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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Bev, your recent post on how to rid Earth of nuclear waste piqued my  
interest so I read the Wikipedia article about space ladders.

This popped up today:

Tetherball Space Capsule Launched, But Gets Short String
By John Borland EmailSeptember 25, 2007 | 2:57:26 PMCategories: Space

Yes2_large31As student projects go, the YES2, or Young Engineers  
Satellite 2 currently drifting Earthwards, is about as cool as they get.

As we wrote earlier, the student-run experiment is testing a new kind  
of deployment technique on the Russian-launched Foton-M3 mission,  
trying to see whether a payload can be reeled out on a long line and  
released into orbit, instead of using expensive rockets and attitude  
adjusters.

The students’ critical moment came today, and so far it’s a qualified  
success. The payload, a small capsule dubbed “Fotino” was intended to  
be let out on a 18.6 mile, fishing line-thin tether before being  
released. But the process went more slowly than projected, and the  
little test capsule was cut loose by a preprogrammed command after  
just 5.2 miles.

European Space Agency scientists are currently tracking the little  
device to figure out where and how its parachute will bring it back  
to earth.

The mishaps may mean that the students’ tether system won’t find its  
way immediately into adoption for critical satellite or other  
launches. But the test gives space programs around the world new data  
on an innovative and potentially money-saving technique for orbital  
deployments.

    "We are very proud of the students' work, although we didn’t  
reach the full 30 km deployment," said Roger Walker, YES2 project  
manager for ESA’s Education Office. "The hard work of theYES2 team  
over the past five years has paid off with this largely successful  
demonstration."

Unfortunately, no pictures yet of the actual deployment. But ESA has  
a nifty animation on its site of what should have happened. Pictured  
above is the Fotino capsule before launch.

Full article at:

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/09/tetherball-spac.html