RE: GZG FH: Blue water navy.

And if you've got solid state antigrav, you don't need a silly old 
beanstalk.

The GZG universe seems pretty clear - stuff moves in & out of gravity
wells 
by way of shuttles (small, medium, large & that shouldn't be flying), 
powered by similar drives as spacecraft, with some sort of gravitics to 
make it real easy (contragrav, a la Traveller - screens grav pull of 
planet).

Anyway, a beanstalk just screams 'Bomb Me To Make A Political Point'. 
I'm 
all for disposable/recyclable BDBs (Big Dumb Boosters).  The Saturn V
could 
put 50 tonnes (metric) on Luna - think how much it could put into LEO...

Noah

-----Original Message-----
From:	Richard Slattery [SMTP:richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk]
Sent:	Thursday, October 01, 1998 07:21 PM
To:	FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
Subject:	Re: GZG FH: Blue water navy.

On 30 Sep 98, at 15:10, tom.anderson@altavista.net wrote:

> i suppose so. i would also add a mention of the Ekranoplan. 
<lecture>this,
> also known as the wing-in-ground effect (WIG) aircraft, is a type of
> aircraft which flies at a few metres altitude, exploiting the ground
> effect to be much more efficient. the technology was developed by the
> soviets in the cold war, and is now being commercialised by us-russian

and
> german-japanese joint ventures. the speed of a plane with the
convenience
> of a boat.</lecture>

<counterlecture> ;)
Not much good as a reliable method for crossing oceans that are
prone to having heavy sea conditions, moderate to large waves
prevent the use of Ekranoplans. Good for inland seas and other
large calm bodies of water, perhaps featureless flat plains too.
</counterlecture>

> > Beanstalks too. Cheapest ground to orbit cargo transport.
>
> yes, but not too good for moving stuff across the surface. not unless 
it's
> a non-synchronous skyhook, but even then your options are limited.

Beanstalks are a waaaaaaaay major engineering task, and very
demanding of materials technology, 20,000+ km long stalk with
enough strength to perform the task. Not cheap to build either.
"Hey.. it costs a dollar a ton in fuel to pull things up it... but it
cost
a googledollar to build it." ;) Not too great if someone blows it in
half. Half floats away, the other half falls on you.
Then again, perhaps you could use solid state antigrav to support
it...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Slattery	     richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk
Don't pay any attention to the critics--don't even ignore them.
     Samuel Goldwyn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~