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It links to one website and one author's thoughts on an arbitrary and fantastical idea. Thousands of people have dreams, that is no reason to give each one a wikipedia entry just because they are written up on a personal site on the net or in a book or whatever. In fact, just the sort of rubbish one would expect to find on wikipedia! 86.143.73.37 ( talk) 12:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
The text does not mention that the ring needs to be almost 26,000 miles in circumference, so this is indeed mega engineering. Ccpoodle ( talk) 14:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I find Yunitskiy's video misleading. It's more a promotion of some kind of elevated light rail technology (which it hardly explains, except for saying that it uses less materials for the support), using orbital rings as a teaser. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Votsalo ( talk • contribs) 06:12, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
This conception seems to be first(?) proposed in 1963 novel "Черный столб" (The Black Column) by Евгений Войскунский and Исай Лукодьянов, where it was called "Кольцо Кравцова". In this novel the orbital ring appeared because of giant magma column erected itself from drilling hole, twisted around the Earth, and was cut out by a bomb. Alone Coder ( talk) 06:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
The $15 billion cost that's quoted in the article is based on the assumption that a "space manufacturing facility" exists that can provide most of the initial materials at a very low cost. Since no such facility exists and the price of constructing one would be astronomical, the quoted $15 billion price is very misleading. The estimated cost of actually launching the materials was about $31 trillion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.87.245 ( talk) 22:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
And once again, someone has edited out the fact that the low-ball $15 billion price estimate assumes the existence of a space manufacturing facility that can provide thousands of tons on materials for construction at very low prices. I don't know if someone keeps editing that out because they're confused and haven't actually read Birch's paper, or if they're trying to obfuscate the cost for some reason. Either way, as written the article gives the erroneous impression that it could actually be built at the present time for around $15 billion, which is not at all true.
Orbital Velocity - as I understand orbital mechanics, every orbit (altitude, apogee and perigee) have specific velocities, i.e., there is no such thing as "slightly faster than orbital speed. Faster than orbital speed for a given orbit results in a new and higher orbit, or at least a different apogee or perigee. I think this invalidates this approach to placing objects in LEO. comment added by karen12398, 17 January 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karen12398 ( talk • contribs) 20:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Reliable sources do not need to be absolutely trustworthy. This whole article is based upon a rather shaky idea, but one can find where the cost estimate came from when there is a reference. I do not trust the estimate so much that I would invest money based upon it, far from that. Still I am happy to have an estimate.-- Fartherred ( talk) 04:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
The cost estimate of $31 billion for an orbital ring around Earth seems unrealistic given that the space station has cost $100 billion. Why did we build a space station using rockets when we could have built an orbital ring for a third of the cost, which would then lower the cost of putting things in orbit by several (4) orders of magnitude?
This article only describes active rings, supported by a rotating cable or mass pellets. It has no mention of static rings, as described here, which are effectively built by linking together the lower parts of a series of skyhooks. Even if static rings are unviable due to stability issues, they should probably be described. Thoughts? DrHacky ( talk) 17:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
The opening statement "An orbital ring is a concept for a space elevator" seems highly dubious. Although these are related concepts, an orbital ring is *not* a space elevator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.73.108 ( talk) 19:52, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Currently a self-published piece of Yunitskiy SkyWay promotion is being used to illustrate theories he published in 1995 (view it here [2]) that do not appear to have generated any scientific interest. If they had, it would be secondary sources that need to be cited specifically in relation to his ideas and not a single self-promoting resource as is the case here. And an illustration of his ideas has to specifically reference these ideas and not be self-promoting propaganda for another technology. This film actually concerns (until the last few seconds) the EcoTechnoPark, a test site for Yunitskiy's SkyWay technology situated in Belarus which is very much based on earth and is further unconnected to space. In discussing his work, Yunitskiy is explicit in stating that his projects should be realized on earth and not in space and that all space research is worthless. Read about an interview with him on this subject here: [3]. He states emphatically that Elon Musk and his SpaceX programs are utter nonsense. This Belarusian inventor has made dubious claims about his scientific credentials, associating himself with the RAEN which is noted by Wikipedia as being supported by unqualified scientists who peddle pseudoscience. His SkyWay project on earth is to say the least controversial. If you want to include his space theories here you should at least quote a secondary source who found this aspect of his work sufficiently interesting to mention in a published article. Currently. This film should certainly be removed as it is self-published promotion concerning an entirely different technology that has not received independent testing let alone scientific consensus. The text about his theories, if it is mentioned at all, should be in relative length to the interest that has been shown in it by the scientific community and the original self-published manuscript cannot be used as the basis for such a lengthy discussion. – Zachar ( talk) 18:43, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
