A space craft question

OK, I have a concept that I would like to kick around for feasibility.

You have no doubt heard of mag-lev trains.

What if you were to build a sort of mag-lev accelerator chute or tube and you ran it up the side of a mountain.

Putting aside the technical details associated with operating a hundred miles of superconducting magnets, switching the electro magnets on and off as needed, atmospheric friction etc (technical, smechnical ),

Would it be possible to accelerate a payload fast enough to reach escape velocity?

Sort of like a railgun escalator. Cool. Sounds feasible. I think the propulsion/lift would far exceed the requirements of escape velocity. Super idea !!



That's not as far out as it sounds...they have super-colliders that are miles long, so it wouldn't be any different.

[Edited on 12-10-2003 by darklanser]

The mag-gun launch idea is one already on the drawing board....at least in concept.

Unfortunatelly, your question needs the technical smechnical aspects to be really put to the test. Just looking at the question, I would say yes, if you could find a smooth enough mountain, it would be possible. Rail guns can fire projectiles faster than a regular bullet goes. However, I'm not sure if they will reach escape velocity.

Another thing to consider is that the craft would be fired off at an angle, unless the rail took a steep turn to reach a 90�� angle to the ground. If it was at an angle, it would need to have a much higer exit speed, because then it would have a lot more atmosphere to get through before exiting the planet.

Would there be another propulsion system onboard, and what would a magnatized hull do to it would be another question. That could also effect computer systems. It might be possible to degauss the craft shortly after it leaves the planet's atmosphere, but I don't know much about doing that, and don't know if it would be possible.

Sorry to turn your non-techie question into a techie one, but I saw someone had already written a non-technical explanation.

An ideal location would be a high mountain nearest the equator due to gravity. With that in mind, you don't know in what country this might end up, it might be that there is only one good place for one on the planet. Even if it did work, what would you do with it? The thing would have to require mass amounts of energy to move something of mass. Good idea though, gets us off the idea of rockets...

But the mitigating factor is the payload weight vs energy in.

You can use less energy with more track, but there lies your problem.

Spiral tracks can increase your length for footprint but add in a world of other technical problems.

The long answer is for limited sized payloads it's feasible, I'll try to find the equation...but the energy required is enormous.

Rail guns will make more sense in limited gravity scenarios i.e. boosting stuff off the surface of the moon. or mined ore off a asteroid...

As my astrophysicist friends say, "gravity doesn't exist. The Earth just sucks."

HowardRoark
the concept which you speak of is called a mass driver yes it is a type of rail gun a big rail gun. ill try to find the sight where there is a description of a mass driver etc.

already heard something on this on TV. sounds like it could work though. be one hell of a ride

i read in popular machanics magazine that an elevator at a 90 degree angle is already being designed, although there is already a concept version of it. it works like this, it is supposed to transport rocket pods up to an orbital space platform up in the exosphere and the rocket propels it self although it would require mass amounts of energy. the point of this would be to; instead of launching a ship off of the planets ground and burning a huge amount of petro, wouldnt it be easier if the ship were already on a platform in space?

so ya its been done

Thanks, I figured that someone had worked this out already.

It seems to me that if we want to seriously expand into space exploartion, we need to figure out a better way of getting off the planets than by using big rockets.

once again shatteredskies to the rescue!(in the sense that i kill the enemies and all friendlies come home safely)

seems to me the G-forces would be far to great for a human payload?
anyone?

liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov...

www.space.com...

www.spacedaily.com...