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Over the longer term, rockets may not be able to provide the heavy lifting required, but a Rail Gun, inside a near vacuum tube, exiting above 99.9% of atmosphere, (50 km high) could possibly handle the tonnage. The residual air traveling with the projectile would further shield it against the remaining atmosphere.
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Similarly on Mars, the height of the tube would be less.
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It is difficult to scale rockets for very large payloads. The railroads superseded other means; Similarly, over the longer term the Rail Gun will replace rockets.
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Over the longer term, rockets may not be able to provide the heavy lifting required, but a Rail Gun, inside a near vacuum tube, exiting above 99.9% of atmosphere, (50 km high) could possibly handle the tonnage. The residual air traveling with the projectile would further shield it against the remaining atmosphere.
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Similarly on Mars, the height of the tube would be less.
-
It is difficult to scale rockets for very large payloads. The railroads superseded other means; Similarly, over the longer term the Rail Gun will replace rockets.
Mag-lev? Need lots and lots of power.
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Railguns are NOT easy to build. The current densities involved make it basically impossible to launch any sizable mass at escape velocity. Instead of trying to get all of the delta v from a high speed launch, it's much more feasible to use a cannon or railgun to get started with a km/sec or two of speed and then use small rocket boosters to get the rest of your velocity. It's only practical for small payloads but if you want to be able to get raw materials into orbit, it's nota bad method.
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One inside a carbon nano tube would work? Hung from space and all the way down to sea level,Yes?
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Sorry, no dice. I'm assuming that you mean a tube made of carbon nanotubes since a railgun that could fit inside a single nanotube would be kinda small to be useful...
Nanotubes end up having the consistency of felt. There's no good way to make a pressure resistante tube out of them. Plus, if you've got a 36,000 mile long tube of nanotubes, you'd be better off just using it as a space elevator.
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