are now complete. They are shown in the "Skyhook" document on my Starship Generations website. The link to Toyobo corporation, manufacturers of Zylon super fiber, is also there.

The photos are a first for me, but then a picture says a thousand words. I had to create a 3D solid model, texture map it, export different views as bitmaps, and then create masks for the bitmaps. I then wrote a computer program that digitally superimposes the masked bitmaps onto another real photograph using boolean bitblit functions (AND, OR, NOT, INVERT). I then touched up the results in a regular graphics editor. Fun stuff (NOT, lol).

Zylon is a super fiber material that is twice as strong as carbon fiber, although more elastic. It is probably a better material for a momentum exchange tether, especially since Zylon fibers are a plastic polymer and can be mass-produced, and more easily woven than carbon fiber, not to mention the fact that it is stronger. It is however more vulnerable to heating and atomic oxygen corrosion in the upper atmosphere. The lower 100-150 km of the Skyhook tether would probably need an insulating cladding.

Let me know what you think.