3 ms·

I did a back of the napkin calculation a while ago regarding how many car lengths you’d need to put in LEO to have an unbroken traffic jam in orbit and the resu

I did a back of the napkin calculation a while ago regarding how many car lengths you’d need to put in LEO to have an unbroken traffic jam in orbit and the result was surprisingly comparable to the number of cars we’re currently producing. If you were “simply” launching wire instead I’m sure you could get enough material up there in much fewer launches. I’m curious as to how you would construct such a loop since you’d need to station keep it somehow while it’s inoperable.

cletus 4y ago
You can build it in sections because the wire itself is travelling at orbital speeds. That's actually what makes the whole thing work. Running a curent through that creates an electric field. You would probably encase the whole thing and contain it with a magnetic field. You would then build things on top of that casing.