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Calculating the energy given to mass by lifting if from the ground and putting it intoGeostationary Earth Orbit
By Jim ClineHow much of the energy that is consumed by rocket launch vehicles going to GEO is actuallygiven to the lifted payload itself?Here we find, through three different paths of reasoning, that it is 15.7 KWhr/kg, 7.3 KWhr perpound mass,That is, about 73 cents of electricity per pound lifted up from ground into GEO.------------------------------------Much greater efficiency than rockets provide, is needed to enable large scale projects such asSPS in GEO. Yet the energy given to mass by putting it into GEO is quite small, so there isthe potential for economically building SPS in GEO.Energy is the ability to do work, and it is indeed work to lift something from the ground all theway up into the Geostationary Earth Orbit, GEO. 22,300 miles above the Earth's equator. Justhow much work it is, however, limits what is worthwhile to lift up there. Current transportationmodes are extraordinarily wasteful of energy, requiring far more work expended in the rumblehustle to space than is actually useful energy spent. but it is the best we have gotten so far;can we now look toward doing much better? It is very possible, as is shown on these pages.So let's look at how much work is involved that is actually supplied to the payload; that is theuseful part; all else is very expensive wasted fluff. We will find that the limiting values ofenergy are quite low, enabling quite a new range of possible projects to be achieved up there,given a new and sufficiently efficient transportation mode if we choose to do so (such asexplored in many of these pages); some new large scale projects begin to look feasible then,that could enormously help our civilization along with the planetary ecosystem we live within.There are several aspects involved. One is the actual energy added to the payload mass byhaving been lifted up there, and that is a very specific value. Other aspects involved concernthe actual kind of grunt work done to lift it up there, and current techniques are extremely
 
wasteful of energy, enormously adding to the cost of lifting payload up there into GEO.So first let's determine the energy given to payload by lifting it up there; and then next look atthe many forms of grunt work involved in techniques such as rocket launch vehicles, tetherspace elevators, and carousel space escalators; each of these can do a lot of wasteful energygrunting under load while supporting the weight during the time it is being carried up to GEO,if we are not careful. Rockets have no choice but to do it the hard way, grunting the whole waymostly under its own weight instead of the weight of the payload itself. The tether and thecarousel have the potential to provide "rest stops" along the way, where the structure brieflysupports the load while the lifter gathers its strength; the less time of actual input of lift energy,the higher potential efficiency involved, and resonant techniques can make the actual liftproceed fairly gently.The energy given to mass by having lifted it to a higher location, is calculated differently fromlifts which are of a very tiny proportion of the planet's radius. If you are going very high, like toGEO, the gravitational field reduces quite a lot along the way, and so the higher you get, theless energy is involved to lift a given distance up more. It's an "inverse square" thing. And theequations are not in common use. So let's figure it out for ouselves here.For a reality check, we know that the value cannot be greater that the amount of energyneeded to give a mass "escape velocity" to hurl it to the furthest reaches of space (if therewere nothing else up there, like the Sun's gravitational field, however) so we will calculate thathere. Then we can use a technique provided by Arthur C. Clarke back in the mid-1950's tocalculate that escape energy, and then modify that technique to provide a lift only to GEO.And then we will do an actual calculation.What we will find is that the energy actually added to payload in the process of emplacing itup in Earth orbit has a surprisingly very low cost, expressed in electrical energy terms, of7.15KWh; or about $0.72 per pound lifted up to GEO.Let's get started: some lift energy calculation basics for beginners.To calculate the amount of work (energy) done to an object when lifting it to a higher place,
 
basically is a simple calculation: multiply the weight of the object and multiply it by the height itis lifted. Note that the weight of something is its mass multiplied by the force of gravity existingat its location. So we assume here that the force of gravity does not significantly vary over theheight being raised, limited to, say, the height of existing tallest buildings.So if we lift something off the ground which weighs (in English units) one pound, to a positionwhich is one foot higher, the work done on the object is one foot-pound: Energy equalsWeight times height lifted:E = W x hShifting from English units of measurement to the simpler International System of Units ofmeasurementHowever, when one gets into more complex calculations, it has been found that the use of asystem of units known as the International System of Units (SI) is clearer and simpler in thelong run. instead of a "foot", it uses a meter (about 3 feet) as its basic unit of length. And for itsunit of weight ... well, to make things clearer overall, SI separates out the mass of the objectfrom the force of gravity at its location at the moment, to give it more adjustable values for useat different locations, more universally usable. In SI units, the "kilogram" is the basic amountof mass; and the gravitational acceleration (which, when multiplied by the physical mass ofsomething gives the weight of that something where it is at) on the ground (on the surface ofthe Earth) is 980 cm per second per second ("cm" stands for a hundredth of a meter, or"centimeter"). Note that the notion of "time" is embedded into the notion of "acceleration",which could be thought of as how fast something is speeded up per unit of time... therefore itmay be of interest that the notion of "time" is embedded into the notion of the "weight" ofsomething.The force of gravity becomes less the higher up we go, so the higher we go the less work ittakes to go even higherThe value of gravitational acceleration varies with the height of the object. The further one
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