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From: jrv@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (James R. Van Zandt)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Accelerator Momentum Loss
Message-ID: <8602022033.AA24212@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 2-Feb-86 15:33:37 EST
Article-I.D.: mitre-be.8602022033.AA24212
Posted: Sun Feb  2 15:33:37 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Feb-86 03:14:21 EST
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Organization: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
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> The second [solution] is to decelerate payloads from beyond LEO to
> sub-orbital speeds.

Where do you let them land?  Do they all have to be small enough to burn
up in the atmosphere, or can you steer them to where they won't hurt
anything?

> The problem here is that you do not want to be
> required to lose mass from the space environment to the earth. 

Why not?  There are a lot of rocks up there.

> Moreover, it is unlikely that you could balance the traffic in the
> early stages of use.

True.

> Another solution is possible.  If a charge is placed on the
> accelerator, then it becomes a gigantic charged particle moving in the
> earth's magnetic field.  We know that in this case a force is exerted
> on the particle, a force that can be used to transfer angular momentum
> from the field to the particle, thus making up for the momentum lost by
> the payload acceleration.  Note that no mass is needed to accomplish
> any of this, only a power plant which may not even be physically
> coupled to the accelerator.

Space isn't a vacuum, only a very tenuous plasma.  I'll bet the charged
particles in the solar wind would gradually discharge the accelerator,
requiring constant recharging.

Also, this would not make up for the loss of orbital ENERGY.

                       - Jim Van Zandt