From: doug.bryce{at}sympatico.ca (Doug Bryce)

It has also been 'done' in the 'Red'/'Green'/'Blue' Mars series. Sorry, I
can't remember the author offhand and I have a lapful of cat who wil get
*really* testy if I disturb him again to go and find the books .  
I'll try and check later so I can tell you tomorrow.

doug

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003 18:11:15 -0500, "Tony Ingenoso"
 wrote:

>AFAIK, Larry Niven is the only one to tackle an elevator cable that would be
24K miles or so long too.  Ringworld's shadow panels
>had some sort of lengthy wires tying them all together
>
>"Tony Ingenoso"  wrote in message
news:3e385add{at}w3.nls.net...
>> The falling part is easy..its burning off your orbital velocity (that you
just spent two SRB's and an ET full of juice obtaining)
>> that's the hard part.  There's not enough onboard juice left to fire the
SSME's long enough to negate that kind of speed so you're
>> stuck having to use the atmosphere to do it.
>>
>> "Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
news:3e38535b{at}w3.nls.net...
>> > Or why doesn't the space shuttle just act live a divebomber......
>> >
>> > In theory you could have a ball up in space connected to a
cable coming up
>> > from earth & have an escalator. In theory you could dock
a space shuttle
to
>> > an escalator & send it down.
>> >
>> > So why can't the shuttle do that itself & then just pull
out of a dive ?
The
>> > speeds should be much lower than coming in at an angle. Simply go above
the
>> > place you want to land & dive straight down.
>> >
>> > Kinda like the bloke who jumped out of a balloon in near space.....
>> >
>> > Ok in space you'd have to give yourself the initial push straight down.
>> >
>> >
>> > Adam
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>

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