Solar wind to get from Asteroids to Earth orbit?

>Greetings Frank,

Greetings Thor,
>
>I'm aware that the solar wind flows out from the sun.
>How exactely do you propose to get items made from
>asteriod materials close enough to the earth?

The solar wind could be used for instance with M2P2 propulsion.
But this is not the force used by solar sails.

Solar sails use the photonic pressure of light which is about 9 N
continuous thrust for a square kilometer sized solar sail.

They are able to "tack" in some sense. They can spiral into the
direction of sun or just away of it just by turning the sail negative
or positive.

That means the sail which is in orbit around the sun for instance can
be turned positive that the orbit speed is accelerated or if you turn
it negative it is decelerated.

When the orbital speed is accelerated the sail spirals outwards when
it is decelerated it spirals inwards towards sun.

So with just a little turn of the sail you can change directions like
a sailboat could not needing fuel at all for propulsion.

In fact you could reach every point about 3 AU around the sun in our
solar system with a solar sail. Beyond 3 AU the photonic pressure
becomes to weak to stay usable for this purpose.

There is a book written by Colin Mc Innes
"Solar sailing, Technology, Dynamics and Mission Applications"
which describes the technology and the mathematics for solar sails and
I would say it is the bible for solar sailing.

Take a look here:
http://www.praxis-publishing.co.uk/space/solsail.htm

Now comes my design into the game.
http://solar-thruster-sailor.info/sts/sts.htm see fig. 1 here for
illustration.

It uses an outer ring with ion thrusters which can be used for
steering (doing those little turns which bring the sail to change
directions), the solar sail and the solar cells are located inside the
ring, fixed pretty taught into it with belts or a net preferably out
of CNT material.

This belts or the net (could just be thin yarn threads, since CNT is
so tough) can also hold payload either on the backside of the
structure or in its center.

The extensive steer ability through the ion thrusters and the ability
safely to take on payload is what my design distinguishes from other
solar sail designs.

Cosmos I should be the first solar sail which will be used in space
early this year. Take a look here
http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/who_where_when.htm

There will be huge publicity reactions if it succeeds. I do hope that
after the launch is done the search for a sail which really can take
on payload will start also and I do hope they will find my design in
the process :-), so wish me luck on that.

So now I did advance this design a bit through a docking and loading
station in the center of the disk.

It is just a second (the inner) ring held taut in the outer ring with
those belts or CNT-net.

I have a fig. already on my site but didnt link it yet,
it is at http://solar-thruster-sailor.info/figs/fig8.jpg

This ring carries brackets (5.1 on the fig.) which point into the
space inside the ring and can hold for instance an outer ring of a
smaller spacecraft like that you see on the fig. The outer ring of the
daughter structure has the letter 6 in this case.
The inner ring (5) carries winches (5.2 on the fig.) to handle payload
also.

That means a huge solar sail could be used as a carrier space craft
which is able to transport smaller space crafts like satellites or
prospector/landers virtually for free and letting them dock and re
dock.

Typical example would be a prospector brought with the carrier to the
asteroid letting it take asteroidal samples and bringing it back to
earth after re docking.

Another way of use would be to take icy or permafrost chunks off the
asteroid bringing it to the cycler craft were the prospector would
deliver it for water restocking of the cycler, re dock again off the
carrier and land on the cyclers center were the astronauts could
unload the icy load.

Another possibility would be to use one ring in the disks center on
the upper side and the other under the disk so you could have a
loading facility downside and a daughter spacecraft on the ring above
the disk (or just two docking/loading stations).

You could take a look on the fig. for the double docking station here:
http://solar-thruster-sailor.info/figs/fig8a.jpg

The last but not least option would be the magazine dock were several
of those daughter space crafts/ prospectors could dock in and out
under and above each other.
The magazine again held with belts or a net in the center of the
carrier.

Typical applications would be a carrier delivering a swarm of
communication and observation satellites to its destination (around
Mars, the sun or an asteroid for instance)

Or a freighter carrying a swarm of fly- and dock able containers or
lander/prospector space crafts.

You can take a look on the fig. for the magazine dock here:
http://solar-thruster-sailor.info/figs/fig8b.jpg

The center ring again is held in the disks center while the
perpendicular pipes carry motor driven movable docking brackets (5.4
being the brackets, 5.5 being the motor) which move into the docking
space when a spacecraft docks in and move out of the docking space
when the daughter craft has docked out.

>
>The trick of habitats is you need one to get
>astronauts to the asteroids.
If you had this first cycler-space-craft or even a habitat built on
the earth/sun libration region in this way only little propulsion
would get it going towards earth were astronauts could enter it safely
in the shield of earths magnetic field.

>Having one there to
>greet them does not address this problem.
See above. The cycler would start its way from there to near earth
orbit remote controlled as I pointed out in my earlier post.
No astronauts needed for that.

Frank