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by HopDavid
3594 days ago
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An elevator anchored to the earth and extending past geosynchronous orbit is wildly implausible. However orbital vertical tethers are doable with Zylon. A series of 3 orbital tethers could move stuff between LEO and the lunar neighborhood. http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016/08/tran-cislunar-railr... Both Musk and Bezos seem well on their way to reusable boosters. But reusable upper stages is another story. An upper stage re-enters at around 8 km/s. An ~7 km/s delta V budget plus the need to carry a payload means a very slim dry mass fraction, an egg shell space craft. Recovering and reusing upper stages will be much harder than reusing boosters. |
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