RE: GZG FH: Blue water navy.

On 5 Oct 98, at 18:52, Thomas Barclay wrote:

> Richard spake thusly upon matters weighty: 
> > The solid state grav would be kinda useful to obviate the few 
billion 
> > tons of force in the centre of a counterbalanced option.
> 
> EH? In this case, I was refering to moving shipments by balancing a 
> downward shipment with an upward one thus meaning that gravity was 
> accelerating one package while pulling another up. Anyway, local 
> contra-grav would be great too.  

The few billion tons I was referring to was the force required to 
support the beanstalk. You were going to have a several hundred or 
thousand mile long cable with counterbalancing loads? eww, the 
mass of the cable would rather eliminate any help. Anyway, this is 
turning into a engineering/physics discussion (which I'm happy to 
continue off list)

>    
> > Those monuments don't drop 20,000 km of superstrong metal on 
> > your planet when they break.
> 
> No, but the point was that they too are targets and no one has 
> succeeded in killing them yet. 

There is little advantage to doing so with those. However, other 
large structures like bridges, which are a parallel to beanstalks 
have been damaged or destroyed by terrororist or military force on 
occasion.

> 
>  The required toughness of the 
> > material probably would make breaking it tricky,
> 
> And lets say we use an additional web of grav stabilizers to give it 
> a 'grav-lock' so that it won't fall even if it breaks. And so that 
> its harder to break. You have to think it would be very tough, 
> armoured, and may even have PDS, PDF, ADAF, and possibly its own 
> defenses like batteries....and the space station at the terminus 
> would have it well within paths of fire. 

No point in having the thing if you can stop it falling, just use the 
grav stuff to transport the mass into orbit. It's powerful enough to 
hold up a beanstalk after all ;)

> Even if it isn't ENTIRELY practical, it sure is a neat engineering 
> idea and a neat campaign prop for good FT scenarios. Add to which it 
> would be a lot like going to Mars - why do it? Because its way cool.

Too true... but it's probably a bit more 'high' SF than some of the 
flavours of FT. But hey, variety is the spice of gaming ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Slattery	     richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk
Not only is he ambidextrous, but he can throw with either hand. 
     Duffy Daugherty , football coach and sports analyst`
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~