The need to conserve

the big problem with this idea is that the station in the orbital
lead position would be constantly accelerating and the one in the
orbital trailing postion would be contantly decelerating. after a
while the two would no longer be in the same orbit at all. the only
way something like this would have a chance of working is if their
non rotational sections were connected via some sort of transport
system. then when you sent a certain mass one way, the same size mass
would go the other way. this would likely only work on short
distances (say a mile or so), although it is consievable that it
could be used for much larger distances. it could use something like
cable to pule the loads back and forth and would only require an
electric motor to start their motion. then a spring would assorb the
energy at the end ballancing out the effect. after a while the two
station would be pulled a little bit towards each other, but angling
the solar cells arrays could overcome the small change.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot"
wrote:
>
> > From: Combs, Mike
> > Suppose we have a large number of space habitats
> > in the sameorbit, but with several miles spacing in between.
> > Imagine if they built something a bit akin to a mass driver
> > connecting them all together.
>
> Or just the first few hundred meters of a mass driver, which would
be enough
> to push the car towards the next station in line. Aside from
constant
> acceleration I see no reason to build all the rest of the track and
plenty