XPost: sci.space.policy, sci.physics   
   From: alain245@videotron.ca   
      
   On Jun/20/2018 à 8:13 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote :   
   > Alain Fournier  wrote on Tue, 19 Jun 2018   
   > 19:45:53 -0400:   
   >   
   >> On Jun/18/2018 at 11:00 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote :   
   >>> Alain Fournier  wrote on Mon, 18 Jun 2018   
   >>> 21:06:46 -0400:   
   >>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>> You put the cable on an east coast.   
   >>>>   
   >>>   
   >>> Uh, do you mean west coast?  If the thing falls isn't it going to lay   
   >>> out along the direction of spin, which means it falls to the west.   
   >>   
   >> Uh, no I meant east coast.   
   >>   
   >> At least one of the two of us is making a very silly mistake here.   
   >>   
   >   
   > That would be me, although the 'obvious things' you mentioned were no   
   > help at all.   
   >   
   > For some reason known only to my tiny mind it was thinking of the   
   > tether structure as having zero tangential velocity.  That meant that   
   > as it fell the Earth would rotate out from under it, leading to a fall   
   > to anti-spinward.   
   >   
   > Of course, that's absolutely wrong, since the further up the cable you   
   > go the higher the tangential velocity has to be for the thing to stay   
   > radially 'still'.  That means as it falls the upper portions of the   
   > cable will 'outrun' the surface of the Earth and it will fall to   
   > spinward (to the East), which is what you said.   
   >   
   > DOH!   
      
   Ouf! That is an error, but it I can understand making such a mistake.   
    From what you wrote it seemed to me that your reasoning was based on   
   Earth spinning westward. I couldn't understand how you could possibly   
   had made such a mistake. So I knew something was fishy. I was hoping I   
   hadn't forgotten something obvious.   
      
      
   Alain Fournier   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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