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There has been questions in another thread as to weather orbital tugs are fast enough to be economically useful for orbital salvage. In this thread I would like to further explore the idea of an orbital tug an suggest that VASMIR as an alternative propulsion method. What role will an orbital tug fill? How useful will it be? What type of engine will it be propelled by and what will it be powered by?
Dig into the [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/2006/12/political-grab-bag.html]political grab bag[/url] at [url=http://child-civilization.blogspot.com/]Child Civilization[/url]
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The problem with VASIMR in this case is one of scale, that a VASIMR engine would not scale very well down to satelite-pusher tug size, since solar cells can't provide enough energy effectively and you can't go turning off a magnetic confinement field every time you go into shadow, and the smaller nuclear reactors become the less power they make per-mass, which is already too low for even the jumbo future reactors NASA has in mind. It would be extremely expensive too.
[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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