2 ms·
Could park a starship at Earth-Moon L1 and extend a cable toward the Moon which in between L1 and the Moon would pull itself down under its own weight. Starship
by dave333 2y ago
Could park a starship at Earth-Moon L1 and extend a cable toward the Moon which in between L1 and the Moon would pull itself down under its own weight. Starship would need to position itself on the Earth side of L1 to maintain center of mass of the Starship-cable system at L1. Once the cable reaches the lunar surface it can be anchored.
- dave333 2y agoNot sure why it took 2 days for the penny to drop but obviously given a sufficiently strong cable can repeat this on the Earth-L1 side and end up with an Earth-Moon tether. Would be interesting to find out how close to earth a currently available cable + payload mass would reach before it breaks. The delta-v between LEO and the lower end of the tether should be small and an elliptical orbit should be able to rendezvous with it.