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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!clyde!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC
From: REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Elevators
Message-ID: <12246@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Oct-83 01:16:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.12246
Posted: Sun Oct  9 01:16:00 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Oct-83 06:42:10 EDT
Lines: 12

From:  Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>

Let's see, 100 miles/hour, 10 days, 24 hours/day, that's 24,000 miles
above the surface. Yeah, if you're going to geosync orbit it'll take
that long. I guess people in a hurry had better go 200 miles up
(that's 2 hours of travel) then jump off and fire a small rocket to
achieve low-Earth-orbit before reaching the atmosphere, then at
leisure maneuver to desired orbit. This is a lot cheaper than going
all the way from Earth's surface using rockets. Alternately, once
you're out of the atmosphere you can go faster than 100 mi/hr, i.e.
the elevator can be in two parts, a slow part for initial ascent, then
a mass-driver or whatever for fast main part.