NASA Looks At Railgun-Like Rocket Launcher 231
coondoggie writes "NASA is looking hard at a way to blast spacecraft horizontally down an electrified track or gas-powered sled and into space, hitting speeds of about Mach 10. The craft would then return and land on a runway by the launch site."
Well, this is not a (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Well, this is not a (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I believe this critter was up and at it in the 70's at Princeton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill [wikipedia.org]
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Well, I believe this critter was up and at it in the 70's at Princeton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_K._O'Neill [wikipedia.org]
Yah. Him too. Sometimes I forget that Google is my friend.
Re:Well, this is not a (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, Heinlein, may you never cease to spin.
Anyway, the other think to consider (especially for things like laser-based launches) is that the current "spit out a ton of speed really quickly and then coast your way to orbit" approach really sucks. Even a slow nice steady boost will get you to orbit without needing to hit escape velocity.
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Who coasts into orbit? Once the engine cuts off in most any launch vehicle you've achieved orbit.
Get going at the right speed from the ground and you'll enter orbit as long as there's not a mountain in the way (you'd probably want to boost your periagee afterwards though). The main reason you go up before accelerating to orbital velocity is that you get above the atmosphere and don't lose as much energy.
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Even a slow nice steady boost will get you to orbit without needing to hit escape velocity.
Well, sure, you could do at a walking pace ... if you had the reaction mass.
Re:Well, this is not a (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, Heinlein, may you never cease to spin
Yes, Heinlein used this tech as a centerpiece enabling technology for Moon->Earth grain shipments (and as a kinetic weapon used against Earth once the rebellion started..."throwing rice") from a lunar penal colony in his superb science fiction novel "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". I highly recommend the story. Heinlein was amazing at predicting tech & science advances far, far ahead of any of his contemporaries.
In the above Heinlein novel, a rail launcher for Earth was proposed for several possible locations. These proposed locations shared certain characteristics, among them was elevation/altitude at the launcher exit point.
NASA could do a lot worse than taking some more inspiration (IIRC he's generally credited with the concept of communications satellites) from such an intellect.
Strat
Re:Well, this is not a (Score:4, Informative)
IIRC he's generally credited with the concept of communications satellites
Nope. That was Arthur C. Clarke [lakdiva.org], another of the grand masters of hard science-fiction.
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IIRC he's generally credited with the concept of communications satellites
Nope. That was Arthur C. Clarke [lakdiva.org], another of the grand masters of hard science-fiction.
Ahh, right you are! Clarke and Heinlein are two of my favorite sci-fi authors. I really should have gotten that right. :/
Strat
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"spit out a ton of speed really quickly and then coast your way to orbit" approach really sucks
A "nice slow steady boost" will burn an enormous amount of fuel.
Let's say your rocket weighs 1,000lb. If you provide = 1000lb of thrust your rocket will just sit there. If you provide 1001lb of thrust it'll start to accelerate every so slowly... if you provide 1002lb of thrust you'll accelerate twice as fast, but only burn ~0.1% more energy.
You'll go faster (for a given thrust) as you burn up fuel and thus shed weight, but at any weight, the higher the thrust, the smaller the percentage of energy you spend just overcoming gravity, and the more you spend accelerating the vehicle.
And don't forget, that if you got above the atmosphere "slow and steady"... if you're under orbit velocity, you're going to fall right down unless you plan on burning fuel forever.
Re:Well, this is not a (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a number of reasons why rail guns are more attractive than a "steady boost".
First, we don't have anything that gives a steady boost for any reasonable amount of time at a reasonable amount of force. Rockets just don't last very long in the overall scheme of things, and laser-based propulsion systems don't have enough force to launch any appreciable payload (yet).
Second, rail guns don't require you to accelerate fuel in order to keep on accelerating. This puts an effective limit on rockets, and anything the rail gun adds pushes out our capacity based on the fuel limit.
Third, the higher/faster you're going before you start using conventional rockets will reduce fuel requirements, increase payload, or increase orbit. This is somewhat related to the second item, but not entirely. Conventional rockets require you to bring your fuel with you, which reduces payload capacity, and this compounds with the effects of being deeper in the gravity well.
