This David Dillon guy sounds very legit. So many of these startups look like "pie in the sky" funds or outright scams. I'm happy at least some of them are solid and honest. Good luck to the Mass Driver project!
I like the fact that he addressed the radial stresses caused through extreme amperage used in these coils, and the longitudinal force caused by equal and opposite forces as the projectile is ejected, while noting the fragility of current high temp superconductors. These problems are generally ignored or just given a hand wave. This company, in my opinion is likely to succeed.
Interesting interview, thanks Fraser. David seems really humble despite ambitions for advancing a field that's still on the fringe of science, physics and engineering possibilities. Wish the EL crew the best of luck in their pursuit and hope to hear more from them soon! 👍
before we build one that launches a projectile into space we should build one, that accelerate its payload to a speed where you can start a ramjet. That would be super useful for hypersonic research. And it would also be a need way to get to space.
The minimum speed at which a scramjet(I assume you mean that and not a ramjet) can operate, is mach 5. For that you need to be at least ~20km high to prevent everything burning up.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 no, I meant ram-jet. there is enough overlap between the two to do that in stages. But your Idea of strait up going for scramjet speed is also interesting. I would however suggest building mine first. It is cheaper and there is still a lot you can do with it. About "everything burning up" we are basically talking about a launch side here. So I would not worry to much about it. There are methodes to deal with that. also 20 km that is just a few seconds after leaving the mass driver at that kind of speed. also also for a big part of the interesting aerodynamic experiments, we would not even do a burn.
It is amazing that there are still people in the country who can fluently and seriously converse without vulgarisms and without stupid lame joking . Bravo and asking for more!!!
Using the comparison of a linear accelerator to a cyclotron doesn't exactly work here... But I think the advantage of spinlaunch is the slow input of energy without as much complexity. It seems like a better way to get small vehicles off the ground quicker (quicker in terms of building the launcher) Still I don't think it will ever be a practical direct to space system , not from earth anyway. On the moon I can see how it could me more practical as it would require less materials, less velocity, less complexity, and easy enough concept even an army guy could understand 😜.
Some of Event Horizon's content is a bit too "wishful thinking," in my opinion. Some, not all. I think he has great presentation and presence, and is a good story teller.
@@MCsCreations It was a kids TV series using puppets by Gerry Anderson in the 60s, he later did Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, UFO and Space 1999.
Lol, great content. But still "Why call it a quench motor? it reminds meof a sword quenched in water" "Well....its coomplex" 26 mins later "well, they run as hot super condutors, then we cool them" THANK YOU! lol
Fireball XL5 was the first time I saw a science fiction electromagnetic rail launcher Moving an electromagnetic launcher to the moon or even just to orbital space seems pretty expensive!
Go back 30 years and read the book The millennial project. The author posits putting the accelerator on Kilimanjaro, already halfway out of the atmosphere requiring much lower launch speed and energy. I believe Martin Savage was the author. It's very very well thought out and I believe it was published around 1985. There used to be clubs around the US that would gather and discuss these ideas. The book goes way beyond that in terms of colonizing the galaxy but the mass driver on Kilimanjaro was the most striking idea in my mind. And as for spin launch, hahaha.
ahh yeah -- midnight star -- some of cleveland's finest funk -- Electricity I got the power to energize I got the power to magnetize I'll fill you up with my energy You'll be my toy, I'll be your electricity You've got my head all wired up It seems I never can get enough My gears are running mighty hot It feels so good, don't you ever stop You never let me touch your lovely body You make me hot and I wanna party So won't you come a little closer to me You'll be my toy, I'll be your electricity (Electricity) Let me charge your battery, baby (Electricity) Energize me (Electricity) Use me (Electricity) I'm your utility, baby Well, come on, energize me
The kind of acceleration that would take place inside a electromagnetic "railgun" type tube would probably not be safe for humans, only inanimate objects. Otherwise I would imagine the acceleration inside the tube would peel the skin off our faces.
Yes, they did mention this briefly. He said the best uses would be raw matterials- rolls of metal sheeting, fuel, water, etc. Basically the higher the mass, the higher the volume, and the less squishy it is, the more this approach makes the most sense.
This is my favorite interview so far. Clear, and focussed on the engineering. Awesome! Question, what would be the theoretical limit in speed for such a system,in a vaccum?
