Increasing mass doesn't inhibit sliding (was Those reckless moon astronauts)

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "hitssquad" wrote:
>
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Victor Smith" wrote:
> > a weighted net over bundles of items moving down a conveyer
>
> ...Would slide off just as easily as anything else on the conveyor belt.

Increased weight, increased friction, also latching, or having boxes permanently fixed to the conveyor and then having cargo placed inside, having a top and bottom conveyor to sandwich cargo inbetween them, etc.

> > a simple latch of some sort on the conveyor could serve to tether items at quite high rates of speed without them flying away.
>
> Yes. Why isn't that used on Earth?

Probably someone calculated that the cost of labor to latch every piece of cargo, then unlatch at the end of the chain, the increased risk to cargo and personnel if a latch failed or wasn't done properly, and change the entire front end and back end speeds was not economicaly worth it.
Brooks