What is Digg?41 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19As long as your death is videotaped and shared via youtube :D
- fletchowns, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I volunteer to be the first human stuffed in a payload.
- fartingbob, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I can see why they want this. Its way more fun than a conventional launch. Throw your satelitte around a ring until its going 8KM every second and then send it up a ramp. Whether or not it'll work is irrelevent, it'll be extremely fun to test it!
- MrButthead, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10So what happens to the human body subjected to 2,000Gs?
I guess we'll see. - jhusband, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I want one!
- cnicdrv, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Robert Heinlein had this idea in his scifi books 40 years ago. It's cool that it might actually be put to actual use!
- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"Magnets Could Fling Satellite Weapons into Space"
Magnets could also fling monkeys and vintage porn into space. Why speculate on what could be flung into space and just mention the damn magnet? - Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7While true, the headline "Magnets Could Fling Objects Into Space" is kind of boring. The headline "Magnets Could Fling Monkeys and Vintage Porn Into Space" is a little absurd, albeit also true. "Magnets Could Fling Satellite Weapons Into Space" is true, and sensationalist enough to get noticed. Modern media is all about sensationalism, didn't you get the memo?
Now, I personally would have chosen: "If The Bush Administration Had It Their Way, Magnets Could Fling Your Civil Liberties Into Space." That would so have made the front page.
(Yes, I just took this thread to political *****, Godwin-style. Jealous?) - Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Same mission as it is to fling tons of little things into orbit atop massive bottle rockets. Satellites need to go up. If it's cheaper and safer to launch them using electricity generated on the ground than it is to launch them with gigantic non-reusable missiles, hooray.
I just don't think I'd want to be an airline passenger when they're sending things up. - weprin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6squish.
- litfsh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5AFAIK, Arthur C Clarke was first. Of course, he did have a PhD, and the reference is an actual paper:
A. C. Clarke, "Electromagnetic Launching as a Major Contribution to Space Flight", JBIS, Vol. 9 No. 6, Nov 1950.
JBIS = Journal of the British Interplanetary Society - tagnarth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The g-forces of the mach 23 centrifugal force will be enormous. I'm not sure what could really withstand that. I know anything living wont be able to. We have troubles with Mach 2 and 3
- TheThirdWheel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Then, the cone would skid into a side tunnel, losing some speed due to friction with the tunnel's walls."
The thing is going to be traveling 10KM per second and then just bounce into the launch chute? Unless they are planning future satellites composed of solid lead I have a hard time believing this will have any use. - tawnykw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Damn Magnets!! Why are they used for everything nowadays?!! It's a damn deathtrap for those like me with pacemakers... or cyborgs/robots...
- Travo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Why don't they try 100,000 mentos and special top secret highly carbonated diet coke under intense high pressure, with all Teflon coated parts of course, diet coke is quite sticky.
- Trel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Sounds like a giant Gauss Rifle.
I like. - weprin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3FTA: "Anything launched in this way would have to be able to survive enormous accelerations – more than 2000 times the acceleration due to gravity (2000g). This would seem to be an obstacle for launching things like communications satellites, but Fiske points out that the US military uses electronics in laser-guided artillery, which survive being fired out of guns at up to 20,000g."
Yeah, but those laser-guided artillery are much less complicated than, say, the navigational sensors, electronics, and imaging components of a satellite. Also, the 20,000g forces last for milliseconds, not "hours" as is the case in the proposed system. - LesterKing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yeah, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, first thing I thought of.
- dukeinlondon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Don't think it'll go far. With Virgin planning manned flights in space for $1.2M per flight (ok that's no orbiter but still), I am pretty sure that cheaper way to launch sattelites than this modified cyclotron, which in any case are not cheap equipment, will emerge before the preliminary studies are over.
- Twango, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Not answered: what is the mission to justify flinging tons of little pieces of crap into orbit? Who's working on a garbage-can satellite?
- Leadhyena, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3So, what would it take to fling a human with this method without killing him/her?
a=v^2/r... hmmm at mach 23 (7823m/s) a=6.244829E6m*g/r. You would need a ring that would be 250km around for just the acceleration. That's unfeasible in itself, but the story gets better. You can't get around the fact that this is just to fling the person upwards, the release of which happens up a ramp whose only purpose is to turn this tangential velocity into normalized velocity which requires force as well. In order to work directly against gravity, and to get to 11.2 km/s normal to the surface of the earth without surpassing 3g, you'd need a ramp about 1128km long. Again, unless Russia cooperates with a lot of free space, it's not going to happen.
