From: vince@offshore.ai (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.space.tech Subject: Re: Lunar Sample Return via Tether References: <9186edb5.0312061749.206011fa@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.42.133.230 Message-ID: <9186edb5.0312080919.17b03c52@posting.google.com> henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) wrote in message news:... > I *think* I have seen rotating tethers for orbital samplers mentioned > before, but I'm unable to locate a specific reference. From: http://www.uah.edu/library/archives/forward/BusinessBio.html >... "Tether-Assisted Planetoid Sampler" that would use a sampling >penetrator on the end of rotating tether to obtain a sample from the >surface of an airless planetoid (from comets and asteroids to Luna >and Mercury) during a flyby trajectory and return it to the Earth, ... Our idea of orbiting for months and winching in sample after sample using a high ISP thruster is a little bit different from this single flyby idea. Though going from that to ours is not much of a leap. :-) Anyway, if you or anyone finds any references I am interested. -- Vince