The theoretical maximum speed isn't known. We estimate four to six kilometers per second are achievable. The essential problem becomes one of how fast you can switch the quench motor. The good news is that the two magnetic fields, one from the carrier sleeve (the armature that is pulled) and one from the stator (that does the pulling) engage with each other at the speed of light. There isn't any good news after that. ; ) We aren't publicly sharing particular design details at this point.
The one prime place to put a EM rail system, would be at Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It is on the Equator. It raises 4,900 metres and is the highest mountain in Africa. To the east is Indian Ocean (splash down area). When it comes to ramping up on a power rail, this is probably the best place on Earth to launch anything. Sadly one needs to avoid quakes and eruptions, for it is a volcano. In another idea. Get the thing up to 1.5 Speed of Sound, and then turn on our Ram-Jet or Rocket-Motors, and leave the power sled behind.
I can see the benefits, but have you also considered, payloads going to space don't just go straight up, but have to enter orbit, what is going to make it change direction to enter orbit, vacuum tubes 10+ kilometres long, can't remain straight, how will this be achieved? Good idea, but I doubt this is feasible.
You let him off the hook with a fatal flaw very early in the video. As soon as he claimed that 5km/s speed through the atmosphere was a solved problem by orbital reentry vehicles, his credibility went to zero. Here's why. As you know, when reentering from orbit, you encounter the low end of the pressure gradient first. Initially, even 1.5 times the height of the Karmann line, atmospheric drag slowly takes place, scrubbing speed gently off your reentry vehicle. That slows you down enough to progressively encounter denser air as your speed decreases enough for you to survive it. It's well known that if you retrofire too long and your reentry angle is too high everybody dies. You have to stay in the more rarified atmosphere even above the Karmann line long enough to scrub off enough speed to survive progressively denser atmosphere. Nobody goes 11,000 miles per hour below the Karmann line. This guy is cavalierly proclaiming that all the problems of 5km/s through the atmosphere have been solved and jumping from a vacuum inside a several kilometer long tube to the lower or even mountaintop altitude is not a problem. And he's dead wrong. First of all there is no way to produce an acceptable vacuum in a several kilometer long tube. Secondly, when the projectile hits dense atmosphere at 5 km/s it will be instantly destroyed. Visit the American Meteor Society website and read the statistics. Meteors traveling at 11 km/s explode above 80 km altitude. 5 km/s is 11,000 miles per hour, The X-15 holds the all-time atmospheric speed record at 4500 mph at an altitude of 50 miles! This company proposes 11,000 mph at 20 miles or less. It's just not going to happen. A projectile emerging suddenly from an unattainable vacuum to atmospheric pressure at 11,000 mph might as well be shot into a concrete wall. Reentry vehicles benefit from working from the correct end of the pressure gradient. He was also wrong about tossing something into orbit with one boost from the ground, and to your credit you touched on that. When you apply prograde thrust all you do is raise the height of the apogee 180º around the planet from your position. Your perigee remains below ground level unless you wait half an orbit and apply prograde thrust from the apogee to raise your perigee above the atmosphere. Even if your projectile could survive launch, and it couldn't, it would just crash back to Earth well before it could perform an orbit. Working with much lower necessary velocities, launching from the Moon and with a rocket booster to achieve proper orbits and injection to Earth transfer could be useful. But on Earth, this thing is a dead project. From your standpoint your job is to get him to state his program as completely as possible. Had you presented the atmospheric problem and not letting him get away with his "those problems are all solved" malarkey, I realize the interview would have been over and we wouldn't have got to hear is spiel. It's important for people to realize how reasonable impossible things can be made to sound so they are less gullible in the future.
Great to get someone who is knowledgeable about mass drivers on the show! It was great that he could dispel some of the myths, such as the myth that the atmosphere is an insurmountable problem.
The engineering of the superconductors is going to be challenging. The mechanical forces on the ceramic superconductor during the quench are going to be extreme.
