orbit, if we don't yet have the full ring. I don't expect this for Earth but it might work for, again, Venus and Titan. Maybe Mars (pdf), as repurposed for feeding Phobos.

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