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By vertical launches, I assume you mean railguns? And I also assume that you're including the horizontal velocity component necessary to achieve a stable orbit?
If you can get a sufficiently powerful railgun to work reliably, it would be the 1st choice. However, to my knowledge railguns are still fairly unreliable, have low lifetimes and can't impart much energy to a projectile, limiting you to very small payloads.
The rotating sling idea can handle fairly large payloads and can be built with existing materials and theoretical materials which are likely to be constructed in the next 20 years. Plus, the lifetime of such a device should be nearly infinite.
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Brrr... Should learn to express myself a bit more clearly. I meant classical rocket launches....
Would the rotating sling be worth the investment? cost/profit wise, i meant...
Not necc. a sling capable to give you orbital velocity, but partial, wich would be a magnitude easier to build, but then you need of course a payload with an 'upper' stage...
Then again in that scenario you could launch from a carrier craft... etc etc so the sling would have to be able to impart more velocity and at a lower operational cost than the best carriercraft currently avaiable (i mean conventional turbojet plane...)
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Why not build a balloon platform and have the sling machine a few 10ks above the surface, surely the payloads would escape orbit then. I don't know if the balloons can stay in the air but i'm sure its possible. Other blimps and balloons could ferry the payloads up to the platform, those things can lift Tanks.
I once saw an aircraft NASA designed that could stay in the air almost permanently, the sling machine could be carried between such craft if balloons are not suitable.
I am new, i just wanted to throw my thoughts to see if anyone could build on them.
kai
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That is an interesting thought, but the size of the balloons would be enormous. Not to mention that the blast from the launch would surely pop a few of the balloons on the platform.
I want to learn more about the space elevator idea.
I saw an idea about a rotating device in geo-synchronous orbit that would lift a payload off the planet and throw it towards the moon. I know the material strength would be several magnitudes greater than we currently have and that the length of the device and it's counterbalance would be incredible, but how feasible it that?
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As far as balloons go, I believe there was a proposal for a stratosphere station once. I am not sure how much this helps someone get into space. As for rotating sling, what should it rotate around? Barings? Personally, as far as cheep alternatives to space elevators go, I like the idea of firing pulsed electromagnetic radiation at a parabolic dish, which causes the gas in the focus of the parabola to explode (A.K.A Laser Propulsion). Usually these types of vehicles are shaped like a discus for aerodynamics and spin for stability.
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A very very old thread
US-China space race for moon mining heats up
https://news.yahoo.com/us-china-space-r … 22039.html
If Space Mining becomes a thing and if a Spacecraft / Habitat could land with Catapults on Asteroids, Comets, Trans Neptune Objects, Kuiper Belt Objects then build a settlement and mine then maybe a type of Catapult / Trebuchet or Sling or Whip could help get a payload into low orbit. Arrokoth, Eris, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, Hygiea, Gonggong, Pluto, Makemake, Orcus, Sedna and satellites like Charon largest of the five known natural satellites of the dwarf planet Pluto. other such minor planet or dwarf planets.
a type of unmanned Spin Launch or Whip has also been discussed in threads
Other ideas, some from over 20 years ago
Un- conventional ways to LEO
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4936
Mountain launch tracks revisited, - Alternative to fuelled rocket boosters.
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2615
Colonizing The Moon!
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6961
SSTO - concepts
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2515
'electromagnetic launch with microwave propulsion'
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=9362
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-12-12 12:23:54)
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For minor planets and dwarf planets, a simple cable may be more efficient than a catapult. We can launch material from its surface using an elevator. Provided we extend the cable beyond a synchronous orbit and attach a counter weight, it should remain taught. For the Pluto-Charon system, Charon is actually in a stationary orbit. By extending a cable out from its surface in the direction away from Pluto, we could use it own orbital kinetic energy to launch payloads. Haumea would be an interesting one. It already has a rapid rotion that we can use as an energy source.
