GeSp2466

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Number: 2466 Name: KINETIC STRUCTURES III

Address: J.E.D.CLINE1 Date: 921204

Approximate # of bytes: 18080

Number of Accesses: 3 Library: 3

Description:

Development of a new catagory of transportation between EArth

surface and near-space is suggested. Using the kinetic energy

of a stream of orbital velocity mass elements within long

brodge-=like structures could vastly increase specific

compressive strength to enable the construction of bridge-

like transportation structures hundreds of miles long, even

to link earth surface points with points on the geosynchronous

Clarke

Belt. Intrinsically transfers proplusion energy to vehicles

moving along itself. Enables colonization of Clarke Belt.

Keywords: KESTS,colony,transportation,power,GEO,civilization

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KINETIC STRUCTURES FOR A SPACEFARING SOCIETY III

by J. E. D. "Dave" Cline 921203

5632 Van Nuys Blvd. Suite #110

Van Nuys, CA 91401

ABSTRACT

A progression of thought toward development of a new

catagory of transportation between earth surface and near

space, which has the potential of enabling truely massive

space colonization in the Clarke Belt. The key concept which

opens the doors to a wide range of possibilities is the

concept of vastly increasing a specifically directional

compressive strength of a transportation structure by using

the kinetic energy of a stream of orbital velocity mass

elements circulating within the structure. Electromagnetic

coupling of the kinetic energy of the stream of mass

elements also supports the weight of the evacuated tubing in

which it flows, and transfers propulsion energy to vehicles

traveling along its vast bridge-like structure. It can also

serve as a power transmission and storage link between

solar satellite power stations and the earth surface's

electrical power grids. With the correct impetus, it seems

possible to create extremely long bridges linking distant

locations now served mainly by air traffic, and even the

colonization of near-space could happen in our time, greatly

benefiting humanity and the earth ecosystem.

VERY BASIC: INCREASE MOBILITY TO INCREASE RESOURCE ACCESS

By increasing our mobility, we increase our access to our

resources. Increasing access to resources increases

the potential standard of living, which increases life

satisfaction potential. This document proposes development

of a transportation technology which has the potential for

increasing our mobility enormously, thus potentially

increasing our standard of living.

INCREASE TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY TO INCREASE POTENTIAL

MOBILITY

Increasing our transportation technology increases our

potential mobility,and thus increases our access to

potential resources. This document proposes developing a new

kind of transportation technology.

From barefoot to shoeleather, from bicycle on dirt path to

automobile on paved roads, from leaping between rocks in a

stream to riding aluminum wings on lofty breezes...each

time, we increase how far we can go, how much we can carry,

and even increase the kinds of places we can go. This file

proposes a way to greatly increase how far we go, and how

much we can carry there.

Lasting transportation modes harmonize the technology with

the terrain. Canals gracefully follow the lay of the land,

enabling the smoothest, furthest movement of its precious

water. Sleek ship hulls both displace the weight of water

with the weight of cargo, and slice easily through the water

toward the distant shore. Steel railroad tracks support

steel wheels for minimum rolling resistance, moving farther

with less effort. This file proposes a harmonious

transportation energy exchange technology to follow the lay

of the gravitational field of our rotating planet earth,to

expand civilization into near-earth space: a massive

beachhead in the Clarke Belt made possible by a new

transportation technology.

THE ALMOST UNTHINKABLE: BUILDING BRIDGES WHERE THERE HAD

ONLY BEEN A FEW FERRYS

Reaction engine transportion technology currently is thought

to be the only way to get up there. The Space Shuttle, The

Saturn V, even single stage to orbit vehicles must leave the

ground with all the energy they will need to reach their

goal. This contrasts with transportation systems where the

path supports the weight of the cargo, and sometimes even

the horse fodder, the energy source, is distributed along

the path as in electric rail systems. But just as in the

wild, leaping to the destination has much less carrying

capacity than taking paths of solid footholds all the way.

We have precedents for way to go up: stair steps, elevators,

tramways. Yet each of these ways have limits as to height

caused by the limits of compressive strength of materials of

which those transportation systems are built; even the

tramway requires the compression of the hill which supports

the top of the cable that pulls the car up the hill.

However, theoretically there are ways to massively augument

compressive strength, by harnessing enormous kinetic energy

engineered to flow within the structure. A general

descriptive name for these might be "kinetic structures."

APPLICATIONS: GROUND-TO-GROUND, AND GROUND-TO-SPACE

The general concept of a kinetic structure has the potential

of pointing at structures that could enable new ways to

transport people and resource materials across vast

distances. The structures could carry pipelines on

themselves, support and supply power to payload vehicles

moving along its outside surfaces on mechanical or maglev

tracks, and some small payload can be very rapidly carried

within the structure itself. Possibly coal and glacial water

could be moved from source locations to areas of need.

Vehicles resembling a merging of an elevator car and an

electric railroad car would move goods and passengers from

point to point, spanning great distances. And more.