The work by Yunitskiy which refers to this theory is called Струнные транспортные системы: на Земле и в космосе (1995) [String Transport: on earth and in space]. This work is cited in the references but not in this over-technical explanation which contrasts to the rest of the article. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, and because no actual work is cited it is difficult to verify. Help improve the English and reduce it technical complexity so it makes sense. Is there anyone who is actually familiar with the original who can verify it? How much of this information is actually necessary? Please help by making your own improvements to the text below:
Facts have been added to the article concerning Yunitskiy's Orbital Ring theory and a verified reference to a Russian source has been replaced with Yunitskiy's personal website. References that are self-published by the writer can not be used as the basis to add facts to a Wikipedia article. The reason given for this change were that this was a better reference. Unfortunately, it links not to a verified source at all but to Yunitskiy's personal website. Because these facts may well be true, I haven't reverted it yet back to how it was before. But someone will have to find these facts in a source which is not self-published by Yunitskiy. – Zachar ( talk) 10:46, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
It would be useful to add years to the "Orbital rings in fiction" section and put it into chronological order. Skepticalgiraffe ( talk) 16:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I deleted the claim that Orbital rings are "astroengineering proportions". In the Astroengineering article, the smallest example is a Dyson sphere. Whereas an orbital loop is a couple of hundred thousand tons of half-inch steel cable. The hard part is getting it up there. -- PaulxSA ( talk) 08:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
I just made a change where I removed some references to internal tension. In my view it's not a central aspect of a likely design for this, as it's not necessarily a contiguous cable (a swarm of small masses may make more sense) and not necessarily fully encased (only near the elevators/stations does it need to be accelerated).
That doesn't mean there can't be systems which do have internal tension, it's just that it doesn't necessarily make sense to focus on that aspect. Lsparrish ( talk) 17:24, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
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It links to one website and one author's thoughts on an arbitrary and fantastical idea. Thousands of people have dreams, that is no reason to give each one a wikipedia entry just because they are written up on a personal site on the net or in a book or whatever. In fact, just the sort of rubbish one would expect to find on wikipedia! 86.143.73.37 ( talk) 12:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
The text does not mention that the ring needs to be almost 26,000 miles in circumference, so this is indeed mega engineering. Ccpoodle ( talk) 14:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I find Yunitskiy's video misleading. It's more a promotion of some kind of elevated light rail technology (which it hardly explains, except for saying that it uses less materials for the support), using orbital rings as a teaser. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Votsalo ( talk • contribs) 06:12, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
This conception seems to be first(?) proposed in 1963 novel "Черный столб" (The Black Column) by Евгений Войскунский and Исай Лукодьянов, where it was called "Кольцо Кравцова". In this novel the orbital ring appeared because of giant magma column erected itself from drilling hole, twisted around the Earth, and was cut out by a bomb. Alone Coder ( talk) 06:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
The $15 billion cost that's quoted in the article is based on the assumption that a "space manufacturing facility" exists that can provide most of the initial materials at a very low cost. Since no such facility exists and the price of constructing one would be astronomical, the quoted $15 billion price is very misleading. The estimated cost of actually launching the materials was about $31 trillion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.87.245 ( talk) 22:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
And once again, someone has edited out the fact that the low-ball $15 billion price estimate assumes the existence of a space manufacturing facility that can provide thousands of tons on materials for construction at very low prices. I don't know if someone keeps editing that out because they're confused and haven't actually read Birch's paper, or if they're trying to obfuscate the cost for some reason. Either way, as written the article gives the erroneous impression that it could actually be built at the present time for around $15 billion, which is not at all true.
