I'm surprised that no science fiction show uses a massive slingshot to propel spaceships. It seems like it could be really effective. You'd just have to make it large enough that the initial acceleration wouldn't kill everyone on board. [Reply]
Don't care about Star Trek at all, but damn if Shatner doesn't look great for an 89 year old.....If I could make it that long, I'd hope I could be half as healthy as he appears to be.... [Reply]
Originally Posted by mililo4cpa:
Don't care about Star Trek at all, but damn if Shatner doesn't look great for an 89 year old.....If I could make it that long, I'd hope I could be half as healthy as he appears to be....
Umm. Most people don't live that long.
He is still working at his age. He drank and fucked bitches for 70 years. He looks great for his age.
Back on the op.
I love this stuff, I did an excel chart once on travelling to Centauri. If we could pull it off. First ships would need to be cryo living ships or generational ships. And more than likely by the time they arrived they would already be settled by humans because of technology advancements. Well or we're extinct.
Imagine unfreezing and stepping out to a new planet and soloar system and seeing your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandkids. You would be a caveman to them from the difference of technologies and language over the years. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
I'm surprised that no science fiction show uses a massive slingshot to propel spaceships. It seems like it could be really effective. You'd just have to make it large enough that the initial acceleration wouldn't kill everyone on board.
Originally Posted by :
Generation 1 System
The Gen-1 system proposes to accelerate uncrewed craft at 30 g through a 130-kilometer (81 mi) long tunnel, with a plasma window preventing vacuum loss when the exit's mechanical shutter is briefly open, evacuated of air with an MHD pump. (The plasma window is larger than prior constructions, 2.5 MW estimated power consumption itself for 3 metres (9.8 ft) diameter).[12] In the reference design, the exit is on the surface of a mountain peak of 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) altitude, where 8.78 kilometres per second (5.46 mi/s) launch velocity at a 10 degree angle takes cargo capsules to low earth orbit when combined with a small rocket burn providing 0.63 kilometres per second (0.39 mi/s) for orbit circularization. With a bonus from Earth's rotation if firing east, the extra speed, well beyond nominal orbital velocity, compensates for losses during ascent including 0.8 kilometres per second (0.50 mi/s) from atmospheric drag.[1][13]
A 40-ton cargo craft, 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) diameter and 13 metres (43 ft) length, would experience briefly the effects of atmospheric passage. With an effective drag coefficient of 0.09, peak deceleration for the mountain-launched elongated projectile is momentarily 20 g but halves within the first 4 seconds and continues to decrease as it quickly passes above the bulk of the remaining atmosphere.
In the first moments after exiting the launch tube, the heating rate with an optimal nose shape is around 30 kW/cm2 at the stagnation point, though much less over most of the nose, but drops below 10 kW/cm2 within a few seconds.[1] Transpiration water cooling is planned, briefly consuming up to ≈ 100 liters/m2 of water per second. Several percent of the projectile's mass in water is calculated to suffice.[1]
The tunnel tube itself for Gen-1 has no superconductors, no cryogenic cooling requirements, and none of it is at higher elevation than the local ground surface. Except for probable usage of SMES as the electrical power storage method, superconducting magnets are only on the moving spacecraft, inducing current into relatively inexpensive aluminum loops on the acceleration tunnel walls, levitating the craft with 10 centimeters clearance, while meanwhile a second set of aluminum loops on the walls carries an AC current accelerating the craft: a linear synchronous motor.[1]
Powell predicts a total expense, primarily hardware costs, of $43 per kilogram of payload with 35-ton payloads being launched 10+ times a day, as opposed to current rocket launch prices of $10,000 to $25,000 per kilogram to low earth orbit.[14] The estimated cost of electrical energy to reach the velocity of low earth orbit is under $1 per kilogram of payload: 6 cents per kilowatt-hour contemporary industrial electricity cost, 8.78 kilometres per second (5.46 mi/s) launch kinetic energy of 38.5 MJ per kilogram, and 87.5% of mass payload, accelerated at high efficiency by this linear electric motor.[1][15]
Originally Posted by Rain Man:
I'm surprised that no science fiction show uses a massive slingshot to propel spaceships. It seems like it could be really effective. You'd just have to make it large enough that the initial acceleration wouldn't kill everyone on board.
Wile E Coyote has been trying to get it right for years