Why not just use this system to launch fule instead of a hole rocket, we can do just a payload that way its lighter and easer to throw. That way we combined that with star ship and have its fule already up there ready to be refule
Fraser, now do a segment on the hydrogen launcher. Interview John Hunter at Greenlaunch about past efforts. You can launch to 8 km/sec with no superconductors, with a device so simple and cost effective, just concrete and steel, that it is remarkable more effort into it hasn't been deeply researched. This was worked on at LLL (SHARP program) during SDI, but dropped when SDI fell away. They got a ten lb projectile up to mach 9 before the money was cut.
Fascinating stuff indeed! Fantastic interview, Fraser! Thanks!!! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊 BTW, I'm absolutely skeptical about the superconductor "breakthrough", but at the same time I'm kinda crossing my fingers... And I'm not superstitious either.
Thanks Fraser! A solenoid-style launch system on the moon is something I've wondered about for years now, really glad proper engineers have been looking at this. If the technology were developed enough and the launch system long enough, might passenger launches become possible? I'd imagined a circum-lunar launcher with a long, gentle acceleration and shaped to carry a vehicle off at a tangent.. Great interview!
Note that their code showed pull only was the best method for mass driver construction. The goal is lunar materials launched to catchers for materials for building L5 colonies.
it may not happen in our lifetime but it may happen in our Great Great Great Grandchildren's Lifetime or in our Great Great Grandchildren's Lifetime and if there is a big quantum Leap it may happen in our Great Grandchildren or in our Grandchildren's lifetime Science is moving Really Really Really Fast compared to 100 years ago or even 60 years ago so who knows but I don't think where going to see Many of these Wonderful things in the next 10 years but who knows what the Future has in Store for Mankind whatever is in Store Lets hope and give our Children the Best Jumpstart they can get for there going to need Every little Bit of it for the Future is Wide Open and it will be in the hands of our Children and there Children and So on at some time you have to hand over the Wheel and they will have to steer and made there way with whatever we Started from and they we and they have Built on. As once said in a Fav. Moive of mine Too the Future!!!...... Lets make our Children Smart so they can make there Children Smarter. Great Video Fraser Cain and all that helped. I hope to See YOU ALL once again in the FUTURE.
I think this type of thing is POSSIBLE, but will never be PRACTICAL to overcome our gravity and thick atmosphere. Like the Navy's railgun, anything with that much power will self-consume. Having said that: this would be eminently serviceable on the moon or Mars.
Railguns are different in two essential regards. First, they are inherently low efficiency electric motors based on the Lorentz force. Mid 30% range is all you can get, everything else is heat. Also the rails and armature (the part that moves) are in direct contact. Our system can achieve efficiency in the 90% range (like lots of good electric motors) and in a non contact system. Not that we don't have significant engineering problems. We do. But that's our work. And, yes, the moon with its shallow gravity well and built in vacuum is WAY easier.
"Accidental quench event" -does that mean electricity arcing out of the MRI magnet? Or an exothermic explosion? Both? (And if this is disastrous for an MRI, how did the "quench" launcher work without destroying itself as its payload launches?)
I have to listen it again. Can we consider the armature M. Dillon is talking about (12:20) as a stage 0 making the movement with the ship until the end of the rail gun? If Fraser you can return on that subject that would be awesome. A stage 0 making stuffs like at the Starbase, along the railgun. Thanks all.
In the future the boring company may be able to drill up through Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. Which is the Most Ideal place for this as the Highest point near the Equator by far ( actually about 12 miles further from Earth's center than Mount Everest due to the equatorial bulge) This gives a 14 mile headstart on a LEOrbit journey of 1200 miles. The typical first stage of a rocket goes only 40 miles high so one might need to have an explosive charge shoot the rocket from a launch casing howitzer to reach the 40 mile equivalent of a first stage. Then a starship type rocket takes it the other 1160 miles. But I think one could eliminate the entire first stage with all that fuel burning. With the possibility of higher temperature and cheaper superconductors and modular nuclear fission or possibly fusion plants in the future. This could really get a lot of mass to orbit very cheaply ( like water, fuel, food, and metals or structural building supplies ) The number two ideal site is Mount Killamanjero in Africa or a 3rd possibility is in Borneo. I really hope that some Billionaires decide to fund more work on this effort.
Actually what you want to launch needs to include electronics and they could be damaged be the strong electromagnetic fields in the - let's say - rail gun. So instead it's probably to use ordinary gas pressure like in a light gas cannon. Then we run into a scaling problem, are limited to small payloads etc. Btw you need to shield against the heavy air resistance which burns your "projectile" down if you don't.