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Re:Well, this is not a (Score:5, Funny)
True, but you do have the potential to turn ponies into rainbows...
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and laser-based propulsion systems don't have enough force to launch any appreciable payload (yet).
And they never will. Lasers will NEVER be able to push anything into orbit, period. E=MC2. If you make E big enough to push a payload into orbit, your E ends up turning into M. Lasers only a bit more powerful than what we have now will end up creating matter in their pumping chambers and halting their output. The top few lasers on the planet are pretty close to the maximum power lasers can attain before spontaneously creating mass from the light they make. What may work, however is using a laser to be
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Re:Well, this is not a (Score:4, Informative)
before gravity takes control.
As the GP said, gravity is a conservative force. [wikipedia.org] It is ALWAYS in control. Right now, gravity from distance stars is pulling us in their direction--the force is infinitestimal but present nonetheless. It is an extreme colloquialism to say that when you throw a ball up in the air gravity "takes control" when it starts to fall down, never mind that gravity caused the slowing of its ascent as well. Same as in orbits.
"Coasting into orbit," in your colloquial usage, simply means cutting the engines at a lower altitude than the final orbital altitude. To pull it off, you have to be going faster than orbital velocity at the lower altitude so that after your engine is cut off, some of your kinetic energy is transferred to potential energy, and you slow down while still going up until you reach the final orbit. This is no doubt used for small portions of most flights. But the GP's point is correct; anyone who understands Newtonian physics will be able to tell whether and what orbit you will reach once you cut your engines, thus no one ever bothers to talk about "coasting".
The only difference with a railgun-only launch system is you reach the maximum velocity at ground level and spend the *entire* trip to orbit "coasting." This is not what NASA is proposing. They will use the railgun only as the first stage, followed by scramjets and an orbital-insertion rocket engine, which is a much more realistic proposal.
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Bad Physics (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, the other think to consider (especially for things like laser-based launches) is that the current "spit out a ton of speed really quickly and then coast your way to orbit" approach really sucks.
Why on earth was this moderated interesting? Is wrong information interesting now? You can't coast to orbit. When the power shuts off you either are in orbit or you aren't. Gravity doesn't take a holiday just because you are out of propellant.
Even a slow nice steady boost will get you to orbit without needing to hit escape velocity.
You can't get into orbit without hitting escape speed (escape velocity is actually a misleading term because it is a scalar). Escape speed doesn't have to be fast (in fact it can be any speed) but again, once the engines shut off you had better be at the escape sp
NASA still cannot do simple math. (Score:2, Interesting)
"...hitting speeds of about Mach 10."
"Starr noted that electric tracks catapult rollercoaster riders daily at theme parks. But those tracks call for speeds of 60 mph -- enough to thrill riders, but not nearly fast enough to launch something into space. The launcher would need to reach at least 10 times that speed over the course of two miles in Starr's proposal."
Mach 10 = 600mph ???
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Perhaps it only needs to get up to 600 MPH before the Scramjet takes over.
If you read any of the articles on their scramjet tests, they need supersonic airflow to create the pressure inside the engine. Once ignited, Mach 10 wouldn't be outrageous for a Scramjet.
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=63070 [shortnews.com]
Unfortunately escape velocity isn't Mach 10, but for early test platforms, we already have the tech necessary to do what's in the proposal, and what we might learn from repeated launches and fine tuning the
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Scramjets don't need supersonic airflow, they only need a dynamic pressure that is in the right interval. If you look at the equation in the wiki link you'll see that it will be able to operate at lower speeds at lower altitude, in fact, it will not be able to operate at mach 10 at low altitude at all, but would constantly speed up as it gains altitude to keep an approximately constant dynamic pressure.
Seems elegant enough for me.
And the scramjet would only b
Re:NASA still cannot do simple math. (Score:5, Informative)
Once ignited, Mach 10 wouldn't be outrageous for a Scramjet.
Well, that seems a bit optimistic for a device that has been successfully flown, what, twice? Its kind of like planning the Boeing 777 the day after the wright brothers first flight.
The real killer with all these "hybrid" lifter designs is they are all ignorant of the virtually unknown 666 rule.
