Re: Tugs and Such

Ryan M Gill wrote:
> 
> I was actually thinking of Beanstalks as the elevators that rise from
> the ground and go up into space. Something that was in Low Earth
> Orbit (big heavy object) and able to deploy to the ground some sort
> of massively long cable/elevator. Not necessarily something as big as
> a full on permanent one, but something able to deploy and start off
> loading containers from orbit in a speedy fashion.

Ah ok. Something as massive like that would probably have to be
perminant to be economical. Imagine having to unspool the line for that
repeatedly. A good writeup on how one of those would work and effect
shipping is in Kim Stanly Robinson's Mars series, Red Mars, Blue Mars,
Green Mars.