Old railway right-of-ways are routinely converted to bicycle and pedestrian trails as traditional railroad companies have abandoned them over the last fifty years. Interestingly enough, an old railway might be the ideal place to instal a magnetic space launch facility, especially if the last few miles includes an uphill grade facing East.
If you had three sets of rails, one in the center and two to either side, you could build a maglauncher in modular sections, using a rail-mobile crane to add sections as they're built. As soon as you have enough sections installed, you could begin launching G-hardened payloads at high-G acceleration. You then stop operations for an hour or so as you add each new section. As more sections are added, you can start launching "softer" payloads, until you get a long-enough launcher to put biological organisms and delicate instruments into space.
This arrangement becomes even more useful if it can be built in the Mojave Desert States, where solar power is plentiful and can be used all along the maglauncher to make it non-dependent on the existing power grid.
The first country to fully develop such technologies will dominate space, giving it an incredible advantage in expanding into the rest of the solar system for mining and agricultural operations.
Dream Big,
Dan
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Magnetoverse: Magnetic Launch Ring Could Revolutionize Space Launches...
Think "particle accelerator meets maglev meets mass-driver." This device could wind up launching a payload per minute instead of a payload per year.
The sheer volume of launches that become possible with this technology would make the Moon as accessible as London from L.A. in our lifetimes. It could make Mars trips no worse than traveling from
New York to the West Coast a hundred years ago, without a hostile population opposing your visit.
http://www.launchpnt.com/portfolio/aerospace/satellite-launch-ring/
Check it out.
Dream Big,
Dan
The sheer volume of launches that become possible with this technology would make the Moon as accessible as London from L.A. in our lifetimes. It could make Mars trips no worse than traveling from
New York to the West Coast a hundred years ago, without a hostile population opposing your visit.
http://www.launchpnt.com/portfolio/aerospace/satellite-launch-ring/
Check it out.
Dream Big,
Dan
Saturday, January 22, 2011
MAGNETOVERSE: Blogging On A Radical Re-think Of Space Access
Magnetoverse is all about how we can use electricity instead of flames to achieve much better access to space in the long-term, for things like solar power satellites, space colonies, asteroid mines, and exploration of the local region of the galaxy. What we're doing now with giant firecrackers just won't cut it for really getting Humanity out into the cosmos. There's a better way, and a better vision. It's time to start talking about it.
Dan
Dan
Ok, I like this new blog template WAY better.
It just plain looks better. Now I can move on to outlining ideas.
Dan
Dan
I've been thinking about coming back here and filling this out a bit for awhile now...
There's so much more to this concept than what I've posted yet, and it really deserves to get out there. I'll have to see if I can do it in bits and pieces over the next few months.
My biggest problem is that I just have too many diverse interests and it's not so easy for me to settle on one thing without a good back-and-forth discussion going on. I have a few friends online who might have some insight into this too. I'll have to ask them to stop by and do some posting.
Soon!
Dan
My biggest problem is that I just have too many diverse interests and it's not so easy for me to settle on one thing without a good back-and-forth discussion going on. I have a few friends online who might have some insight into this too. I'll have to ask them to stop by and do some posting.
Soon!
Dan
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Saturday, August 8, 2009
So, Did George Bush Ever Get ANYTHING Right?
In my opinion, yes.
George Bush was right about the general direction of the space program; going to the Moon first. Here's why...
It's physics, and specifically the physics of trying to get around the solar system.
If you go to Mars directly from the Earth, it is going to be HUGELY expensive, and very likely a one-off program like Apollo, rather than a continuous move to get humanity into space in a big way, such as colonies and asteroid mining and interstellar exploration.
The Moon is logical as the next place to go, IF you are going to expand humanity beyond just the Earth.
Once on the Moon, you have access to effectively 24/7/365 sunlight for solar power, one-sixth the gravity of Earth, and what amounts to a planetary surface in a vacuum. This is probably the most perfect environment to build magnetic launchers possible, and it is right next door in astronomical terms.
If you establish a permanent base on the Moon, mine the raw materials for solar opanels and magnetic launch tubes there, and build magnetic launchers, suddenly the entire solar system becomes far, far more easily accessible in a huge way.
With a magnet launcher, you can launch payloads as quickly as once per minute provided you have the electrical power, and you can launch at high enough velocities to reach anywhere in the solar system, or launch probes into interstellar space at much higher velocities than anything ever done before.
Suddenly the colonization of the entire solar system becomes far more easily accessible, as does access to the entire solar system's wealth of raw materials.
This also makes it possible to for Humanity to survive a cosmic strike on the Earth, such as a large comet or asteroid. Humanity - and all the life we know FOR A FACT exists in the entire universe, can now expand beyond the one vulnerable planet we know it exists on.
The era dreamed of by the greatest science-fiction writers of the twentieth century since the 1940's, and all of their fans and people who grew up reading them will finally arrive. Humankind will finally, fully, become a truly space-faring species.
If we are thinking long-term about human expansion beyond the Earth, then the Moon is a cosmic gift, the perfect spaceport for Humanity. It will be magnetic launch technology that is the key to making it so.
Dan
George Bush was right about the general direction of the space program; going to the Moon first. Here's why...
It's physics, and specifically the physics of trying to get around the solar system.
If you go to Mars directly from the Earth, it is going to be HUGELY expensive, and very likely a one-off program like Apollo, rather than a continuous move to get humanity into space in a big way, such as colonies and asteroid mining and interstellar exploration.
The Moon is logical as the next place to go, IF you are going to expand humanity beyond just the Earth.
Once on the Moon, you have access to effectively 24/7/365 sunlight for solar power, one-sixth the gravity of Earth, and what amounts to a planetary surface in a vacuum. This is probably the most perfect environment to build magnetic launchers possible, and it is right next door in astronomical terms.
If you establish a permanent base on the Moon, mine the raw materials for solar opanels and magnetic launch tubes there, and build magnetic launchers, suddenly the entire solar system becomes far, far more easily accessible in a huge way.
With a magnet launcher, you can launch payloads as quickly as once per minute provided you have the electrical power, and you can launch at high enough velocities to reach anywhere in the solar system, or launch probes into interstellar space at much higher velocities than anything ever done before.
Suddenly the colonization of the entire solar system becomes far more easily accessible, as does access to the entire solar system's wealth of raw materials.
This also makes it possible to for Humanity to survive a cosmic strike on the Earth, such as a large comet or asteroid. Humanity - and all the life we know FOR A FACT exists in the entire universe, can now expand beyond the one vulnerable planet we know it exists on.
The era dreamed of by the greatest science-fiction writers of the twentieth century since the 1940's, and all of their fans and people who grew up reading them will finally arrive. Humankind will finally, fully, become a truly space-faring species.
If we are thinking long-term about human expansion beyond the Earth, then the Moon is a cosmic gift, the perfect spaceport for Humanity. It will be magnetic launch technology that is the key to making it so.
Dan
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