Grappling gripper gun suit
This is about a a device for human free space locomotion in microgravity.
The idea is to shoot out a grappling gripper on a rope towards something bar like to grapple on
and then to pull oneslelf in onto that.
- Unlike on earth with lots of gravity in microgravity this could actually be functional and practical.
- It would rely on the presence of appropriate infrastructure to grapple onto.
- It will need to be waist mounted such that it pulls onto the center of gravity in a comfortable way.
- It will need to shoot out the rope too such that the grappler does not need to be a heavy and/or very fast and thus dangerous projectile.
For better stability and control more than one rope is needed.
Six ropes (to stabilize all six degrees of freedome) would probably be overkill and lead to an unmanagable tangle.
But three to four may make sense. With three one can not only go left and right but also up and down.
Spacing of attachments points sould give at least a little control over rotations.
But a better solution is to combine this suit wit a medium mover suit that can take care about stabilizing rotations.
Contents
Active propulsion gripper systems
The idea is to augment the grippers with propulsion by air.
Mainly in order to remove the constraint posed by the fact that the human aiming accuracy is being limited.
Imagine a micro tri-copter or quad-copter or other micro-drone attached to the gripper.
Or just very small micro reaction control gas thrusters.
These would work in a vacuum too but would need a recharge every other shot.
If the gripper shall still be shot out initially (maybe for speed and low system mass)
then the active propulsion must be rather small and aerodynamic.
Conventional quad-copter drone geometry not ideal. It could fold up in flight maybe.
An advanced future tech that could be used here are medium movers.
That might lead to somewhat different geometries of solutions.
Locomotion in vacuum
Not using ambient air, just using ropes and maybe very small
reaction control thruster gas for directing only the tip of the rope
locomotion would also function in the vacuum of space.
Without rope-tip reaction-control-thrusters human aiming accuracy is a hard limit
Three are limits to the distance from walls unless
these walls are mot densely covered with structures to grapple onto.
For mobility in air filled spaces not using ropes at all see page: Medium mover suit.
As everyday locomotion device
Probably not anytime soon even after initial space colonization.
Maybe for space colonists in hollowed out asteroids?
See: Asteroid belt
As an (awesome) racing and aiming sport
A free space racetrack could be made where there are ropes along the track in a 3D pattern.
Patterned similar to how the cables in electric overhead lines are partnered but occasionally cross linked.
Depending on the reached top speed appropriate Safety measures must be taken.
Crashing into a strongly tensioned (steel?) rope can lead to serious injury or death.
Top speeds may be pretty high, possibly even a bit higher than racing cyclists on flat ground.
How gemstone metamaterial technology could be used in these devices
- Smartly breaking ropes on excessive sideward load to prevent accidents.
- Self-detwisting ropes
- Compact acceleration mechanism for the soft gripper – medium movers
- tentacle robotics in the soft gripper – Soft-core macrorobots with hard-core nanomachinery
Related
External links
- In fiction: See the gear in Attack on Titan
