Lunar Dragger

>
> Although you did the preliminary calculations for Kevlar, it would be nice
> if we could get some calculations for carbon nanotubes (although km plus

Since carbon nanotubes are nto commerically available I see little value
in doing
that calculation. I chose Kevlar because it is commercially
available. I have
since learned that there are other even better materials available,
e.g. Spectra2.

> lengths are probably some time off... ). This would give double benefits as
> a sacrificial material, because carbon is one of the many elements that is

Kevlar and Spectra2 contain lots of carbon. But most of it will be
vaporized by
the heat, and it will be difficult to extract useful quantities from the
residue which will be spread over a swath tens of kilometres long.

> rare on the moon, and is one of the most necessary. I don't like the use of
> steel, because iron can be extracted from the moon, and thus would be
> largely wasted mass.
>

I am not sure I follow that argument.

Steel is inferior to Kevlar and Spectra2.

But it depends on the point of origin. Tethers could be made from
lunar iron
which is widely available, and could be launched towards Earth fairly
cheaply with a mass driver.

This would be much cheaper than launching polymer tethers from Earth.

CR.

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