Space

8676 readers

42 users here now

Share & discuss informative content on: Astrophysics, Cosmology, Space Exploration, Planetary Science and Astrobiology.

Rules

Be respectful and inclusive.
No harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
Engage in constructive discussions.
Share relevant content.
Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.
Use appropriate language and tone.
Report violations.
Foster a continuous learning environment.

Picture of the Day

The Busy Center of the Lagoon Nebula

Related Communities

🔭 Science

🚀 Engineering

🌌 Art and Photography

Other Cool Links

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

326

Human missions to Mars in doubt after astronaut kidney shrinkage revealed (www.yahoo.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

111 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It could be for return packages to earth, but with the rail gun already in place, that seems somewhat useless.

On the other hand, it would be difficult to aim the rail gun, whereas the space tether would be somewhat easier to aim.

In this scenario, we're just missing powering the rail gun self-sufficiently for a tidy operation. So a method to convert that angular momentum into electrical power for our rail gun would be the final step I think.

Fly wheels, gears, electrostatics in the tether. All equally undeveloped at scale as our tether except in principle so maybe the tether makers in the scenario already had an idea in mind.

The question is...will they settle on a steam turbine in space somehow lol?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I figured we'd just power it with solar. If not ground based, then an array in lunar orbit. Probably a mixture of both.