Rockets are awesome.
But rockets are also:
- Dangerous
- Unreliable
- Expensive as fuck
- Most aren't reusable
- Huge mass ratios (Useful cargo mass:Fuel mass, close to 1/22 on most rockets)
So here' s a list of non-rocket launch systems, most of those cheaper, safer, and more efficient than rocketry. Some might sound a bit far-fetched, but a lot of work has been put into them, and they are plausible.
(Source is [url]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/[/url], as usual)
[B]Verne Gun - 280,000 metric tons payload to LEO[/B]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/verneGun.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/spacecannon2.jpg[/IMG]
Karl Schroeder has come up with an innovative concept. He mulled over a couple of articles from The Next Big Future (specifically this one and this one). Remember that one of the best propulsion systems for boosting huge payloads into orbit is the Orion drive; were it not for the fallout, the EMP, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Then Mr. Schroeder thought about Jules Verne's novel From The Earth To The Moon, and the giant cannon Columbiad.
You set off one solitary ten megaton nuclear device in a deep underground salt dome. Perched on top is an Orion type spacecraft. All the EMP and radiation is contained in the underground cave (as has been done with historical underground nuclear tests). And 280,000 TONS of payload sails into low Earth orbit. Not pounds. Tons
I say "sails into orbit", but it is more like "slammed by thousands of gs of acceleration", so this has to be unmanned (any human beings on board would instantly be converted into a thin layer of bloody chunky salsa covering the deck plates). But 280,000 tons? That's about one thousand International Space Stations, an entire Space Elevator (see below), an entire Lunar colony, an orbital fuel depot that would make future NASA missions ten times cheaper, a space station the size of the one in the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey, or about one-tenth of a ecologically clean 1.5 terawatt solar power station.
I know that nuclear-phobes will have a screaming fit, but this concept deserves close consideration.
[B]Space Elevator:: Space Elevator x1 - 2,000 metric tons/year payload to LEO, $3,000/kg, Space Elevator x2 - 4,000 metric tons/year payload to LEO, $1,900/kg, Space Elevator x3 - 6,000 metric tons/year payload to LEO, $1,600/kg[/B]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/beanstalk01.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://martianchronicles.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/space_elevator_structural_d.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://shineanthology.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/space-elevator.jpg[/IMG]
A space station connected to a platoform on Earth's equator by a carbon nanotube tether. It's a bit of a situation to find a material to make the tether (Carbon nanotubes require further development). Then, a climber is pushed by free electron lasers.
[B]Launch Loop:: Lofstrom loop small - 40,000 metric tons/year payload to LEO, $300/kg, Lofstrom loop large - 6,000,000 metric tons/year payload to LEO, $3/kg[/B]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/LaunchLoop.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/LaunchLoopRotor.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]
A launch loop or Lofstrom loop is a design for a maglev cable transport system for orbital launch that would be around 2,000 km (1,240 mi) long and maintained at an altitude of up to 80 km (50 mi). A launch loop would be held up at this altitude by momentum of the belt as it circulates around the structure, in effect it transfers the weight of the structure onto a pair of magnetic bearings, one at each end, which support it.
Launch loops are intended to achieve non-rocket spacelaunch of vehicles weighing 5 metric tons by electromagnetically accelerating them so that they are projected into Earth orbit or even beyond. This would be achieved by the flat part of the cable which forms an acceleration track above the atmosphere.[[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop[/url]
[B]Bifrost Bridge - 175,200 metric tons/year payload to LEO, $20/kg
[/B]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/bifrostDiagram.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/bifrost.jpg[/IMG]
This one I find particularly interesting: A mass driver accelerates the payload. Then, the tracks curve upwards, and free electron lasers push the payload.
You won't find much on the internehtz, because most results return norse mythology: The Bifrost Bridge is a rainbow to some place. This is probably due to the lasers being of different types of visible light.
[B]Mass Driver/Coilgun - ????[/B]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocketSled06.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocketSled05.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]
A mass driver or electromagnetic catapult is a proposed method of non-rocket spacelaunch which would use a linear motor to accelerate and catapult payloads up to high speeds. All existing and contemplated mass drivers use coils of wire energized by electricity to make electromagnets. Sequential firing of a row of electromagnets accelerates the payload along a path. After leaving the path, the payload continues to move due to inertia.