Once again, clearly conquering the moon is the priority. We must build a moon base, get comfortable in that environment and reach out from there. Let’s walk before we run.
For the Moon it should be great. On Earth though it may well be able to replace a first stage. High temperature super conductors should be able to help. (You said "low temperature" in the intro'). Liquid nitrogen temperature super conductors are not so big a problem now I understand. Ground based energy helps to over come the limits of the rocket equation. So yeah any velocity you can put in by an electromagnetic launcher before you light the engines is good.
The problem with evacuated maglev sled tubes replacing first stages is exiting the tube, not just a breakaway cap which is a source of all kinds of chaos, hitting the atmosphere is even worse. It's a complete loss of directional control and structural integrity, along with heat and turbulence.
I really like the idea of a 3 phase AC launcher. it has a series of coils that are all driven by a AC signal. Capacitors make each coil resonant. The spacing between coils would get farther as the projectile speeds up. There are limits to the spacing range so there would be different frequencies. The only problem is that super conductors don't like AC currents so this would have to use chilled copper. This would be for a lunar launcher for lots of small packages.
With any non-zero resistance circuit, any current change will introduce additional losses beyond purely resistive, and AC, being constant change, is no exception, not to mention poower factor losses.
They have found superconducting graphene that is controlled by a small angle from 2 sheets of 2 dimensional graphene. It's also one thousand times more energy density than copper. It's 200 times stronger than steel and 10 times lighter than aluminum. Check it out. A simple Google search is all you need.
I wonder if a room temperature superconductor finding would be useful for this. I mean, actually ambient air temp. Maybe it would weigh less and get us closer to 8 km/s. Thanks, Fraser!
Rather that a rail gun type of approach, why not a hyper loop type. Much of the energy of a launch is in the first minute or so getting from 0.o to 500 mph and 10k ft. Set a track up on the side of a mountain that accelerates the launch vehicle to 500 mph and you would save much of the fuel needed to get to space. Also, the acceleration would not be so great that it would kill ppl or destroy cargo.
I am curious about the rate of reusability and efficiency of the a quench gun. When quenching the coils, presumably the magnetic field energy is converted to heat. That heat needs to be pumped out of the coils to get them to superconduct again in preparation for the next launch. How is the energy allocated between powering refrigeration equipment and charging the coils? How much of the total energy input is converted to kinetic energy? How long does it take to cool down a coil?
Would such a system (build on the moon) be able to shoot transport capsules directly to earth (without getting into moon or earth orbit first, and with no propulsion system on board). Would be great to just shoot your stuff from the moon directly to earth.
With a spacecraft accelerated before leaving the ground I think we should find a way to beam energy to the craft as it goes up towards space. Possibly this could be done with stations on the ground using narrow coherent energy beams that stay aimed at a receiving dish on the craft - sending it energy that is used to provide thrust using an inert propellant or some other way, And as the craft rises to space, satellites using solar energy could send energy to it the same way.
