Re: [OT]-Interstellar Trade

> >on the FTL device.  But, for small entrance and exit situations, say
big
> >enough for a railroad car size pallet o' stuff, an FTL device can
work in
a
> >gravity well over VERY short distances, like from ground to VERY HIGH
orbit.
>
> I've got a problem swallowing this one. I'd say a much more reasonable
> approach is that you manufacture or refine in orbit (from, say,
asteroid
> mining) and that eliminates the whole gravity well problem.
>
> Schoon

Okay, let's say theoretically you can open a wormhole from anywhere to
anywhere.  The problem is that gravity creates a kind of feedback in the
wormhole.  The more gravity around, the higher the feedback.  Enough
feedback causes the wormhole to collapse.  The longer the real distance
traveled the more sensitive the wormhole is to gravity.  So to travel to
different star systems you need to be relatively far away from the
gravity
well.  For ground to orbit the distance is short enough that the
wormhole is
stable, but not so short that the added gravity would cause too much
feedback.

On another note, someone mentioned beanstalks as a way to get from
ground to
orbit.	This is just an opinion but regardless of how many scientist
swear
that it is safe, the liability insurance on something like that would
probably make it too expensive to operate.  Unless you ban lawyers from
the
planet : ).

Christopher K Smith
SR MECH Auburn University
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Homepage http://www.auburn.edu/~smithck
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