The 666 rule is that Mach 6 (which is tricky for an air breathing aircraft) at 60000 feet (again, tricky) is a whopping 6% of the way to orbit.
So, if, in your wildest dreams, you can simultaneously achieve mach 6 at 60Kft, which would be quite the noteworthy achievement, you've still got 94% of the way to go.
Alternately, you could take the required second stage, and make the fuel tank at least 6% bigger and skip all this air breathing foolishness.
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im pretty sure mach 25 is orbital velocity. which would make mach 6 a bit over 20% of the speed needed. which is more than 6%.
Ouch, hope your physics teacher doesn't see your post. If E=1/2 * m * v**2, the ratio boils down to (mach6)**2 / (mach25)**2 which works out to 36/625 which works out to 5.76 percent. The energy required to gain altitude does matter, if you're going up a couple hundred miles. If it didn't, elevators wouldn't need motors. You are correct that the velocity is where most of the energy goes, and I didn't bother to verify the math, but its vaguely around the remaining 0.24 percent figure.
My point still stand
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Yes, you've verified the staging equations, but you're still better off with a traditional, simple, ultra reliable first stage. The absolutely cheapest thing about orbital rocket launchers is the propellants, everything from R+D to launch support costs more. "Saving fuel" is a profoundly false economy for orbital launchers. A great way to spend billions to save millions (or less).
Also first stage is arguably the most phase of flight. A terrible place to "innovate".
Re:NASA still cannot do simple math. (Score:4, Interesting)
There is great potential for energy savings, which would mean higher payloads and/or less expensive flights.
You want higher payloads, find a rocket that works, and make it bigger.
As for less expense, I take it you believe most of the cost of the space shuttle program is liquid H2? If so, you are horribly misinformed. If, by some utter miracle, the shuttle could be operated on flying unicorns instead of solid boosters and H2/O2, calculate the delta cost in the shuttle program. I think you'll be surprised how many decimal places you'll need to use.
Liquid H2 costs about a buck a pound in the quantities NASA uses. (We'd pay closer to two bucks a pound). The entire shuttle tank holds about a quarter million pounds of liq H2. No math phd required to figure that filling the fuel tank costs about a quarter mil. A similar level of math is required to multiply that by about 130 shuttle flights to get a lifetime program cost of a whopping 30 million or so. Wikipedia claims the total cost of the shuttle program from "I gotta idea" to end of program is about 175 Billion. So, liquid H2 fuel cost works out to 30 / 175000 * 100 = about 0.02 percent of total project cost. "Saving fuel" is simply irrelevant.
So, if we risk the lives of every crewman using a new non-man rated engine and/or delay the vehicle program by decades to develop and deploy the amazing fuel free flying unicorn engine system, we will save a whopping two hundredths of a percent of total program cost. Or rephrased, for the R+D to pay for itself, we need the total cost of R+D and deployment to remain below two hundredths of a percent of program cost.
Two hundredths of a percent of project cost is about what you budget for developing and deploying the HR diversity training, or perhaps company funded picnics. Not a realistic budget factor for a new primary propulsion system.
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Well, unless something is taking over, this is just a big artillery piece: escape velocity is rather higher than mach 10 [wolframalpha.com].
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The launcher would need to reach at least 10 times that speed
"At least"....for all those times when you can't quite do the math!
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Only at a ridiculously low pressure...
(mach is dependent on the speed of sound, which is dependent on the atmospheric temperature and pressure)
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Maybe just missing a "0" -- should be "100 times", but even that's low. Mach 10 is around 6600 mph "where the jets go" and 7700 at sea level.
Of course, escape velocity is 25,000 mph (no friction from the air factored in), but (and I didn't read tfa) it seemed like they want to come back (maybe like a really big boomerang?), so I don't think it matters.
Just for grins, if the thing is launched at a 45 degree angle, it should reach a maximum height of approximately 185 miles, and travel a distance of around 75
NASA plays too much Quake (Score:2)
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Indeed. Isn't this a mass driver?
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Indeed. Isn't this a mass driver?
Or a Gaussrifle.
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Nope. It might be a Gaussian Accelerator or something like that, but it's no rifle. I'd hate to be spun like that on launch :)
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You'd end up nothing more than a Gaussian blur.
