ALL SCI-FI

[Pye-Rate]

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_______ Super cool physics-based skill toy


* Click on the title to view the article, and the jpeg to watch the video.


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[Bud Brewster]

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Yo-yos are cool, but the Flux really Rox!


__________________ FEEL FLUX Tricks Teaser


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Okay, so that's the Science. Now let's add the Fiction!
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I'd love to have one of these miraculous little gizmos, and it occurred to me that there's no limit on the length to the tube.

Why is that important? No reason, really . . . except that it seems to me that we could make a sort of Emergency Magnetic Free-Fall System — like a space elevator, but it only goes down and doesn't have a propulsion system. Just a hundred-mile high framework that supports a series of magnet rings, and a magnetized passenger car that drops slowly down the tube-shaped arrangement of rings.

Like this.



Actually, the best way to do this would be to have this be incorporated into the regular powered elevator system, and whenever the passenger cars went down they wouldn't need to use the motors or brakes. The cars would be design to disengage themselves from the surrounding structure and be held in place entirely by the magnetic field during the gradual decent.

Ah, but where would all the power for the magnetized rings come from, you're wondering? Heck, that's easy! Solar panels along the sides of the rings' support structure. This makes the descending elevators independent of the space station and the ground facility, rather being relying on them for power.

The beautiful part about using this method to control the downward movement is that it would work in emergencies when the elevator's propulsion system failed. If meteoroids or orbital debris hit the station and required a rapid evacuation, these things will lower the entire crew of the station back down to earth, even if a dozen passenger cares are needed.

They can drop down smoothly, even if they're all actually touching each other, falling in a group. This would put no stress on the regular motorized machinery because it isn't even being used.

You couldn't do that with the space elevator design like the one below, because it's dependent on the mechanism that raises and lowers it.




And right there, ladies and gentlemen, is the exciting climax of your space station story! A dramatic rescue from disaster by the Emergency Magnetic Free-fall System.





Take a look at this nice video that presents a wonderful design for a space station with an elevator.

Orbital Tether | Planet-to-Space Elevator | Space Engineers

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)