From: utzoo!decvax!genradbo!grkermit!earle Newsgroups: net.space Title: Re: Saving the Shuttle External Tank Article-I.D.: grkermit.305 Posted: Tue Mar 15 09:23:33 1983 Received: Tue Mar 22 08:20:06 1983 References: alice.1568 uofm-cv.158 floyd.1297 eagle.830 The latest issue of Space World has an article on use of external tanks in orbit. One proposal is to tether a mass to the ET with a Kevlar cable and use tidal forces to keep the ET pointing forward in orbit, thus minimizing drag and extending the time before decay. Another is to use a similar cable between the orbiter and its ET on each flight: they would be spun about their common center of mass, and the cable cut at precisely the right moment, boosting the tank to a higher orbit and allowing the orbiter to reenter with little or no expenditure of fuel (thus boosting payload again). If the in-orbit ETs were rigidly linked together, each orbiter flight could boost the group slightly, eventually producing a large assembly of space station modules, complete with consummables, in a stable orbit. See the article for more (fascinating!) details. Earle T. Fettig GenRad Concord MA