Don't try to handle it while it's running! I understand that they do exist, for what that's worth. I think the applications are specific to satellites. I think the order of several hundred thousand rpm is the speed.
Carbon nanotube reinforced graphite (and ultimately ceramic fiber, I think) is the current winner in tensile strength for such fibers.
I've come across some old papers on the topic of using concrete filled tires running on normal axle bearings and shafts for energy storage in third world countries, but the energy losses were too high to make it practical. Once you get the bearing drag problem sorted out, then you need a vacuum to run it in (air drag losses are atrocious) which is absolutely impractical in those environments. The best solution seems to be teaching them to fish (from the line: "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day...") and they'll work on their own energy problems like the rest of the world already has. I admit I never read very far into those papers. It's dry reading and I was busy searching for other files.
And has some serious side effects. As I recall, a satellite was used to dispense some long wires, some kilometers or less in length..and as a result...the electrical storms and other side effects tended to put the boffins off their feed to date.
Anyone have any further data on this? Something to do with shortciruicting the magnetic field or some such? Half remembered from a science book.
Gunner
Political Correctness
A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
I think what we should do is to adjust the rotation of the earth in either one of two ways.
Currently the earth rotates on it's axis 366 1/4 (aprox) times a year. Slow it down just a tad so we can eliminate all of the leap year nonsense.
Slow it down to 361 revs per year. This way each month could have 30 days.
(Of course if we were to start doing this kind of tinkering, the next thing would be that France would demand to slow it to 101 revs per year to validate the metric system. They would probably still want 6 weeks vacation also.)
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