There is an interesting design of aircraft, but they rarely talk about it, because this thing is secret. The topic of pulsed plasma thrusters has been developed since the early 60s (see PPT - Pulsed plasma thruster) - they are usually designed for spacecraft. 💫💫💫💫💫💫But we will talk about a little-known design - these are plasma propulsion panels for aircraft, where the same Pulsed plasma thruster, but reduced to the size of a pencil and stacked in the form of cells in the panel. The design resembles a conventional plasma TV screen, where there are also discharge cells that activate the glow of pixels on the screen. And plasma propulsion panels have long discharge cells, the arrester has a railgun architecture (just rail contacts or coaxial), and the ionized discharge air is accelerated there by the Lorentz force to enormous speeds - a kind of ramjet engine is obtained. Just imagine! - tens of thousands of small ramjet engines assembled in a panel and firing plasma synchronously with a huge frequency (hundreds of kilohertz). Thus, plasma propulsion panels create lift by pulsed emission of plasma jets from railgun cells. There are tens of thousands of cells in the panel, they shoot at a frequency of hundreds of kilohertz, a huge pulse is obtained, and the plasma swirls the air into toroidal rings - the aircraft is held on this air cushion. Horizontal acceleration is created by the same plasma panels on the sides of the device (they glow, from the side they look like "portholes"). Such devices like "triangle" or "disk" have been observed for a long time, they are mistaken for alien ones - but these are terrestrial devices. They are classified and used for espionage and secret actions. Pulsed electromagnetic technology generates microwave radiation, therefore it is harmful to health. They rarely fly - only military missions. Therefore, they are not suitable for a citizen. This maintained the secrecy. Now they are already declassifying - many people know about this secret technique. When declassified, they will be used for cargo airships. But there is a danger that they are now going to be adapted to deliver small nuclear charges to decision-making centers - such means of delivery are not specified anywhere, are not conventional. This lowers the threshold for starting a war. It would be necessary to declassify them as soon as possible. That's why I'm writing about it. However, I have written before - starting with the book "The Elimination of UFOs" and many articles. There are also videos on my RU-vid channel - "Declassified UFO" and "UFO Anatomy".🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳🕳
Sadly, those are the proof-of-concept prototypes that revealed all the problems Dillon explores in this video! It turned out that mass drivers are much more difficult to manufacture than anticipated, especially if you want to use them more than once before you have to rebuild them. (The US Navy managed at least six or seven firings of their railgun before it needed major refurbishment-I believe the actual number of rounds is classified? So I'm just passing along a guess- but their mass-driver approach wasn't feasible either, long term.) Let's hope that Dillon and his team have come up with a solution with this "quench" accelerator idea!
If the launcher is stretched to about 50 to 100 km, the g forces can reduced to human-rated levels. Target 4 km/sec and 6000-7000 meter elevation, and the launch vehicle is basically a second stage. The atmospheric heat load and max Q are tolerable. Build it in Ecuador going east up the Andes mountains.
Surprisingly enough, that isn't the case. This is an area of engineering research that is fairly well understood and tested in specialized wind tunnels and evaluated in simulation with good numerical models. @@jessepollard7132
Not a bad thought. There are a couple of problems with longer. The first is economics although that may not be critical. Even though a ten times longer system would have (roughly) ten times higher up front capital costs, it turns out the critical cost is in the operating costs. (Like the railroads.) The greater problem might be that the launch tube really wants to be straight. Even a very slight curve is tough for package centering of the carrier sleeve in a non contact system. Maybe longer is V 2 !
Don't think he explained quenching very well in context of how it relates to the conventional use of the word. I see it as superconductor becoming massively hot - due to massive current spike in a now resistive element (when supercon fails) . It's still immersed in supercold cryogenic fluid Helium - which then rapidly boils and gassifies (rapidly). Very much like as you would plunge a red-hot iron into oil , water to 'quench'.
Ah, thank you, the term makes perfect sense now. And I am still concerned about what happens to all that amperage that suddenly shifts from "motive power" to "heating/arcing power" when each ring or coil suddenly shifts from "resistanceless" to "heating element" as it launches a payload. Even though he refers to them as "high-temperature superconductors" he doesn't mean the inert material can survive being superheated! And at 26:00 and onward he makes me very nervous about this "quench launch" effect in other ways too... "significant engineering problems" indeed...
@@MusikCassette Earlier in the video Dillon said the Quench effect is more efficient than other railgun acceleration techniques, but those other techniques are only 30% efficient. I can't remember the efficiency percentage of the "quench-launcher" but with the power levels he's describing, even 90% efficiency means that 10% of that tremendous energy gets turned into heat WHILE EACH RING ELEMENT IS STILL SUPERCONDUCTIVE. As soon as you quench a ring element, that power doesn't vanish: it ALL turns to heat. Or it arcs out, if you can rig some kind of lightning-rod grounding element... that's how I'm guessing they "de-fang" this thing, but no one else has mentioned this, including Dillon. So maybe there's another method? I'm not an engineer, just a space journalist/activist, so I don't want to assume anything. But Dillon's focus on the challenges makes me wonder how they got this "quench" demonstrator to work at all! But they did! How?
@@Wordsmiths Well it does not go all into heat. Some of it ends up in the projectile. But you are right: even with 90% efficiency that would still be a ton of heat in a very small amount of time to deal with.
