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Re. reentry from LEO, the notion of lowering an appropriatly designed miles-long space tether for the purpose of (a) reducing orbital velocity outside of effective atmospheric drag while facing the direction required for reentry and (b) contributing to continuous steadily increasing aerodynamic drag within the atmosphere during reentry ... as long as it remains intact. The object being to reduce the amount of ablation material on the reentry susceptible surfaces of reuseable vehicles. For reentry from Cislunar space, the aditional advantage of (c) damping out the skipping during aerobraking. There's quite a lot of old generally applicable material published but nothing directly applicable to the new reuseable hardware that you've been proposing the past few months. I wonder if we're not missing a bet?
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Problem #1: If the cable breaks, you die
Problem #2: If the cable doesn't work precisely as designed, you die
Problem #3: If you can't use the cable (eg Apollo-XIII), you die
Problem #5 Tethers are slow, but reentry from trans-Lunar trajectories is fast
Problem #4: Why? The heat shield isn't that heavy.
[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]
[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]
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Unmanned, then. Those who endorse space elevator tethering could cut their eyeteetn on such experience. Naturally, I'm shocked, you'd not have a way out in case of structural failure. I assumed the scheme(s) in my post are feasible. Are they? That's the debating point--not what happens if they fail. Engineering around those eventualities are what engineers do, eh physicist?
EDIT. Of course, the leavings of tethered reentries and/or launches could be horrendous hazards to orbital commerce, so I withdraw the idea for Earth LEO, MEO and GEO except perhaps for experiments as long as we're tied down here. But what about the Moon? Lots to debate regarding tether assisted arrivals and departures in Cislunar space!
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