Yes, but you could use a CSI-style reverse algorithmic [crimelab.nl] to recover the pilot's data.
Let's hope NASA is better at math than TFA (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, but 10x roller coaster speeds isn't close to Mach 10.
NASA is on to something interesting here. It would seem that MagLev [wikipedia.org] is required (no wheels can handle that speed), and it would be interesting to see what kind of acceleration they can get out of LIM's [wikipedia.org]. Rocket propulsion seems a waste in this application. It might help bullet-train technology, and we can get some new spin-off inventions from NASA.
Put the railgun in orbit (Score:3, Insightful)
And even Mach 10 isn't enough, orbital velocity is close to Mach 25. You cannot run at that speed inside the atmosphere, there's no material that could withstand the heat.
I've seen a much better idea proposed. Put that electric accelerator track in orbit. The energy needed to reach orbital altitude is much less than the energy needed to accelerate to orbital speed.
One could launch the spacecraft vertically to an interception with the accelerator tr
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TFA suggests that the Mach 10 will be to get some scramjets online, which will then boost to high atmosphere, and then pop out a small second (third?) stage rocket.
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Sure, but you would also use the track to decelerate spacecraft from orbital velocity to land on earth, which would cause the track to gain velocity.
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You just blew my mind.
Re:Put the railgun in orbit (Score:4, Funny)
... in which case Newton's Laws would adequately describe the reasons why your ultra-expensive orbital mass driver is now an ultra-expensive meteor shower.
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(realized i should explain for those that don't get it)
The force applied to the craft by the accelerator will also act against the accelerator. Firing the right way, it would drop the accelerator right out of orbit (it would impart it's velocity into the craft, leaving it with less than needed to maintain orbit, crashing down). Fired the other direction, and the exact reverse would be seen - the accelerator would "push" off of the craft, accelerating and gaining altitude, but the craft would then fall quite
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OK, so it's a one-time use accelerator, but it's still good, nay?
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How does something going 7 km/sec catch something going zero?
Colliding, I can see. Gently catching and accelerating up to the same speed, I don't see.
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The problem with your idea is that the mouth of the tube should be open, otherwise how would the spacecraft come out? To be open it should need to be in a vacuum, otherwise air would come rushing in. You would need a tube extending all the way to above the atmosphere, let's say a hundred kilometers up.
An awesome concept, but not simple or cheap.
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At what distance from the Earth?
Orbital velocity is entirely dependent on your distance from the gravitational source and its gravitational pull.
You already have 'some' orbital velocity just standing on the planet, in fact, you have enough to orbit if you go far enough away from the planet, though it wouldn't probably last very long.
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No. All they need to do is to be at the same place at the same time.
The spacecraft is at the top of its trajectory, zero vertical speed, zero horizontal speed. Exactly at the same time the front of the track reaches that same location. A magnetic force catches the spacecraft so it won't fall down. The same magnetic force accelerates the spacecraft horizontally along the track so it will have orbital velocity by the time it reaches
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I think he is looking for more like 128x. Furthermore TFA calls for reaching th
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Back of the envelope for 6000 mi/hr (100 x 60 mph rollercoaster) in 2 miles gives something on the order of 114 G.
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You're expecting a particularly informed, insightful article about rocket science in NetworkWorld? Seriously?
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LIMs are 'theoretically' unlimited, you just have to space them out properly and sequence them fast enough. In practice of course, its entirely different. I think for most practical purposes of terrestrial motion, they will be practically unlimited until we invent inertial dampeners of some sort.
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This is really just bad wording in his opening paragraph.
Really it's that:
The Universe Today article is worded a little better: http://www.universetoday.com/73536/nasa-considering-rail-gun-launch-system-to-the-stars/ [universetoday.com]
Net Assets' launcher? (Score:2)
Hey, it looks like someone read that Net [bussjaeger.org] Assets [smashwords.com] novel by one Carl Bussjaeger but decided that the trick could be done without using the libertarian sauce Bussjaeger pours over it. Bussjaeger ended up deciding that a rail gun or other tracked thing would not work so he went with a supersonic ground effect launcher.
