Methods for going to space (humor)

[mikegarrison]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4035

[Spaceception]

That's great

[NuclearNut]

Orion

Fallout from repeated nuclear detonations

Sucks to be that one guy who dies

[RainDreamer]

You forgot to include the mouse over text:

Quote

Alternate method: Convert human to hydrogen, float to space, reassemble

 

[mikegarrison]

Every time I read this I still laugh when I get to: "Remove half of Earth's mass. Most of it not that great anyway."

[SR]

On ‎29‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 2:54 AM, NuclearNut said:

Orion

Fallout from repeated nuclear detonations

Sucks to be that one guy who dies

I always think that if you used Orion in the atmosphere it would get into space

well parts of it would.

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, SR said:

I always think that if you used Orion in the atmosphere it would get into space

well parts of it would.

I think parts of the atmosphere would get to space...

[Bill Phil]

8 hours ago, SR said:

I always think that if you used Orion in the atmosphere it would get into space

well parts of it would.

What's funny is that the majority of the radioactive fallout goes up and away at a speed greater than Earth escape velocity...

[lude]

After reading this I am now an apt supporter of Blimp Rocket Bases and the Space Fountain.

[PB666]

On 2/28/2016 at 1:17 PM, mikegarrison said:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4035

If you are going to remove half earths mass, just spin the earth faster, faster.  finally your surface speed is half the dV needed to circularize. Then launch from  a high mountain on the equator.

Mass Driver, Ballistic cannon.

Mass driver = set a limit at 30 a

. d =  1/2 a t2  v = 8000 m/s = a * t

d = 0.5 x 64000000/ 30 = 1066 kilometers. BTW that only gets you to orbital altitude, you need to apply energy to circularize.

Needs a 1066 km railroad track with an outlet about above 80,000 meters. (do able would cost more than rocket kerosine and oxygen).

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Space hook, again d = 1/2 a t^2, even if you have a magnet, what it catches is traveling 100s of m/s relative to the magnet, at 30g max it travels 1000s of meters before it stops. Ever tried to reel in a blue whale with a 100 lb test line on a deep sea fishing real. Bzzzerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr---rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr---rrr--rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr--rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr--rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr [snap]

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Space elevator, rotate the earth faster, lower the GSO to 1000 km.  (joking of course). For a space elevator to work you would have to lower the mass of the earth by more than 9/10ths its current mass.

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Space fountain, First remove atmosphere, but then use mass driver.

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High altitude balloon launch, gets rid of a fraction of the dV required.

1. removes drag waste

2. allows nearly horizontal launches (but requires high g forces) - removes hoovering waste
3. lowers climb relates energies.

Remains is the overwhelming amount of power needed to get to 8000 m/s.

This could be reduced if the high altitude ballon could be accelerated to say 2000 m/s via some sort of plasma pulse drive system and light weight solar panels. Also good because it allows an increased horizontal aspect at launch. Carries hydrogen and oxygen for higher efficiency, so 450 starting ISP instead of 300. This has alot of advantages.

Ac = v^2/r  4000000/6371000 = 0.65 m/s this mean you need only maintain starting 9.1 m/s force/mass vertical. If you launch with 3 g of acceleration it means that the down vector of thrust need only  be 17.8 degrees, the cosine of 17.8 is 0.95 therefor little of the initial thrust is wasted, even getting a 5 m/s2 climb still keeps more than 80% of the thrust horizontal.

For launching sensitive equipment like large telescopes. The reason here is that you start your launch and need to gain velocity going vertical, a burn option, that means that by the time you start to turn to horizontal, you are above 100000 meters. you know longer have to worry about dynamic pressure. At maximum dynamic pressure CRS-8 was at 10000 meter, if you launched from say 20,000 meters, you would be at 90,000 meters when you reached the same speed, that atmosphere would be 1/30th the density.

I have no affinity for any launch system that stresses the payload. Oh another benefit, no fairings or nose cones required.

Problems. Lets just say we had a gas 1/10 as thin as air and we had a heater in the gas and a layer of insulation to keep the gas at STP. How much gas would we need to get to 20,000 meters. So lets estimate this to be 1/10th ATM. So the last rocket launched was 555,000 kgs.

So at STP there are 22.4 liters of N2/O2 per. If we then take this 29.2 grams per mole then there is about 1.30 grams per liter of 1300 grams per cu. m. (1.3 kg) If that is then at 1/10th atm it can amounts to .13 kg per cubic. meter.
For a 555,000 kg rocket I would need 1.11 * 555,000 / 0.13 volume of gas (presumbably hydrogen)  = 4.7 cubic meters of hydrogen. That constitutes a sphere of around 150 meters in radius. That is roughly 3 time as long as a football feild in all dimensions. The surface of the sphere would be, if there were 3 layers of plastic to retain heat it would need around 77000 sq. meters of plastic, and in the lowest sections the plastic along the lower few meters of rocket along the boundary of a perimeter of 1200 meters would need to be strong enough to support about 500kg (1100 pounds per meter of length), this plastic would have to be stronger and heaviery than standard 3mil plastic which can support about 100 lbs per meter on edge. To distribute the weight there would have to be wires and a weight distrubition structures inside.

I don't see this system being developed because it lacks simplicity, but I suspect that some space agency might begin trying this as soon as ground launch cost reductions have started to equilibrate.

THe problem with this system in a Space X scheme is this. Lets say we used this system to launch a rocket with a bigger dV in space, the launch phase for retroburn is going alot faster, and its all horizontal, so there is less control in where it comes down and more of a reentry burn.

The second problem is what is going to happen when you release the rocket, that balloon is going to go up, and actually you want it to go down, so you would have to massive pump hydrogen into a reservoir.

The third problem is high altitude balloons are at the mercy of upper level winds, you might launch ok but you might have to wait several months to recover the launch vehicle

The forth problem is that humans cannot work outside at 20,000 or 30,000 meters.

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I want to add my, a jet powered hovering launch platform, made from 100,000 lb MSL thrusters.