Face it folks, there's only one good use for this technology. And it's not for sending flowers. - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1when ever i see these things... i have to comment. this thing was invented by Gerard O'Neill founder of the space studies institute and defacto father of space colonization. its real name is a mass driver. he invented it to move building materials off the moon to a lagrange point between the earth and the moon where a colony would be built. he was developing it during the reagan administration. he ask for funding. it was denied. he went ahead an built it out of his own pocket. the U.S. military then took it and renamed it... a rail gun... now here we are years later as the rest catch up- and he gets no credit.
eeh. whats new.
http://ssi.org/?page_id=6#mass-driver-i - qwertydvorak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i am not informed, but i will take a guess. imagine this thing full of "cones" all spaced as close to each other as possible to make many accelerate at once without collision. now repeat this over and again across the nation at many of these ring launch sites. even if the payload is a small explosive, even if it is just depleted uranium. it is going to do alot of damage since it can reach any place on earth at EXTREME high speed. kinda like a world wide rail gun. even better, since each cone has rockets for fine tuning the trajectory, it can possibly rain death upon enemy ships, incoming missiles, buildings of intrest, even individual vehicles. kinda like a super cruise missle, but instead of having a 700mi range, it is worldwide.
the two hour spin up time has me wondering, if they were to use this as a weapon that is easy enough, but to have it ready for anything, how much electricity would it cost to keep the rings "locked and loaded" with cones spinning constantly. my guess would be keeping them moving costs less energy than spinning them up from stopped. - pgothica, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Only problem with lead, other than it's weight, is it is extremely soft.
- dukeinlondon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It also doesn't strike me as a good idea to get the payload reach it's maximum speed at ground level where you have maximum air density and temperature.... My guess is that the official objectif is not what is being funded here. So what could be the real point of this ? Any informed guess ?
- onwardknave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wonder how many times that would skip a stone?
- inmatarian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like this idea, but I like the idea that JP Aerospace has better, which is to construct a series of blimps which use helium and hydrogen to float payloads into space. Of course, gradually floating up to meet another blimp, exchanging luggage in air, and continueing the ascent would take something like three weeks, as opposed to this ring's flight time, which would probably be 15 minutes after being released, plus the two hours in acceleration.
- kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Ok lets really do the maths.
Google: mach 23 = 7 826.67 meters / second
Fcentripetal = mv^2/r
Acceleration => f=ma => a=f/m
-or-
a=Fcenripetal/m=v^2/r => r=v^2/a
So lets say we want 98m/s^2 or 10gs hell lets round it up for easier maths to 100m/s^2
r=(61 256 763.3m^2/s^2)/(100m/s^2)=612 567.6 m=612km.
Since this is directly inporportional to a, we can rattle off what iit would be for
1g=6100km
100g = 61km
1000g = 6km
- MrHen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Aside from microsatellites, the launch ring would be ideal for delivering supplies to support human spaceflight, such as food and water, which are not sensitive to such high accelerations."
In other news, scientists have discovered a new way to make apple sauce.
(How is that for an obscure, old movie reference?)
And if anyone makes a pun suggesting iMacs I will slap them. - dukeinlondon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1And corrosive
- dbeachle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Frankly, I don't think any satellite could withstand the vibration and other environmental testing needed to withstand the G-forces involved. I'd like to see the thinking on that problem.
- branbrown, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0think of the benefits for flinging our garbage into the sun.. or somewhere else i think its great to at least develop this technology I'm sure they could invent disposable capsules capable of withstanding the G force..like if u maybe filled the object with liquid or maybe highly compressed gas ...
- oneill40, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0By jimminy, they could make it into a cool ride. Just cut the g's back slightly, then throw people in a capsule into a net in the distance...
- ArmChairQB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anybody thinking that Maybe-- the magnets would make the electronics. well, NOT WORK?
- LordCrom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Floppy disks for miles around will suddenly get erased....
- kurtu5, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I have the stick up my ass? I continued your work and showed the steps so others could play with the numbers themselves. No where did I say you were wrong or anything.
Oh my god I round a number up to do the math in my head. How dare I do such a thing. I mean 98 is soooo different than 100. And calc is really hard to get going, 'bc -l' is more my style.
Oh and I can pick at your words to. What the hell is "unreleated", is this something related to pleated? "inproportional" is equivalent to "inversely proportional" BTW.
In, short people like you really don't piss me off. You're simply an *****. - Leadhyena, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1directly inporportional???
So, you're saying that the acceleration is totally unreleated by the way of porpoises to the radius... interesting.
Most people, especially mathematicians, would say inversely proportional. Especially those people with a stick up their ass like you seem to have.
Furthermore, 10g??? Fighter pilots can't take over 9g. Most people can't take over 4.5g. They design roller coasters so that people don't experience 3g which is what I was evaluating for.
Finally, "hell lets round it up for easier maths to 100m/s^2" You have a COMPUTER in front of you! How much effort does it take to open calc? Every system has one, even linux. Someone who bloviates about "really doing the maths" should not be rounding.
In short, people like you really piss me off. - Kbennett, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1You'd definitely get a larger and more diverse group of readers with such a headline.
- litfsh, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1*Anything* in space is a satellite weapon. You can stick all of the fancy laser hoo-dads on a satellite you want, but the simple fact is if it's up there, it can shortly be brought *down here* with a minimum of fuss and a huge wad of kinetic energy to spew all over the place.
The only reason they've been so unsure of the trajectories of Mir and Spacelab is because there's a lot of junk attached that acts aerodynamically and confuses the trajectory. You put a sphere into orbit, you pretty much know where it's gonna land. - BaltoAaron, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1I think centripetal force might kill/destroy anything spinning around at 23 times the speed of sounds. Didn't read TFA.
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