Tether/station momentum exchange ( TGD)

>
> You'll need to go into this further. As I see it, if you're mounting
a
> mass driver to a station, why bother with the puny velocity of the
> rotation?
> Any release of mass from the perimeter of a rotating body (even a
> ring or cylinder station) does not affect rotation. Sure, reaction
> from something shot tangentiaally out of a mass driver will (as a
> rocket to spin-up/down), but the rotation velocity is insignificant
> compared to the to the launching velocity given to the projectile,
> isn't it? Are we concerned with the projectile?
>
Actually the release itself won't affect rotation, but moving the body
from the center of the tether where you would dock to the perimeter
will affect the rotation of the tether. To move a body from the center
to the edge one must increase its angular momentum. This angualr
moment is transfered from the tether to the body, so the tether
rotation decreases. This is the Newtons second law of physics.

> > Electromagnetic mass drivers have no moving parts.
>
> Really? None? (aside from the moving projectile)
> One thing I heard as a counter to the idea of mass drivers being
> useful _in the near term_, is that there has yet to be a
demonstration
> of a 'reciprocating bucket' mass driver, where the buckets are
re-used
> after they throw a load. There has also never been an autoloading
mass
> driver demonstration with or without buckets.
> Granted, these shouldn't be a problem, but it is an issue of R&D.

There has never been an auto-loaded ship or plane either but that
hasn't stopped either industry from moving millions of tonnes and
people.

To be fair, an Electromagnetic mass driver has more similarities in
operation to a airport or shipping dock then to NASA. A space tether
would also.

Bill