Ok ok.

The Cube is a key technology for implementing a Skyhook in the near-term. Ordinarily a skyhook requires a large counterweight so that it can snatch payloads from a lower altitude, and catapault them to a higher orbit via momentum transfer, without losing too much altitude itself. The trouble with this is that there is no way to re-boost the counterweight to its original altitude, and if the tether remains deployed it will crash into the earth on the next rotation, rather then merely skim the upper atmosphere (because its center of rotation is lower). Such a large counterweight, estimated to be ~57,000 metric tonnes to launch a 50-tonne payload while only losing 5 km altitude, would require an enormous number of launches to assemble. It would take anywhere from 38 - 60 years to assemble the "dumb" counterweight for a skyhook launch system with the simplest design.

To reduce construction time to a mere 10 years I have invented "The Cube", a powerful morphing machine which adapts to changes in center of gravity, allowing a counterweight of only one-quarter the "dumb" mass, or just 14,250 tonnes. Such a counterweight should only take 10 years to assemble. Indeed, much of this mass would comprise the skyhook machinery and The Cube. It may now be possible to build a skyhook in a reasonable timeframe, one that is acceptable financially, politically, and strategically.

You've heard of mass-damping systems before, but they were science fiction. Now a real concept is on the drawing boards....

THE CUBE !!!