Automated Transfer Vehicles

Yes, they called it the rotary launcher. At first I worried about imparting angular momentums to ISS, but I supposed you could have two, counter-rotating launchers.

I've also wondered about using tethers to de-orbit trash from ISS. That also would give a slight orbital boost.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Joe Strout
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 10:32 AM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Automated Transfer Vehicles

I agree with the general principle here, but we don't necessarily need
to be talking about a magnetic mass driver of the sort you'd use on the
Moon. There was another design I vaguely recall seeing (in the Stanford
study?), which was basically a rapidly rotating tube. Mass pellets are
fed into the center, at the hub, and they get accelerated by the
rotation and shoot out the end. Timing is carefully managed so that
they shoot out in the direction you want them to go.