From Greg Warner
I loved the idea of erecting truss structures in space using unwinding
superconducting cables
(13 October, p 20).
Sometimes I indulge in an exercise
called: “How complicated can we make this?”—sort of “Keep it simple,
stupid” in reverse. This idea is way beyond anything I have ever come up
with.
As criticism without a suggestion is just a cheap shot, I suggest that
instead of trusses, structures could be built of simple hollow tubes of some
fibre (carbon, maybe?) and reinforced plastic that is shipped to space rolled up
on a reel and inflated with very low-pressure gas. If the plastic was something
that could be polymerised by UV radiation you wouldn’t need the inflation gas.
The resulting structure would be both light and stiff—and a lot simpler
than something held up by superconducting wires and huge magnetic fields.
Londonderry, New Hampshire
