Actually Zalster I think that you would need a water supply just to help cool the magnets of the rail gun (there was something hinted at in that documentary that I mentioned before about the need for cooling).

Now for something that I can't find an answer to, does it have to face west or east to get the maximum effect?

Cheers.

Just keep going around in a circle and then switch the track at the last instant to the launch angle.

Just keep going around in a circle and then switch the track at the last instant to the launch angle.

We all do I think William, but there is a certain direction 1 must take to escape the Earth's gravity economically.

I think that it's eastwards, but it wouldn't be the 1st time that I'm wrong.

Cheers.

The Earth revolves anti-clockwise so presumably it would make sense to launch in the direction of rotation i.e. East?

That is why most rocket launches are west to east, with the exception of launches to polar orbits.

Somehow I think multiple launch concepts are being jumbled up here. Initially there was talk of a space cannon and that would require a straight barrel with no bends or kinks. Then there is the idea of rail launchers using rocket power for initial boost and thirdly rail launchers that use magnetism to accelerate a payload to near orbital velocity. These would also need to be as straight as possible as once an object reaches high velocity creating angular motion would put extreme stress on the rail system. Even train tracks have this problem at relatively low speeds in curves. The lateral forces try to push the rails apart and here we are only dealing with a couple of hundred kph.

The ultimate, but probably impossible, method of achieving orbit is some sort of anti-gravity device to gently lift payloads into space. I have always hoped that if our understanding of gravity and gravity waves becomes more complete a means of cancelling the effects of gravity on objects would be obtained.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

some sort of anti-gravity device

All you need to do is figure out how to cross magnetic lines of flux. Put a big South pole magnet on the tail of a rocket and then figure out how to achieve the equivalent of always having another South pole directly behind it.

Impossible of course but fun to think about--actually that is how an electric motor works. Switching the fields of the commutator of course incurs losses that keep it from being a perpetual motion machine.

For a brain exercise--try designing a motor using a Mobius strip. Can you keep it from running down by assuming a frictionless medium on which the magnetic "Cars" ride back and forth.

You are getting into the realms of perpetual motion machines which we know cannot be.

As I have noted in my posts. However, do you think that the Viking and Voyager spacecrafts will go on forever ??. Do you think that the moon has been orbiting for a long time. Does an Oscillating circuit cooled to absolute zero run forever?

It all may come down to context and what may be "pregnantly perpetual".

I suppose that you would say that a system cannot be more than 100% efficient---it all depends on where you draw the lines around the "SYSTEM" . For instance today's home Air conditioners run at well over 400% efficiency. Don't believe it? : divide the BTU output by the kilowatt input. How do you account for this---the extra energy comes from the Atmosphere which is cooler than the compressed refrigerant in the air conditioner.

A SEER of 16 means that you will get 16BTU's of cooling out per watt of input.

I have wondered whether some form of power generation in orbit could be derived from the fact that the earth is a spinning magnet.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

NASA tested that with a satelite a few years ago: http://science.nasa.gov/missions/tss/

They never really learned much due to mechanical failures of the system.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Well, if you go back to my original post and the movie I linked. They built the sled up the side of another mountain.

For a railgun, they could do the same.

They could angle and point it in the direction they need to help it achieve the angle into the direction of the earth's rotation.

Since they are angling it up a mountainside it could be however long it needs to be.

I think most people didn't see my comment about the the cargo being a rocket..ie..it has it's own fuel and engines to help it achieve orbit.

The railgun is only used to help it overcome the initial launch where most of the fuel is burned trying to accelerate away from the earth.

Here in this image from the movie, you can see the rocketship ontop of the rocketsled, but in my example the railgun takes the place of the rocketsled to push the rocket to the necessary velocity.




of course I think they should probably do it out in New Mexico or Utah where it's mostly desert.

That way if anything goes wrong, not too many people around to have to worry about falling debris as opposed to this pic where they build it in a nice green space with a river near by, lol

if it worked, Japanese would have build it allready!

why?
1. they have the most sofisticated & the quickest MAGLEV Shinkansen on the planet!
2. they have mount Fuji & several others for inclination...

But 583km/h simply wouldn't cut it!

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

Miles per hour not Kilometers per hour.

583 mph = 938.248 Kph

And that was just the equivalent of energy discharge by the gun at the moment of firing. If they wanted to they could ramp up the energy to overcome the weight of even bigger loads.

if it worked, Japanese would have build it allready!

Maybe, maybe not...

When it comes to Military weapons, the US still leads in several areas, Japan still have a thing about building purely offensive weapons

US Military developed this (who knows if the japanese didn't give us the info from their maglev) not to mention the willingness to spend Billions on a system that might fail in the end.

So conceivably the Japanese might/still could be our (silent) partner in development of the railgun. We won't know for many years.

Miles per hour not Kilometers per hour.

583 mph = 938.248 Kph

And that was just the equivalent of energy discharge by the gun at the moment of firing. If they wanted to they could ramp up the energy to overcome the weight of even bigger loads.

if it worked, Japanese would have build it allready!

Maybe, maybe not...

When it comes to Military weapons, the US still leads in several areas, Japan still have a thing about building purely offensive weapons

US Military developed this (who knows if the japanese didn't give us the info from their maglev) not to mention the willingness to spend Billions on a system that might fail in the end.

So conceivably the Japanese might/still could be our (silent) partner in development of the railgun. We won't know for many years.

quote:
"In December 2003, a three-car train reached a maximum speed of 581 km/h (361 mph) (world speed record for rail vehicles) in a manned vehicle run."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCMaglev
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_speed_record_for_rail_vehicles#Maglev_trains

Nothing, exept rockets goes over 600km/h on rails! ;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

Forget MAGLEV, Railgun, but they will have to work on the friction problem a bit more. ;-)

Cheers.

KLiK, it's not really a rail like you are thinking. Check out Wiggo's link on Railgun. The name "rail" is just a name they give it.

Wiggo, I like that part where they talk about the length and direction of the it would have to be.

That one where he talks about a circular accelerator until speed is reached then diverted to the actual launch angle was interesting.

Zalster, I watched a test firing video on a test last year and what a mess that the projectile made of the target, basically it obliterated it (it was a tracked vehicle of some sort, but there was very little left of it, not bad for just a lump of steel). :-O

Cheers.

One thing you're forgeting: tallest building on the World is just ander 900m...how much you would have to dig into Earth to make the angle viable for Space launch?
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU