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1,000km Cable to the Stars - The Skyhook

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell · 13M views · 2019-11-17 · 7:00

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Overview

Kurzgesagt explains the skyhook, a rotating cable with a counterweight that could catapult spacecraft from Earth orbit toward deep space. It covers why it would make space travel cheaper and more efficient.

On Hacker News

Used as the accessible reference for skyhook and space tether ideas in HN discussions of Mars transit, launch and space elevators.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2019–2024

Topics

Space exploration & spaceflight
Search by tags
skyhookspace tetherorbital mechanicsspaceflightmars

What people said

kibwen · 2019-11 · Recommendation

Regarding the time it could take to travel between Earth and Mars, I recently saw a very interesting video on a concept called a "skyhook" that suggests it might be able to economically reduce the transit time to "just" two months or so, though I assume you'd still want to wait for an appropriate launch window, and in addition it probably wouldn't be operational in time to benefit the first few generations of travelers. :P [VIDEO]

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ENGNR · 2024-12 · Reference

I don’t know how deeply they analysed it, but Kurzgesagt seem to think the Martian moons have particular value as central gravity wells, to then reach further out to mine asteroids [VIDEO]

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limbicsystem · 2023-04 · Reference

Never mind space elevators - we could build useful sky hooks right now (and Mars might be the best place to do it...) [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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