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Metal wires could cut the operating costs of the International Space Station
by hundreds of millions of dollars. In 1995 and 1996, space shuttle crews
experimented with satellites tethered to the craft by 20-kilometre cords.
Neither experiment was a complete success, but the data they gathered convinced
NASA that bare-wire tethers could generate power for the station as they cut
through the Earth’s magnetosphere. The tethers could replace up to 4 tonnes of
solid fuel.