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The cable is held by tension from the Moon anchor point right, so I wonder about ramming a satellite a few hundred kilometers above the endpoint. If the cable i
by jobigoud 7y ago
The cable is held by tension from the Moon anchor point right, so I wonder about ramming a satellite a few hundred kilometers above the endpoint. If the cable is severed in this way, will the loose end fall straight to Earth causing damage? It's not itself in GEO orbit, it's moving at Moon orbital speed and pulled by Earth gravity. So I feel it should fall pretty much straight down.
- ColinWright 7y agoYes, clearly there are failure modes that can be provoked, and breaking the cable close to the Moon's surface will result in this thing falling to Earth from a great height. But most terrorist organisations short of governments won't have the capability to provoke such damage, and it's likely that most of it will burn up on re-entry, and possibly can be designed explicitly to do so.
- s1artibartfast 7y agoI think it would easily burn up in the atmosphere. With <1mm in diameter it has a huge surface area.