A mass driver is essentially a coilgun that magnetically accelerates a package consisting of a magnetisable holder containing a payload. Once the payload has been accelerated, the two separate, and the holder is slowed and recycled for another payload.
Mass drivers can be used to propel spacecraft in two different ways: A large, ground-based mass driver could be used to launch spacecraft away from the Earth or another planet. A spacecraft could have a mass driver on board, flinging large pieces of material into space to propel itself. A hybrid design is also possible (see coilgun, railgun, or helical railgun).[citation needed]
Miniaturized mass drivers can also be used as weapons in a similar manner as classic firearms or cannon using chemical combustion.[citation needed][/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver[/url]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Driver_1[/url]
[QUOTE]The current in the bucket coil interacted, by the Lorentz force, with the pulsed magnetic fields from the drive coils to accelerate the bucket. When the bucket coil was cooled by liquid nitrogen to reduce its electrical resistance, it was able to achieve an acceleration of around 30 g (300 m/s²).[/QUOTE]
[B]Slingatron[/B]
[IMG]http://www.slingatron.com/PagesMaster/SpaceLaunch/Space1024A.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Slingatron1.png[/IMG]
[url]http://www.slingatron.com/spacelaunch.htm[/url]
[B]Spaceplanes -- ????, less that today's rockets[/B]
[IMG]http://www.bristolspaceplanes.com/projects/images/ascender_580.gif[/IMG]
[IMG]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceplane[/IMG]
A spaceplane is basically a plane, often with a scramjet attached, much like the SR-71 Blackbird, that goes waaay up into the stratosphere, and releases the rocket there.
We've had SR-71's since the 60's, and Scaled Composites' SpaceShipTwo is launched from a spaceplane. So it's 100% feasible.
Virgin Galactic, fuck yeah.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceplane[/url]
[B]Zeppelin Launch Pad - ????, possibly thousands per kilogram because it's fucking expensive[/B]
[IMG]http://www.narl.org.tw/upload/en/company/4/23.jpg[/IMG]
You grab a launch pad, tie a few balloons to it.
Then, fill it with Hydrogen. Or, if you're some kind of pussy, Helium.
Then, the payloads are blasted into orbit by a mass driver or a smaller rocket. The good thing is that the most dense atmospheric layers are left behind (Note: The pad would be in the stratosphere. Good luck making a balloon less dense than space).
[QUOTE]As a rough estimate, a rocket that reaches an altitude of 20 km when launched from the ground will reach 100 km if launched at an altitude of 20 km from a balloon.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.springerlink.com/content/m74p56/[/url]
[B]--------------------------------------------[/B]
More to be added. Stay tuned.
[url]http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/Nowicki/SPBI125.HTM[/url]
[url]http://www.slingatron.com/spacelnch1024A.htm[/url]
For all you out there who don't know what he's on he's talking about how space shuttles suck and elevators are better
[QUOTE=codenamecueball;21239448]For all you out there who don't know what he's on he's talking about how space shuttles suck and elevators are better[/QUOTE]
Precisely.
but are these loud like rockets? rockets are cool because they are loud :colbert:
[QUOTE=whatnow V2;21239483]but are these loud like rockets? rockets are cool because they are loud :colbert:[/QUOTE]
The Verne Gun is loud.
hotlinking.
This shit is fucking exciting. I do like the Verne Gun idea alot.
Good work OP
Just as a sidenote: LEO = Low Earth Orbit.
Space trash is fucking everywhere and you have to constantly fire the thrusters to prevent atmospheric drag and orbital decay from bringing you down... Shit sucks.
is it just me or do half the images not work
[QUOTE=bobste;21239574]is it just me or do half the images not work[/QUOTE]
They don't. Hotlinking.
I'll see if I can fix it.
The pressure that vehicles being launched into orbit via the "slingatron" and the verne gun would experience would be the much greater challenge to engineer around than the actual building of the launching device.