Finally... (Score:4, Insightful)
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After all the hype that we've been hearing over the years about rail-guns and seeing a few military and hobbyist demos on video sites, this one piece of near-former sci-fi may be finally coming to fruition as a usable approach. It's a great example of the sort of thing that had to wait for technological improvements and refinements, rather than a fundamental scientific or technological breakthrough, and is the convergence of several technologies. I'm encouraged to see more progress on such things which seems to have in recent years been eclipsed by information technology's faster cycles and overhyping in media (and I say this as someone who makes his living as a software engineer).
I, well, I agree. And make my living the same way. I've also been a science-fiction fan since I was a kid (Clarke, Heinlein, Norton, Silverberg, Harrison, Dick, you name it I probably read it) and honestly I've been disappointed by the past forty years, at least so far as near-space development is concerned. I thought, well, I'd hoped we would be way further along than we are, and had we continued the pace of development after the end of the Apollo program we would have be. But we chickened out, let our lea
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Nope, this piece of "near former sci-fi" is just as far from fruition as it ever was.
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The basic problem with a railgun is that it give only a fraction of the velocity required - and it does so only in one plane.
Maybe I'm missing something, but can't you point the railgun in any direction you want? Granted it's probably cheaper to run the track along the ground, but you could at least in principle aim it straight up, or diagonally, or any other direction...
Incidentally, I suspect the appeal of the railgun is similar to the appeal of a Space Elevator... if you can supply the fuel/energy from
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jellied brains (Score:2)
Oh the acceleration! Hopefully this is not for manned flights!
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One faster (Score:2, Funny)
Well you could you know, make it one faster, you know go up to Mach eleven. Well, it's one faster, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, the Russians, you know, will be launching at Mach ten. You're on Mach ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on Mach ten on your magnetic sled. Where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Mach Eleven. Exactly. One faster.
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What am I missing?
A rail gun accelerating objects to mach 10 (Score:2)
In related news, I just opened "Space Coast Window Repair."
Mach 10 (Score:2)
So, the rail takes the x-43-like launcher to 600 (10x60) mph? That's not nearly enough to ignite the engine. Assuming it gets 5 times as fast (3000 mph should be enough to ignite it) it will be very close to the ground. 3000 mph close to the ground must generate non-trivial amounts of heat (and broken windows). Ignore that (because the launcher appears to have SR-71-like engines) for a moment and imagine the launcher now has to propel itself to the upper atmosphere, where it reaches Mach 10 (something we ne
Payload Weight (Score:2)
I have no idea how heavy the Shuttles (or Soyuz capsules for that matter!) are even without the massive fuel tanks/rockets but I imagine this will take a lot of energy to get the job done.
I think it's a great project for two main reasons:
1. Figure out how to generate and store a big chunk of energy.
2. Use it to accelerate and object to escape velocity.
There is so much potential for discovery in both areas it boggles the mind.
Fast enough to reach orbit is... (Score:2)
To keep the human alive, we need a slower, lon
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You black out when you fly a curved path -- that's the only way to generate sufficient accelerations. To merely fly fast, all you've got is the mass of the aircraft (and your butt) counteracted by the engine thrust. Gives a nice buttkick, but not nearly enough to cause any distress.
The fighter pilots black out when they make turns, and for that they don't need to fly fast at all. You can easily black out on an aerobatic biplane with a prop engine.
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SPEED doesn't kill you, acceleration might. Bear in mind you are currently moving at at least 1000 MPH.
What about launch loops? (Score:2)
Why at sea level? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would they do this at sea level? This should be done somewhere in the American West, at altitude. At 10K feet there is a heck of a lot less air resistance. Could be done on one of the Air Force ranges for sonic boom sake.
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I was thinking this too. Edwards AFB maybe? Hmmm... only about 2500 ft apparently. We can get to 5000 feet easily on a lot of places out west though, and I'm sure the military already controls a lot of flat land at that altitude or greater. 10000? I don't think you can do that without the extra hassle of building on very steep land.
