Extraterrestrial transportation apparatus and method
OwnerEdward F. Marwickinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Greatly reduced cost of extraterrestrial transporation of strong items and materials is obtained through the use of impact into a crash-capturing-containing facility for deceleration. Cargoes from both the Earth and Moon can be cheaply crash-transported to a low earth orbit crash-load-capturing-satellite so that the satellite maintains a somewhat constant low earth orbit. By crash-capturing only lunar materials, the crash-containing satellite can also become a cargo-transporting satellite that travels from low earth orbit and delivers a much greater quantity of materials to a higher earth orbiting station that it started with. By crash-capturing only retrograde highly elliptically orbiting lunar material, that cargo-transporting satellite can be moved from a high earth orbit back to a low earth orbit.
Claims33
A method of transporting a cargo with a mass in excess of 10 kg over a distance greater than 10 km from a transmitting location to an extraterrestrial receiving location where the average total density of gases and vapors along the final 10 km of transported distance is less than one gram per cubic meter, said method comprising the steps of:
- propelling said cargo from said transmitting location along a path toward said receiving location such that said cargo arrives near said receiving location with a relative velocity to said receiving location that is in excess of 600 meters per second;
- providing a receiving facility at said receiving location having an opening aligned with at least a portion of said path and providing access to an impact chamber having a volume in excess of ten cubic meters, said receiving facility having at least one shutter in the path of said cargo which opens prior to the approach of said cargo and closes less than a second after said cargo enters said impact chamber;
- introducing material into said impact chamber for interacting with said cargo such that relative velocity of said cargo with respect to said chamber is reduced to zero without significant damage to said chamber, the average total density of vapors and gases within said impact chamber just prior to said cargo interacting with said material being less than 100 grams per cubic meter;
- and
- removing said cargo from said impact chamber.
A method of transporting a cargo from a transmitting location to an extraterrestrial receiving location, said method comprising the steps of:
- propelling said cargo from said transmitting location along a path toward said receiving location;
- providing a receiving facility at said receiving location having an opening aligned with at least a portion of said path and providing access to an impact chamber;
- introducing material into said impact chamber for interacting with said cargo such that relative velocity of said cargo with respect to said chamber is reduced to zero without significant damage to said chamber;
- and withdrawing from said impact chamber molecules of said cargo that are in the gas or vapor phase, such removal from said impact chamber being substantially done by the movement of gases from a warmer impact chamber with a higher vapor pressure to external chambers that have lower vapor pressures and are somewhat cooler.
A method of transporting a cargo from a transmitting location to an extraterrestrial receiving location, said method comprising the steps of:
- propelling said cargo from said transmitting location along a path toward said receiving location;
- providing a receiving facility at said receiving location having an opening aligned with at least a portion of said path and providing access to an impact chamber;
- introducing material into said impact chamber for interacting with said cargo such that relative velocity of said cargo with respect to said chamber is reduced to zero without significant damage to said chamber;
- and
- removing said cargo from said impact chamber including the use of powerful electro-magnets that collect ferro-magnetic cargo materials and additional cargo materials that are attached thereto.
A method of transporting a cargo from a transmitting location to an extraterrestrial receiving location, said method comprising the steps of:
- propelling said cargo from said transmitting location along a path toward said receiving location;
- providing a receiving facility at said receiving location having an opening aligned with at least a portion of said path and providing access to an impact chamber;
- introducing material into said impact chamber for interacting with said cargo such that relative velocity of said cargo with respect to said chamber is reduced to zero without significant damage to said chamber;
- removing said cargo from said impact chamber;
- and
- obtaining useful thermal energy from the interaction of said cargo with material introduced into said impact chamber.
An extraterrestrial facility for receiving cargo with a mass in excess of 10 kg and a relative velocity to said facility that exceeds 600 meters per second as said cargo arrives near said facility, said facility being in an extraterrestrial location where the average total density of gases and vapors is less than one gram per cubic meter, and reducing the relative velocity of said cargo to zero without significant damage to said facility, said facility comprising:
- an impact chamber with a volume in excess of 10 cubic meters and having an opening for receiving said cargo;
- at least one shutter in the path of said cargo which opens prior to the approach of said cargo and said shutter closes less than a second after said cargo enters said impact chamber;
- means for the introducing of material into said impact chamber prior to the entry of said cargo for interacting with said cargo for reducing the cargo's relative velocity to zero and for preventing damage to the impact chamber's walls;
- and
- means for removing materials from said chamber for the withdrawal of said cargo, including the withdrawal of gases and vapors such that the density of such gases and vapors within said impact chamber are less than 100 grams per cubic meter just prior to arrival of subsequent cargo, from said impact chamber and for the reintroduction of material into said impact chamber.
A method of decelerating a cargo packaged so as to be able to change from a relative velocity exceeding 600 meters per second to a relative velocity of zero in an impact chamber whose length along its center-line is in excess of a hundred meters, said length being more than ten times the maximum diameter of said impact chamber, said method including the steps of introducing material into said impact chamber, and controlling the density of said material such that at the instant of said cargo interaction with said material the density of said material along said center-line is less than the density of said material near said center-line, and the density of said material near said center-line is less than the density of said material further away from said center-line.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.