I imagine this could be combined with the spin launch idea to straighten out there launch trajectory and give an additional boost in velocity and not need a 5km vacuum tube
He spoke of a 10km EM Vac Tube ... mass driver... He did not mention nor was it suggested a circular donut with a diameter of 100km with a 10km tube - exit aperture at elevation, say 4km. Such could be constructed underground in say South France to have the exit aperture in the Alps - Eastwards. Or Westcoast North America, or Mid North America... anywhere with flat plain and mountains to the East. The power production is less than a standard 1st generation nuclear reactor.... Three Gorges in China could power numerous. By having a large donut cyclotron with the push, pull EM drivers able to accelerate the cargo capsules... 3m diameter tunnel and 10m diameter tunnel for different sized payloads, could reach sufficient delta v for orbital in under 10 loops. It is only a few more to reach escape velocity. We can make MRI machines with 13T... the coils would be far less Teslas. The Quenching Issue... I would have liked for more elaboration as to more specific issues of when the charge has discharged or 'looses it'. It seems a simple design issue and with more information about the issues and problems encountered... a solution/work around could be created. :)
Isn't the problem the G forces involved in accelerating to escape velocity in just a few meters? A rocket accelerates over several kilometers. Sure you can launch something solid that might make it, but sensitive electronic equipment, MUCH LESS HUMANS???? Sure put one of these on the moon maybe but damn this doesn't seem broadly functional in earth gravity.
Fraser, PLEASE let your guest talk! Stop asking questions that make you seem you know what he's saying. While he's talking, you need to perceive that he's eloquent and explaining his mastered subject well. Most of your audience is as smart as you and can follow what he's saying without you interjecting.
I know where you could locate it...The Western Desert in Australia. Oh wait, have the Five-Eyes nations already done this? Oops, my big mouth again...sorry :(
11:45!!! Ohhh , Superconductors have so little Iron type atoms, thats why they can become Superconductors,. then the earth's magnetic field is able or Not able to Influence it... 🤓
100% the right approach for space or moon launches. Too many issues with the thermal and physical shock of hitting our atmosphere, suddenly at Mach 10, let alone Mach 20. Hypersonic flight is far from a 'done thing' Its still very experimental and not fully understood. Yes re-entry vehicles do it but they are hitting very thin atmosphere at Mach 20 and slowing down gradually. Even if the launch tube could somehow be a mile tall, the air is still very thick. I guess you could build it in the Atacama Desert! Maybe something launching with a scramjet on it might work. Get it to a more modest launch speed and then accelerate it with the scramjet. At least you only need to carry some fuel and no oxidizer.
One word: "SPIN LAUNCH" Newton proved, You can not just "throw" an object into space no matter how much energy you have. The object has to be self propelled. You can only assist the launch to save on onboard fuel. Not on earth, Not on the moon.
Basic Newtonian Physics. I would have thought that PW modulation ramping up to ultrasonic frequencies at the exit breach might afford an interesting approach
I always had the idea of a electromagnetic-assist launch system. The system would assist the launch of a chemical rocket so you don’t burn up so much fuel during the launch. Kind o f a hybrid-launch-system.
Would be better to launch water in orbit and make it in to LOX/LH2 with solar energy than make the oxidizer and fuel on the ground? And look likes LX-99 is actually a room temperature/ambient pressure superconductor and so will make this engineering doable?
It isn't a Rocket - if it doesn't use a Rocket engine. It's a projectile. Why not just make a giant vacuum tube and suck them into space? Why not just get a winch on the moon and winch them up? Oh a giant spring .. that would work. A giant airgun. A space elevator with super fibers.. Blast them into space with a nuclear bomb.
Hmmm. Normally when a superconductor quenches, there is a huge release of magnetic energy that will quickly turn into heat if it isn't used to do work... You would have to time this so the magnetic energy would be absorbed by the projectile as it passes. If you don't, it goes boom. That would be a very hard system to time correctly. Cool thought problem.
The rail gun is always a cool subject. Making contact is just a supid. You need a space to protect the projectile. A layer of aluminum solves the issue, and it acts like highspeed railroad rail. It creates a layer. They knew this in 1965.
Mainstay in science fiction: c’ mon just say it “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” - Robert Heinlein …. All kinds of descriptions of rail launch including all about the earth gravity well that makes the moon have a big advantage for rail launch to earth.