Much more. A remarkable form of kinetic structure has the

potential of transporting continuous carloads of people and

goods between earth surface and altitudes up to the 22,300

mile altitude of the relatively stationary Clarke Belt where

our current communication satellites are located. With the

capability to transport people there by the hundreds of

thousands daily, it also becomes worthwhile to consider

creating a ring of space settlements there, each space

settlement being of a design such as the 10,000 person

agricultural/residential Stanford Torus described in great

detail in NASA SP-413. There is room for 1.5 million of them

there side by side, food, home and employment for up to 15

billion people per ring. Such could be the site of an

enormous civilization complex, requiring little wear and

tear on mother earth, yet continuously connected to her via

the kinetic structures.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES: STRUCTURES HARNESSING KINETIC ENERGY

A kinetic structure, as referred to in this file, basically

is a compression bridge structure that inherently carries

the energy which propels vehicles along its outside surface.

In general, a Kinetic Structure would maintain its shape

against forces acting against itself by using the kinetic

energy of rapidly moving mass within itself to resist those

forces. The mass stream's intrinsic path is maintained by

automatically re-optimizing the velocity of each of the

elements at thrust points along it's path. Energy coupling

to these elements is electromagnetic, except chemical

propulsion can be used during the initial massive

distributed energy input during erection of the structure.

GENERAL SHAPES OF KINETIC STRUCTURES

The direction of motion of the rapidly moving masses

determines the forces which determine the shape of such a

structure. A static shape is created by the balance of these

internal kinetic energy forces with externally applied

forces.

One common example of a static kinetic structure is that of

an inflated balloon, which maintains its shape by using the

energy of the rapidly moving mass of the gas molecules

within itself. It tends to be spherical in shape due to the

random omnidirectional moving masses within itself.

Lining the moving masses up to all go the same direction,

forming a narrow stream approximating ballistic

trajectories at orbital velocities, we begin to see

potential for traversing great distances, even upward beyond

the atmosphere and back.

If a long piece of string has its ends tied together, it can

lie crumpled in a heap on the table. However, if it is

picked up and then somehow vigorously spun around its own

center, it would tend to stretch out into the shape of a

circle by the action of the circulating form of its kinetic

energy.

This long, thin shape lends itself to the formation of

bridges, which would balance the force of gravity on the

structure and its carried loads by using the force of

balancing deflection of the mass of the rapidly moving

mass stream within the structure of the bridge.

Arranging the mass elements to all move along the same

direction with each other, a mass stream is formed. Instead

of the spherical balloon structure, the mass stream forms a

long relatively thin structural shape.

DYNAMICS INVOLVING THE KINETIC STRUCTURE

Consider the long thin path of a stream of mass elements

moving at orbital velocities which are electromagnetically

coupling their energy weakly to their surroundings. This

electromagnetic coupling of energy allows their guidance and

accelleration/decelleration. Decelleration energy exchange

provides a mechanism for supporting vehicle trackways along

its path, coupling energy to propel vehicles along those

trackways, supporting the weight of surrounding evacuated

tubing along atmsopheric portions of the path, and resisting

deflection by external lateral forces.

If an external load is applied at some point against that

mass stream, it would find itself resisted due to its

deflection of the direction of the mass stream at that

point. A small portion of the kinetic energy of the elements

of the rapidly moving mass stream is used up in that

resisting mechanism. If the circulating system

has the ability to restore the original position and

velocity of the elements of the mass stream, such as at the

two endpoints of a parabolic arch spanning some area, then

it has the ability to maintain its structural integrity

against such external forces. Such forces could be the

weight of evacuated tubing surrounding the path of the

parabolic arch, payloads moving along it, and wind loads.

For balance, the path of the stream needs to be like a

highway, supporting equivalent traffic flow in both

directions along side-by-side lanes. This is necessary both

to cancel out the longitudinal component of external loads

applied at a point, and also needed because in an arch

against the pull of gravity, only the upward-moving stream

can support loads.

(There is an exception to this. If the external load

supplies energy to actually accellerate the downward mass

elements even faster downward, it would produce an upward

stpporting force on the external load. An example of this is

in supporting the weight of a solar electric powerplant

located on the side of the arch. Such a powerplant would

increase the energy stored in the rapidly moving mass

stream; the additional energy could then be extracted

elsewhere along the stream, thus also providing the function

of a power transmission line.)

ELEMENTS OF THE MASS STREAM

The design of the mass stream elements needs fit several

criteria. First,they need to contain a permanent magnetic

field source, because this is generates current in coils

which it passes through so as to give off energy, and is

also the field which is thrust against when the mass element

is being re-accellerated and guided. Probably several sets

of permanent magnetic field sources will be needed so as to

more easily define its position and velocity when it is

being course and velocity corrections by the earth surface

accellerators. Second, they need to be able to withstand

physicalcontact with other elements in the mass stream;

prpbably there will be a periodic wear parameter

observed,and those exceeding specs would be culled from the

stream and replaced with refurbished ones. Third, ther eare

different types of mass slements. Most are simply kinetic

energy quanta; others serve sp3ecialized functions such as

carrying small specialized payloads material within

themselves and others being payload on a one way trip to be

raw material for structural components.

