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From: ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Electromagnetic Launch
Message-ID: <1845@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 11:22:10 EST
Article-I.D.: jhunix.1845
Posted: Wed Feb 12 11:22:10 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 06:15:38 EST
References: <8602010854.AA02457@s1-b.arpa> <540@ssc-vax.UUCP> <15500@apple.UUCP>
Reply-To: ins_akaa@jhunix.ARPA (Ken Arromdee)
Organization: TARDIS Repairs, Inc.
Lines: 22

In article <15500@apple.UUCP> mikes@apple.UUCP writes:
>	This is GREAT!  Let's just build an elevator to outer space!  Just
>climb in, punch the button for floor 39,254 , and jump off!  (We should note
>that this was tried once before, in biblical times. :-)
>	(I wonder how many stories tall you'd have to go to get to geostationary
>orbit? That would be some elevator panel! :=)
>			Michael Shannon {apple!mikes}

Believe it or not, building an elevator to outer space is a perfectly
plausible idea, though modern materials seem to be somewhat lacking in tensile
strength.  There was an Arthur C. Clarke novel, The Fountains of Paradise,
based on exactly that idea.  And it does go to geostationary orbit, with
some mass farther out as a balance.
-- 
"We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to
socialism, because socialism is defunct.  It dies all by iself.  The bad thing
is that socialism, being a victim of its... Did I say socialism?" -Fidel Castro

Kenneth Arromdee
BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS
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