@@frasercain From discovery to practical material economically available on a large scale usually takes years to decades for the superconductors that make it. 99% of the superconducting materials discovered are not economically or technologically useful. However, if this one is, "gamechanger" would be an understatement.
It would be better to go through the earth and using the gravity. Once in the middle gravity doesn't exist in the center of the earth. The gravity vs gravity. At zero g for a few seconds would build momentum that is maxed. The power and momentum. As gravity resists pressure builds cause of the limited space. Increasing speeds. But combinations of ideas would secure increasing momentum with less cost
Topic was already covered in depth designs sketched ect ect by author Marshall savage in the book Millennium project. It was a collective effort all the tech in the book works everything is accurate just have to adjust some numbers. Humanity please do better your growing exceeding boring & mundane
When i was a kid in the 80's and i used to watch shuttle launches on TV in Ireland,it was an awesome sight but even as a kid with no knowledge of propulsion etc,it struck me that this was a tremendous waste of energy as a kid i thought you need a propulsion device that pulls you forward rather than push you forward,then years later i heard Bob Lazar explain the way the power works on alleged recovered UFO's and that's exactly the way my child's mind thought of traveling through spacetime to other solar systems,now i didn't understand warping spacetime folding it etc to shorten distance,in my child's mind I saw a beam point at place in the universe and the spaceship rode that beam, unfortunately my curious childs mind never developed to it true potential bc i never gave it a chance,the rave scene hit i started to travel in different dimensions,what a waste ☘️🇮🇪
im wondering if the "quenching" really is fast enough to prevent the "projectile" from getting pulled back. it doesnt really sound like something that can be done in milliseconds.
Accelerating an object to orbital speeds can be done. But there's one little problem, Earth has an atmosphere. "Max Q" is a thing, and there's a reason that most small asteroids burn up in the atmosphere. Orbital speeds at low-earth air density is simply not a good combination. Keep in mind that air resistance is a square of the velocity, to get that orbital velocity at the end, the initial velocity must be MUCH higher to overcome all that resistance, and a good amount of that energy will be absorbed by the launch object. Now if you're on the moon, or some object with no atmosphere, go for it.
This technology would work well with buoyant mega towers built somewhat like airships. They could use conventional electric lifts to get to the launch section. After separation from the launcher the orbital stage would have some kind of conventional rockets optimized for vacuum.
I've often thought about this since I first saw that Superman ride! I seem to recall, providing enough power was an issue even with that, but that doesn't stop one from dreaming. I posted a question on another video as to why we don't use this sort of system, or even a fuel powered carriage on rails to launch rockets. Even if a rocket was launched at 100mph, that would save a massive amount of fuel and weight in simply overcoming that initial static inertia. Elon needs to sort himself out and produce a fleet of Boring Company 'StarBorers' that dart into the moon and bore tunnels for Spaceport runways as well as sub-terrain environments to live in without the worry of surface regolith 🚀
Great interview..... is what I would say if you could have gone 5 seconds without interrupting and ending every thought your guest was trying to explain. I mean, my god, what is the point of an interview if you just make it all about you?
LIM motors are the way to go, till Nuten's law comes into play. On Earth that's a great idea. But in the vacuum of space. The opposite reaction is a massive problem.
Interesting, I vaguely recall English Maglev guru Professor Eric Laithwaite went over to NASA in the nineties to work on something like this. Never heard anything else till he died
Just started the video, can't wait to finish it. I was recently thinking about a future system for orbital installations. Using scaled-up versions of similar technologies, by constructing a cascade of "boost" rings that function as force amplifiers/multipliers for the spacecraft, you can enhance the effect of an orbital gravity sling shot, resulting in increased local velocities and enabling extended exploration of deep space. Less fuel burn overall.
NOPE. doesn't work that way. adding deltaV that way causes a reverse delta V in the opposite direction. And that deltaV can only be nutralized by rockets.
The best way to go into deep space is by building a space cargo ship. Which will cut the cost of sending items to the planets. Right now the players are wasting money with just one craft at a time into the solar system. Send things needed to set up a bass by cargo ship! It will not only cut costs but cut the risk of landing them, as on board a manal landing talk over if required. The ISS supper structure is a great starting point. Have a human crew aboard, helps in fixing any tech problem alone the way.
