warner@orca.UUCP (Ken Warner) (12/13/83)
Earlier I suggested a spring loaded gun shooting a magnet. Then Martin D. Katz proposed shooting a wad of sticky stuff. Well, I like that idea better. Actually the sticky object might be in the form of a bolo .. two or three small masses connected at a common vertex. The connecting ligaments could be sticky. The ligaments could be fishing line coated with .....? What is sticky in a vacuum? That is, semi-adhesive. When shot, the projectile would be spun and I'm sure you can visualize the result. Also this idea is for small emergencies. For distances measured in tens of meters. This might eliminate some situations where the spacecraft would have to reconfigure itself for an astronaut retrieval mission of distances of that magnitude.