Friction? (Score:2)
I'm a complete layman here, but it seems to me that friction from air would be a serious problem at the speeds a vehicle would have to be propelled off this launcher. By the time conventional rockets have achieved a significant speed they're already fairly high in the atmosphere. I can't see a launch tower being practically ramped up high enough to overcome these effects. The vehicle would have to survive the stresses of heat and friction at launch and reentry. There's also the matter of drag kicking in bef
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This sounds comparable to firing a bullet from a gun which seems like it would be a rather violent launch.
Depends. If you used a linear accelerator (e.g. a mass driver) of sufficient length, you could accelerate at one G. You'd probably want more than that, though, to keep the size of the launcher manageable.
That's so 1980's.... (Score:2)
I guess it's Back to the Future...or is that Past...
The NASA version (Score:2)
"Emerging Technologies May Fuel Revolutionary Launcher" [nasa.gov]
It looks more like the rail truck accelerates the launch vehicle to mach 1 which leaves the end of the track and the scramjet lights and carries it and its payload to mach 10 at about 20 miles altitude. The payload then separates from the launcher, the rocket ignites and sends the payload into orbit. The launch vehicle returns and lands for reuse.
This sounds a lot more feasible than a mach 10 rail gun!
Great idea (Score:2)
I agree that this idea has been around a while -- it's still a great idea.
Scramjets are really pretty simple devices compared to rocket engines. This machine would be like the first and second stages of a three-stage rocket, saving something like 80% of the mass. (OK, most of that mass is relatively cheap kerosene and LOX, but still.) Getting a sled up to Mach 1 to get the scramjets started is really not that challenging. If they don't start correctly, you just slow down ... and nothing bad happens.
One
The Plan is Not Mach 10 on the Track! (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone is banging their head over trying to hit Mach 10 on the track.
TFS and everyone else is misunderstanding the proposal.
The current idea is for the sled on the track to accelerate a scramjet up to about 600mph, then the scramjet lifts off, flies up to altitude and at about mach 10, releases a rocket which boosts the payload into orbit.
Sled (reusable) on the ground = 1st Stage
Scramjet (reusable) in the atmosphere = 2nd Stage
Booster Rocket in space = 3rd Stage
All extensions of more or less current technology.
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Space is not up, it's all over, we're on a sphere.
You can go to your right and ignore gravity completely to reach space.
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Damn it, we've been doing this rocketry thing the hard way.
The easy way is just to "ignore gravity"!
(Yes, I know what you mean, but it is more fun this way :)
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NASA should hire people with surprising bodies and/or opinions to jump out and reveal/explain them, providing a needed distraction at the critical moment.
Re:Maybe someone should tell them... (Score:4, Insightful)
That space is up.
Up is relative. Space is away.
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Space is around.
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If I've learned one thing from Superman, it's that the formula for flight is up, up, and away. Therefor it is 2/3 up, and 1/3 away.
Yes, but I understand that for other countries the formula may be different. Remember, he was all about Truth, Justice and the American way. So, for example, when Russia wants to launch a spacecraft, they have to use Up, Up, and the Soviet way, which as we all know, is somewhat different.
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That space is up.
You see, they'll fire the spacecraft horizontally and it'll fly really really fast until it falls off the World into orbit.
Re:Maybe someone should tell them... (Score:4, Insightful)
so basically the trick is to fall down and miss?
Re:Maybe someone should tell them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe someone should tell them... (Score:5, Informative)
You're being facetious, but that's exactly what would happen.
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This needs more +1 insightful as well as some +1 informative. This is exactly what would happen. In fact rocket launches already take some advantage of this fact. Going absolutely straight up would cause a whole world of hurt on the vertical frame and require extra fuel. Launching on an angle mitigates this. Basically you're traveling further to get out of the atmosphere but using less energy overall. If ground based launch facilities can get it to 600 m/h and then a scram jet can get it to escape velocity
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Up and at them!
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...then by definition they're launching at a tangent to the earth's surface. This means that they'll have to punch through a lot more atmosphere than they would have to with a traditional perpendicular launch. I wonder how much they're really gaining with this strategy.
Since they are depending on a miracle occurring in engine technology, maybe they are expecting an equal miracle to occur in wing technology, to get a high mach number wing with a slow glider like lift to drag ratio so they can pull up at the end of the launch rail thing. Piling on that many pipe dreams, they may as well ask for a flying unicorn.