>>11744954>>space elevatorsit is a little known fact, but we actually have strong enough to build one on earth. Colossal, not nano, carbon tubes are strong enough. Unlike nanotubes they are strong enough AT THE MACROSCALE for a space elevator. We can only make em' a couple of cm long though. centimeter long nanotubes aren't as strong as colossal carbon tubes
>>SKYHOOKSare absolutely positively based. They could reduce the cost of space travel by a lot. They let you launch a suborbital rocket and boost it up to an orbital trajectory. If you don't know the difference in how much energy it takes to go orbital vs suborbital, leave this board. But here's where it gets really cool, you can boost a skyhook up after it has thrown a payload WITHOUT USING ANY PROPELLANT! If you pass electricity through the tether, you can use lorentz force to react against earth's magnetic field and raise the tether's orbit. Skyhooks are incredibly chad too. You can make a tether out of regular ass fishing line that can eat other satellites for breakfast. By spreading the tether out of a reasonable distance a tether can TANK a direct hit with an iridium satellite and still be functional enough to grab the necessary payload to fix it. Much of the problems with making em' include figuring out how to unspool long cables in space.
>>MASS DRIVERSNothing says based like launching stuff to space with a giant fucking cannon. The rocket equation says that as your delta V goes up, your ratio of shit you want in space to shit you throw out your ass goes up exponentially. By using a giant fucking gun to get stuff up to fucking fast so we don't need as much delta V we can achieve exponentially small payload ratios. Basically we can launch shit into space much cheaper. Can't launch people because of the acceleration, but you can launch stuff like propellant. Watch what's happening with SpinLaunch. Cause even if they fail it'll still be fucking awesome.
