Re: SPACE: Mass transit idea

Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Fri, 03 Jan 1997 06:48:09 -0500


Hal Finney wrote:
>
> Actually I am not sure how the geometry will work in terms of the station
> "catching up" to the cars. During the transfer, the station and the
> earth will have rotated to new positions. That means that each launched
> car is in a different elliptical orbit (in the non-rotating frame). You
> will need to launch the cars from a point counter-clockwise from the
> point opposite to the station, and receive them from a point clockwise from
> the opposition point. How far these offsets are will depend on how long
> it takes to reach geosynch orbit, how much the earth rotates in that time.
>

After sleeping on it, doing some intentional dreamCAD, I decided that,
yes the cars, in an absolute sense are following a Hohmann elliptical
orbit. However relative to the geosynch and ground stations, since we
are dealing with the earth rotating, they will apear to follow a figure
eight path, with the crossover point being that point at which the cars
angular velocity is equal to the rotation of the earth. So, this will
require good timing in geosynch traffic control to prevent car
collisions in a high capacity Lorrey Loop.

Anders and Shaun, would you mind compiling the gist of this discussion
for inclusion in Homo Excelsior?
> Hal

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