Gateway to the Planets and Beyond

The major cost component of all space missions is getting out of earth’s gravity well. Once in orbit, there are several propulsion systems for going higher and further, in addition to traditional chemical rockets. The Space Cable can provide a means for launching many payloads at small incremental cost. Very large systems can then be assembled in orbit or at a Lagrange point, which is a point where an object is balanced between the Earth and the Sun or Moon.

Using the Space Cable for manned flight replaces the first stage of a rocket, which is always the biggest and most expensive part. A 30-mile high design has been proposed for launching manned vehicles into orbit (see journal paper), but the 87-mile high design is very suitable also for launching vehicles directly into orbit or even to interplanetary space without further boosting. (See Work in Progress.) The picture shows both versions. With the higher design, large vehicles (up to 100 tons) vehicles can be accelerated to more than 2 km/sec, which is somewhat faster and a lot higher than a first-stage rocket achieves. Launches will have to be scheduled when tourist vehicles are not using the space cable.