🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug3.032548.28245@sctc.com> beede@sctc.com (Mike Beede) writes:
>
>The answer to the original question is ``yes.''  The energy comes from
>slowing down the shuttle.  But, if you can afford to do that, it's
>really cheap.  I remember a story some time ago in Analog involving
>the reverse scheme -- by driving a current through the tether, they
>altered the orbit of the vehicle without any reaction mass.  This
>might be of more long-term interest, I'd think.

National Public radio's piece on this experiment mentioned this as a
long term possibility. I understand the principles at work (I think) and
it seemed to me that the force produced would act on the wire, which
being non rigid would presumably float up but could not cause the
shuttle/mother craft to change orbit. Wouldn't the "wire" have to be
rigid for this to work?

Dick Jackson