Re:Factories in Space
by wongarsu on Tuesday May 30, 2023 @01:53PM
(#36128092)
Anything within Earth's sphere of influence [1] (about 90000 km) will initially be in orbit around Earth. Unless you give it a kick that puts the highest point of the orbit further away from earth than that.
Unless you shoot stuff away with railguns, the relevant question might be "at which point are solar winds a bigger factor than drag". I guess it's highly dependent on the exact gas. We lose Helium that way from earth (buoyancy brings it up, where solar winds catch it), so at some height it should work for CO2.
It only really works for gases though, and then only for things that stay reasonably gaseous in orbit (low pressure and large temperature swings). For any solid or liquid you have to worry about it crashing into you on one of the orbits, and at orbital speeds tiny things can impact with a lot of energy.
Unless you shoot stuff away with railguns, the relevant question might be "at which point are solar winds a bigger factor than drag". I guess it's highly dependent on the exact gas. We lose Helium that way from earth (buoyancy brings it up, where solar winds catch it), so at some height it should work for CO2.
It only really works for gases though, and then only for things that stay reasonably gaseous in orbit (low pressure and large temperature swings). For any solid or liquid you have to worry about it crashing into you on one of the orbits, and at orbital speeds tiny things can impact with a lot of energy.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_of_influence_(astrodyna...