Back to the Moon?

chcr said:
Electronics can be sufficiently shielded. The technology already exists to build one too, just modify a mag-lev train system.

Of course, if the old story about Boeing and antigravity turns out to be true, the point becomes moot. :shrug:
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The more shielding that you need, the less stuff that you're sending up..sure you can use the shielding for other purposes, but that's an awful lot of engineering.

Mag-lev's not fast enough...we're talking about 24500 mph here.for a basic rocket to escape the earth's gravity. Speed of sound is 331.45 m/s, or .331me/s. or 741miles/hour. MACH33 or so..unless my math is way the fuck off.

In either case...we're talking about at least 500 times faster than the fastest mag-lev...AND not on a horizontal plane either.
 
Nevermind that last link...I get the feeling that it's a wee bit old :)

Until recently, no graphical browser has been available for the dialup user, but with the release of SlipKnot 1.0 this is no longer the case. Though somewhat limited in the 1.0 release, SlipKnot still provides an important new capability for a large number of Internet users
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Bish said:
Mag-lev's not fast enough...we're talking about 24500 mph here.for a basic rocket to escape the earth's gravity. Speed of sound is 331.45 m/s, or .331me/s. or 741miles/hour. MACH33 or so..unless my math is way the fuck off.
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Speed of a mag-lev is only limited by available power (it would need it's own power plant, a big one) and the software which keeps it from going an "unsafe" speed. Actually, the faster a mag-lev device goes, the more efficient it becomes. It's the same principle as a particle accelerator (and they accelerate things up to nearly the speed of light). As I say, the technology exists, ready to be refined and reapplied. The real problem is the atmosphere. You have all the speed you're going to at the end of the track, the air is going to heat you up and slow you down. Again, technology exists to overcome the problem, it just needs to be refined.

As far as the electronics go, what percent of the total mass do you suppose they'd be. A drop in the bucket i'd guess.

Bish said:
AND not on a horizontal plane either.
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Actually, once escape velocity is achieved, the angle of take off doesn't matter at all.
 
Mag-lev's not fast enough...we're talking about 24500 mph here.for a basic rocket to escape the earth's gravity. Speed of sound is 331.45 m/s, or .331me/s. or 741miles/hour. MACH33 or so..unless my math is way the fuck off.
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Mach= Speed of sound. Thats not even mach 1..
 
MrBishop said:
Electro magnitic fields needed to accelerate objects into low-earth orbit are huge and can't be used to shoot anything electronic into space. Magnetics will seriously mess up electronic components as you might have read about during the last solar storm.
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Only switched on electronics. Leave them powered down until you get there.

Problem #2... once it's in orbit, you still have to slow it down enough to catch, or rendezvous with, which would mean solid-fuel use.
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Not really. A well calculated launch could position it in any orbit you want, even a retrograde or geosync orbit. Don't forget, you're dealing with 4 dimentions, not just 2.



Problem #3... you can't shoot stright up...you have to angle it, which means clearing huge portions of land and removign all people living in the path of the missile because of the high chances of physical problems associated with high levels of magnetics.
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I'm thinking ... Canada? Russia? Neither of which is terribly overpopulated. Very flat up north. And Canada's great white north has a serious abundance of the single most important resource for maglev launches. Hydroelectricity. And the furthur north you go, the thinner the atmosphere, hence less resistance. The only reason that most launches today are so close to the equator is that the earth's rotation is added to the launch velocity to make orbital speeds. MagLev launches would be carrying almost no propellent, and thus much easier to make speeds.

It'd be good for accelerating sections but you'd still have a lot of work ahead of you.
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Funny, you missed the single real limitting factor. DeltaV. Since you'd carry so little propellent, you'd need to make almost all your launch velocity while still on the track. You'd be looking at many more Gs than any human could stand. Thus, the preferred method would be to do a maglev launch as a first stage, still counting on a second and third stage to get you out of the atmosphere. It would be a fair balancing act. And it's already been used, in a form. Prototype spacecraft are carried aloft strapped under a heavy lift airplane. Sometimes to 50,000'+. Just getting a load that high using Bernouli's principal would save you thousands of pounds of fuel. And that's (funny enough) the plan adopted by most of the X prize contestants.
 
Prof said:
You'd be looking at many more Gs than any human could stand.
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Why? Just make the track really long. I don't have time at work to work out the math, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure.
 
chcr said:
Why? Just make the track really long. I don't have time at work to work out the math, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure.
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It's not a question of math, but of economics. The longer the track, the more power needed. The higher the cost to build it. The more can go wrong.
 
We've already got better cel phones than they had in Star Trek...I say we just wait for the transporter. It can't be too much longer...:tardbang:
 
Professur said:
Only switched on electronics. Leave them powered down until you get there.
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I was under the impression that high magnetic fields created electrical surges and could damage transistors and resistors in even unpowered units.

Professur said:
Not really. A well calculated launch could position it in any orbit you want, even a retrograde or geosync orbit. Don't forget, you're dealing with 4 dimentions, not just 2.
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You'd have to pick one, unless you're willing to build multiple tracks...but good point.

Professur said:
I'm thinking ... Canada? Russia? Neither of which is terribly overpopulated. Very flat up north. And Canada's great white north has a serious abundance of the single most important resource for maglev launches. Hydroelectricity. And the furthur north you go, the thinner the atmosphere, hence less resistance. The only reason that most launches today are so close to the equator is that the earth's rotation is added to the launch velocity to make orbital speeds. MagLev launches would be carrying almost no propellent, and thus much easier to make speeds.
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Have to be northern Canada...but you're talking getting items to the near-poles in the first place.

Professur said:
Funny, you missed the single real limitting factor. DeltaV. Since you'd carry so little propellent, you'd need to make almost all your launch velocity while still on the track. You'd be looking at many more Gs than any human could stand. Thus, the preferred method would be to do a maglev launch as a first stage, still counting on a second and third stage to get you out of the atmosphere. It would be a fair balancing act. And it's already been used, in a form. Prototype spacecraft are carried aloft strapped under a heavy lift airplane. Sometimes to 50,000'+. Just getting a load that high using Bernouli's principal would save you thousands of pounds of fuel. And that's (funny enough) the plan adopted by most of the X prize contestants.
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This wouldn't be for launching humans, Prof...just payload. If you want to bring humans up, I still say that the space-elevator idea's better.
 
By Space-Elevator do you mean literally that? A cable going from the earth to a Geosynchronus orbiting space station?
 
Squiggy said:
:D read the subsequent posts, Bish...my apologies.
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Ugh...me typum slowly, missed your post while typing another one...mea culpa :)

Hey Squigs...want to be the first frog in space? Hmmmm

(wind-speed velocity of an unladen frog x mass)/escape velocity *100 = awe fuckit'''anybody got a bunch of tennisball cans, some tape and some lighter fluid...I'm sending Squigs up for a look-see :)
 
PuterTutor said:
By Space-Elevator do you mean literally that? A cable going from the earth to a Geosynchronus orbiting space station?
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:nod: Yup...exactly that. We'd need stronger and lighter materials to make the 'wire', but once in place, the energy needed to ferry something up or down the elevator would be minimal.
 
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