Search
Cookie Usage Statistics Colour Key Sudden Death Monthly Poll Caption Comp eMail Author Shops
Ships Fleets Weaponry Species People Timelines Calculators Photo Galleries
Stations Design Lineage Size Charts Battles Science / Tech Temporal Styling Maps / Politics
Articles Reviews Lists Recreation Search Site Guide What's New Forum
Ship Related
Constitution Class Klingon Battlecruiser Klingon Bird of Prey Magazine Capacity NX Class Phase Cannon Sovereign Changes Star Trek : Discovery The Defiant The USS Franklin
Culture / Philosophy
Borg History Money Monoculture Religion in Trek Technology Levels The Ba'Ku Land Grab Trills / Dax
General Technology
Abrams Speed! Antimatter Phasers Romulan Warp Drive The Holodeck Torpedo Yields Transwarp Theories Tri-cobalt device Warp in a Solar System Warp Speed Anomalies
Energy And Power
D'Deridex Class Weapons Galaxy Class Shields Galaxy Class Total Output Galaxy Class Weapon Output Genesis Weapon Power Husnock Weapons Intrepid Class Total Output TOS Type 2 Phaser Power Trilithium Torpedo Power
Miscellaneous
Dangling Threads Enterprise Ramblings Eugenics War Dates Franz Joseph's Star Trek Here be Remans? Live fast... Write Badly Maps Materials Nemesis Script Random Musings Scaling Issues Size of the Federation Stardates The Ceti Alpha Conundrum The Size of Starfleet Trek XI Issues
☰

Orbital Tether

NotesImages
Universe : Prime Timeline
Name : Orbital Tether [1]

The orbital tether is a surface to orbit transportation system designed to lift loads clear of a planetary atmosphere. Tethers are often a few hundred kilometres long, reaching low orbit.

The Talaxians used orbital tethers on their home world, and Neelix worked on one for two years before leaving the planet. His skills came in useful when one of Voyager's shuttles crashed on a Nezu colony world; the planet was equipped with orbital tethers, and Neelix was able to get one of them working sufficiently to get the shuttle's crew back into orbit.

It has been suggested that a tether could stretch all the way up past geostationary orbit, which would have certain advantages. A short tether such as those on the Nezu colony can lift a mass to orbital height, but it lacks the velocity to maintain an orbit and so must use some form of engine to enter orbit or escape the planet. At the height of synchronous orbit, a mass could simply move away from the tether into orbit. At higher heights the mass would actually be thrown into space, gaining kinetic energy directly from the planets rotation. [1]

Colour key

Canon source Backstage source Novel source DITL speculation

References

# Series Season Source Comment
1 VOY 3 Rise
Series : VOY Season 3
Episode : Rise

© Graham & Ian Kennedy Page views : 31,965 Last updated : 1 Jan 1970