Tethered momentum transfer

>
> The question is, when the asteroid fragment reaches L5, how much
thrust will be required in order to slow it down?
>Will it require hundreds of meters per second of velocity change?
or will it come in slowly at about 30m/s?
>It will probably pick up some speed, as it enters the Earth's gravity
well. If we could track the fragment as it entered
>near earth space, we could intercept it with a mass driver, or solar
thermal engine.
>
Tony
There are a lot of interesting dynamics. What we need is a combination
Finite Element Anaylsis with gravity and mass included as dynamic
forces and orbital mechanics program. I have been gathering information.
There is an interesting concept called manifolds that is being
used for some of the newest interplanetary missions where they seem
to be calculating the local gravity gradiants to determine where
the lowest energy location is to slip from one orbit to another.
At the moment I am skimming though, "Structual Dynamics by Finite
Elements" to get a feel of what a Finite Element Anaylsis program
is vs what is needed to simulate a tethered intercept. Answering
the above questions requires being able to simulate moving an asteroid
and finding out what the limits are. The goal would be for it to
slip into the desired orbit with as little energy expenditure as
possible and maximum tricks.

I have a lot of questions too.

Like what would be the result of changing the distance between the
rotating masses in synchronization with the rotation in a gravity
gradiant? How about doing the same thing while crossing the boundary
between two gravity gradiants?

Can rotational energy be transelated and stored in a chemical battery
useing regenerative breaking by going up and down the tether?

Mitchell James
mejames@...
http://www.InnerTransit.net (Email distribution for multilevel organizations)
http://www.InnerTransit.org (Homebase for collaborative engineering)