/sci/ - Science & Math

Also screw the space elevator and launch loop. We have the technology to make a rotovator.

A rotovator is an enormous rotating electrodynamic tether, whose tip dips down to about 100 kilometers every now and then. When said tip dips down you send something like Spaceshipone(or other suborbital craft) up to it and have it match speeds and dock with the tip. When the tether rotates backup the your Spaceship is release and put into orbit.

Such a system can be built with materials that already exist. Some rotovator designs can supposedly be built for around the cost of celebrity divorce filings(priorities our culture has them...). Only problems with rotovators include deploying the hundred kilometer long tether and tether degradation due to micrometeoroids. Though if one can put one tether up, it can be used to put up other tethers, lessening the problem of degradation.

for more info look up Hypersonic Airplane Space Tether Orbital Launch(HASTOL)