Orbital Velocity - as I understand orbital mechanics, every orbit (altitude, apogee and perigee) have specific velocities, i.e., there is no such thing as "slightly faster than orbital speed. Faster than orbital speed for a given orbit results in a new and higher orbit, or at least a different apogee or perigee. I think this invalidates this approach to placing objects in LEO. comment added by karen12398, 17 January 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karen12398 ( talk • contribs) 20:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Reliable sources do not need to be absolutely trustworthy. This whole article is based upon a rather shaky idea, but one can find where the cost estimate came from when there is a reference. I do not trust the estimate so much that I would invest money based upon it, far from that. Still I am happy to have an estimate.-- Fartherred ( talk) 04:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
The cost estimate of $31 billion for an orbital ring around Earth seems unrealistic given that the space station has cost $100 billion. Why did we build a space station using rockets when we could have built an orbital ring for a third of the cost, which would then lower the cost of putting things in orbit by several (4) orders of magnitude?
This article only describes active rings, supported by a rotating cable or mass pellets. It has no mention of static rings, as described here, which are effectively built by linking together the lower parts of a series of skyhooks. Even if static rings are unviable due to stability issues, they should probably be described. Thoughts? DrHacky ( talk) 17:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
The opening statement "An orbital ring is a concept for a space elevator" seems highly dubious. Although these are related concepts, an orbital ring is *not* a space elevator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.73.108 ( talk) 19:52, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Currently a self-published piece of Yunitskiy SkyWay promotion is being used to illustrate theories he published in 1995 (view it here [2]) that do not appear to have generated any scientific interest. If they had, it would be secondary sources that need to be cited specifically in relation to his ideas and not a single self-promoting resource as is the case here. And an illustration of his ideas has to specifically reference these ideas and not be self-promoting propaganda for another technology. This film actually concerns (until the last few seconds) the EcoTechnoPark, a test site for Yunitskiy's SkyWay technology situated in Belarus which is very much based on earth and is further unconnected to space. In discussing his work, Yunitskiy is explicit in stating that his projects should be realized on earth and not in space and that all space research is worthless. Read about an interview with him on this subject here: [3]. He states emphatically that Elon Musk and his SpaceX programs are utter nonsense. This Belarusian inventor has made dubious claims about his scientific credentials, associating himself with the RAEN which is noted by Wikipedia as being supported by unqualified scientists who peddle pseudoscience. His SkyWay project on earth is to say the least controversial. If you want to include his space theories here you should at least quote a secondary source who found this aspect of his work sufficiently interesting to mention in a published article. Currently. This film should certainly be removed as it is self-published promotion concerning an entirely different technology that has not received independent testing let alone scientific consensus. The text about his theories, if it is mentioned at all, should be in relative length to the interest that has been shown in it by the scientific community and the original self-published manuscript cannot be used as the basis for such a lengthy discussion. – Zachar ( talk) 18:43, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
The work by Yunitskiy which refers to this theory is called Струнные транспортные системы: на Земле и в космосе (1995) [String Transport: on earth and in space]. This work is cited in the references but not in this over-technical explanation which contrasts to the rest of the article. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, and because no actual work is cited it is difficult to verify. Help improve the English and reduce it technical complexity so it makes sense. Is there anyone who is actually familiar with the original who can verify it? How much of this information is actually necessary? Please help by making your own improvements to the text below:
Facts have been added to the article concerning Yunitskiy's Orbital Ring theory and a verified reference to a Russian source has been replaced with Yunitskiy's personal website. References that are self-published by the writer can not be used as the basis to add facts to a Wikipedia article. The reason given for this change were that this was a better reference. Unfortunately, it links not to a verified source at all but to Yunitskiy's personal website. Because these facts may well be true, I haven't reverted it yet back to how it was before. But someone will have to find these facts in a source which is not self-published by Yunitskiy. – Zachar ( talk) 10:46, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
It would be useful to add years to the "Orbital rings in fiction" section and put it into chronological order. Skepticalgiraffe ( talk) 16:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I deleted the claim that Orbital rings are "astroengineering proportions". In the Astroengineering article, the smallest example is a Dyson sphere. Whereas an orbital loop is a couple of hundred thousand tons of half-inch steel cable. The hard part is getting it up there. -- PaulxSA ( talk) 08:22, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
I just made a change where I removed some references to internal tension. In my view it's not a central aspect of a likely design for this, as it's not necessarily a contiguous cable (a swarm of small masses may make more sense) and not necessarily fully encased (only near the elevators/stations does it need to be accelerated).
That doesn't mean there can't be systems which do have internal tension, it's just that it doesn't necessarily make sense to focus on that aspect. Lsparrish ( talk) 17:24, 1 December 2021 (UTC)