Dealing with ISS trash

On 18 April 2012 14:18, Combs, Mike wrote:

> > Mass drivers accelerate very rapidly. That puts a lot of force on the
> > station. I suggest a little analysis of the structure before you
> > start putting loads on it.
>
> That might be why I've been thinking a bit about using a retractable
> tether. Although I imagine there would be a tiny bit of a jolt when the
> release of a trash load creates a wave which propagates up the tether to
> the Station. One might could engineer the dynamics of the take-up reel to
> minimize the effects of the jolt.
>

It would be easier and probably better to have a slowly spinning loop
hanging down, spinning flat in the plane of the orbit, and when you want to
discard something, just attach a bucket to it, and let it fall down the
loop until it falls off at the furthest point, pulling the loop around as
it does so. The jarring shouldn't be too bad, and you'll get a propulsive
tug from it all the way down due to Coriolis effect (since an orbit is a
rotating reference frame centered at the middle of the earth).

It *should* be fairly smooth although you'd want to vibrationally decouple
the loop from the station.

> Regards,
>
> Mike Combs
>

--
-Ian Woollard