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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One of those rocket / hang gliders but could it be tossed from a Catapult. The Paraglider That NASA Could Have Used, but Didn’t
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithson … 180972106/
From the Scottish, it effectively toss stones weighing 135 kg (300 lbs) from distance of 200 meters (218 yards). Is it silly to think it would toss a Robot Rocketplane glider, maybe instead of throwing a stone tossing a Robotic Rocket/Glider with an unfolding variable-sweep wing, colloquially known as "swing wing".
https://thefactsource.com/the-largest-t … ng-castle/
Glider-Rocketplane might be stored below just as you have limited space on an Aircraft Carrier the Aircraft is stored in the hangar below decks, Russians used the angled up ski-jump instead of a flat Deck. It could be possible to shoot your glider/rockeship down before it raises up like a ski-slope? the upwards ramp would also for a brief moment reduce the Spaceplanes forward visibility. Robot workers may launch other Robot-planes without risk to humans, the bridle fail during the launch can whip free of the catapult and go flying off down in an uncontrolled fashion damage a humans spacesuit or potentially either seriously injuring or killing human Spaceplane handlers
Lessons from Naval Military design
Some Earth machines no longer around
ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2) was an aircraft carrier in the Argentine Navy from 1969 to 1997.
On Earth the seaplane tender is a boat or ship supporting operation of seaplanes, some of these were war vessels, some known as seaplane carriers. Some of the large flight deck / ship designs on Earth, South Korea https://archive.ph/20171227232103/http: … 0315F.html the Italian military operations flying 1221 flight hours https://archive.ph/20120728162540/http: … a-Campaign the INS Vikramaditya a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier and the flagship of the Indian Navy https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ … 996525.ece France https://web.archive.org/web/20210224204 … er-program Spanish Warship / Carrier https://web.archive.org/web/20150923223 … /1/10.html Japan https://web.archive.org/web/20211008142 … mo-2021-10 Australia https://web.archive.org/web/20050327065 … 88173.html Thailand 'The World’s Weirdest Aircraft Carrier' https://web.archive.org/web/20210417020 … 66011f9f57
The USS Gerald R. Ford has a Length 1,092 ft (333 m) - 1,106 ft (337 m) the aircraft carrier was one of the few U.S. ships named after a living person.
2007 article
How Things Work: Electromagnetic Catapults
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-spac … -14474260/
From zero to 150 in less than a second.
The interface between carriage and airplane runs through the aircraft’s nosewheel landing gear, using the same hardware employed by the current steam catapult system. After hooking up to the carriage, aircraft are electro-magnetically pushed and pulled down the catapult until airborne. After releasing an aircraft at speeds approaching 200 mph, the carriage will come to a stop in only 20 feet, its forward movement countered by reversing the push-pull electromagnetic forces of the two beams. The same energy is then used to return the carriage to its starting position.
An electromagnetic catapult can launch every 45 seconds. Each three-second launch can consume as much as 100 million watts of electricity, about as much as a small town uses in the same amount of time. “A utility does that using an acre of equipment,” says lab engineer Mike Doyle, but due to shipboard space limitations, “we have to take that and fit it into a shoebox.” In shipboard generators developed for electromagnetic catapults, electrical power is stored kinetically in rotors spinning at 6,400 rpm. When a launch order is given, power is pulled from the generators in a two- to three-second pulse, like a burst of air being let out of a balloon. As power is drawn off, the generators slow down and the amount of electricity they produce steadily drops. But in the remaining 42 seconds between launches, the rotors spin back up to capacity, readying themselves to release another burst of energy.
As the 21st century dawns, steam catapults are running out of steam. Massive systems that require significant manpower to operate and maintain, they are reaching the limits of their abilities, especially as aircraft continue to gain weight. Electromagnetic catapults will require less manpower to operate and improve reliability; they should also lengthen aircraft service life by being gentler on airframes.
vid
'New Electromagnetic Air Craft Carrier Catapult Tested'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J48cfZxCOoQ
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2024-01-04 12:52:14)
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The Mars Sample Return Mission Is at a Dangerous Crossroads
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti … rossroads/
From 2014
X-47B UAV successfully launched by catapult
https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/uv-o … -catapult/
they already considered an MSR lander tosses a sample return or mock rocket into the air before it lifts off into Low Mars Orbit.
NASA begins testing robotics to bring first samples back from Mars
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-nasa-robo … -mars.html
During testing, a cradle equipped with gas-powered pistons flung an 881-pound (400-kilogram) mock rocket 11 feet (3.3 meters) in the air; cables suspended from a tower 44 feet (13 meters) high offloaded more than half of the test article's weight to simulate Martian gravity.
Basic Equations
https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves … ile_Motion
throwing a 400 kg (881 lb) fake rocket 3.3 meters (11 ft) up in the air at an angle.
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-12-29 14:21:41)
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The Evolution of an Orbiting Sample Container for Potential Mars Sample Return
https://dataverse.jpl.nasa.gov/api/acce … brecs=true
A multi-stage 130 m/s reluctance linear electromagnetic launcher
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-27022-z
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