[QUOTE=Roll_Program;21239673]The pressure that vehicles being launched into orbit via the "slingatron" and the verne gun would experience would be the much greater challenge to engineer around than the actual building of the launching device.[/QUOTE]
The vehicle would be relatively simple.
Sending people or delicate equipment, however, would be impossible with the Verne Gun, space cannon, slingatron and mass driver.
Launch loop and space elevators for the fucking win.
You have a picture of that dude's rapid decompression gun that is literally a huge cannon supported by an oil rig, but with a description of how to safely launch an Orion spacecraft under it. The cannon isn't powered by nuclear fission, it compresses tons and tons of hydrogen, and then rapidly expands it. The layout just seems a bit weird, is all.
That would be the scariest shit ever to be on the space elevator. It would take a while to get to the top, with the constant fear of the tether snapping and being doomed to drift in space. FOREVER. Or at least until you starve to death.
[QUOTE=tommyc225;21239791]That would be the scariest shit ever to be on the space elevator. It would take a while to get to the top, with the constant fear of the tether snapping and being doomed to drift in space. FOREVER. Or at least until you starve to death.[/QUOTE]
Nah, you would eventually burn during atmospheric re-entry.
...
That's not very comforting either :ohdear:
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;21239809]Nah, you would eventually burn during atmospheric re-entry.
...
That's not very comforting either :ohdear:[/QUOTE]
Heh didnt think of the gravity
[editline]02:38AM[/editline]
EMERGENCY PARACHUTES!
problem solved :smug:
[editline]02:38AM[/editline]
still scary shit bro
A cannon with a nuclear propellant would be awesome to watch.
[QUOTE=OvB;21239848]A cannon with a nuclear propellant would be awesome to watch.[/QUOTE]
Sure.
For the first few seconds before the radiation burns your eyes :ohdear:
[QUOTE=tommyc225;21239791]That would be the scariest shit ever to be on the space elevator. It would take a while to get to the top, with the constant fear of the tether snapping and being doomed to drift in space. FOREVER. Or at least until you starve to death.[/QUOTE]
they would have complimentary cyanide pills onboard for ever such an occasion.
[QUOTE=Sparkwire;21239900]they would have complimentary cyanide pills onboard for ever such an occasion.[/QUOTE]
Wow, NASA are so kind
[QUOTE=tommyc225;21240111]Wow, NASA are so kind[/QUOTE]
They sure do think of everything
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;21240129]They sure do think of everything[/QUOTE]
Apart from these concepts here, but yeah
I like these.
The Verne Gun/Oil Rig thing mentioned above sounds fucking bad ass.
Well there was this guy who went into space in a balloon.
Space elevators would be so fucking boring. It's like Mass Effect all over again.
[editline]10:14PM[/editline]
Going up one, I mean.
The slingatron just sounds silly, but I quite like the Verne Gun. Too bad somebody had to cut NASAs budget for 2011, or some of this stuff could be in development by the US. Hopefully some countries are more lenient and badass. Why the fuck is my firefox formatting weird? The enter key and BBcode don't work right. Everything reappears as html code or something.
Surface-to-Orbit is [i]so[/i] last decade. Real men talk about Orbit-to-Surface, AKA:
[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XTKNLgxeexo/SSTeOM_SEOI/AAAAAAAAACU/v9OHfl86ipE/s400/yet+more+orbital+skydiving.png[/img]
in real life. No, really, there's a company called Orbital Outfitters spearheaded by a NASA doctor who lost his wife in the Columbia incident and the designer of the spacesuits from the movie Armageddon. Their goal is not only to create the safety feature/extreme sport of the future, but to do so in style.
Divers would go through every stage of reentry: maneuvering in orbit, accelerating to nearly Mach four in the upper atmosphere, decelerating to 120 MPH and becoming a fireball, free-falling for a solid seven minutes, and then gently landing. Amazingly, this is all still less than what a fighter pilot goes through in terms of G-forces (I'm guessing that's because it's in a straight line).
This is the annotated sketch of the actual suit.
[img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/spacedivers_b_enlrg.jpg[/img]
[url=http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2007-06/high-dive]source 1[/url]
[url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/27/cap_troopers_r_go/]source 2[/url]
Holy shit that is one BIG ASS GUN.
OP should include Project Valkyrie.
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