PLANETARY BODY ACCESS STRUCTURAL SHAPES

Besides the vertical loop and the parabolic arch shapes,

there is another basic form. If the mass stream is

sufficiently large as to extend upward at an angle from some

point on the earth's surface, it could continue on to be

gradually bent by the earth's gravitational field to circle

the earth to return to its point of origin, such as from a

point on the equator circling around the earth back to

itself. All the way around the Earth, extending far out into

space on the opposite side of the planet from its surface

contact central point. Non-equatorial surface contact points

might need a mirroring point on the opposite side of the

equator from itself.

APPLICATIONS OF PLANETARY BODY ACCESS KINETIC STRUCTURES

Such large kinetic structures could provide transportation

capability millions of times greater than what we currently

have. This massive capacity would totally change mankind's

relationship with space. The experience of building and

utilizing a Stanford Torus space settlement in the Clarke

Belt, constructed entirely of resources from the earth

surface, could teach us a lot which would help in the design

of more of the settlements, as well as learn technological

and sociological techniques useful on Earth herself. The

first space settlements in the Clarke Belt, permanently

connected to earth surface by the kinetic structures,

create a beachhead for returning the the Moon, this time to

create the industrial resource base for building the main

structure of vast numbers of those settlements in the Clarke

Belt. For example, building just one continuous string of

Island-One type 10,000 resident-each stanford torus space

settlements all the way around the earth-circling Clark

Belt, would provide residential areas and supporting

agricultural areas for up to 15 billion people. This would

enable a vastly expanding human civilization while taking

their load off of Mother Earth.

EARTH SURFACT-TO-SURFACE APPLICATIONS

Before these very large kinetic structures can be built here

on the Earth's surface, on the lunar surface, and on the

martian surface, a lot of experience needs to be gained by

utilizing them for smaller spans on the earth surface.

Kinetic structural arches might support conveyor belts which

span hundreds of miles, connecting coal deposits with local

electric coal-fired powerplants. The kinetic arches could

support water pipelines spanning from artic glacial areas to

deliver water to desert farming areas thousands of miles

away, along great loops created by the coriolis force.

Oceans could be spanned, directly linking the continents,

bridges where ferries were necessary before.

SOME SOCIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Probably when the first cave dwellers decided that the cave

complex was overpopulated, and cast out the weaker ones,

they didn't realize that those weaker ones would learn to

build their own shelters and grow their own food, and create

a population support resource vastly beyond that of the cave

dwellers in their hunter/gather territory. The kinetic

structure transportation technology just might be able to

open up the potential of truely vast real estate creation in

the Clarke Belt. There civilization could flourish given the

efficient inflow of raw materials from both earthsurface and

lunar sites.

Or do we want to invest in this severe effort? There are

alternitives, of course, to enabling a great near-earth

civilization to be created. Surely we can continue to

convert our home planet into garbage. This is easy to do,

especially while slowing the garbaging down by dictatorial

population controls which will attract enforcers probably

resembling the herd rulers in the mammalian animal kingdom,

like the walrus and cattle. Are you ready for a whole lot of

bull? We could just continue to let life pass by while

watching the boob tube, continually being much to busy and

lacking sufficient sleep to cope with anything even slightly

new, and let nature eventually take its normal course of

purging the decadent. We might even get so zonked out as to

not know what hit us.

The technological challenges are great. The beneficial

applications are vastly greater. Who will do the R&D? Who

will pay for the R&D, and how will the rights for the use of

the resulting technological development be kept accessable

for all humanity, yet pay for itself in a reasonable period

of time?

The scientific and technological base of the U. S. has been

crumbling for many years, yet hopefully it still can be

revived enough to do the necessary R&D on these kinetic

structures, assisted by other interested industrialized

nations.

FINANCIAL AND MANPOWER OPPORTUNITIES

Where to find the manpower and funds? The greatly lessened

military tensions in the world have freed a lot of funds and

skilled manpower in the armed forces and in the industrial

complex which was supported by it. The U. S. Army Corps. of

Engineers built a bridge I daily crossed from the parking

lot when I worked at JPL in the early '70s; how about a U.S.

Army-Navy-Air Force-Marine Corps.-of-Engineers' Kinetic

Structure into space and back?

SUMMARY

To leave the caves while we can, or not to leave; that is

the question. Continue to go downward, or to turn upward?

Are we interested in the relatively massive transportation

capabilities of bridges as compared to ferrys?

Kinetic structures offer us a new way to move ourselves and

our belongings far and high, even enabling earthlife to

occupy the relatively motionless orbit of the Clarke Belt.

There mankind can flourish like never before, and from there

can allow Mother Earth to heal herself from the birthing

partition as she gives birth to mankind bringing life to the

rest of the solar system. The decision to research and

develop the technology of kinetic structures is a

fundamental step toward true colonization of space, even in

our time.

REFERENCES

The GEnie computer information network's "Spaceport" Library

contains many files related to this subject, such as file

#747, most using the keyword "KESTS", most authored by

"J.E.D.CLINE1".

J. E. D."Dave" Cline