suggestion: bifrost bridge and laser propulsed launching

[apoch1999]

i have absolutely no talent for coding...but i think it would be awesome if someone could make railing and tracks work in game..this would allow for the bifrost bridge, basically a giant railgun that shoots capsules and such with enough force they enter orbit..this would be a launch facility like KSP. also would need a laser launch system that shot lasers at the back of the vehicle to vaporise water instead of fuel (save on engine weight) for propulsion.

[EndlessWaves]

Funny you should say that, this is what I was playing with earlier in the week

It's a 1km long rail alongside the runway at KSC (The end is sloped top to bottom, it's not skewed sideways).

Orbit from KSC seems unlikely. Quite apart from that fact that you can't establish an orbit from the ground (the point force is applied can be no lower than the lowest point in the orbit) you'd probably not be able to build up the speed needed through kerbin's thick ground level atmosphere - drag would either slow you down or tear you apart.

Lazor propulsion is doable.

[apoch1999]

oh yeah youd have to slope it up into the atmo at the end till your pointing straight up, and have mag lev on it as well...im guessing that would be done with zero G in gam, might break the game doing that though...might be some other way

[apoch1999]

but plain railing would be awesome if it were modular and able to "click together" just by itself...could put a mono rail or track system on other planets/moons to get to other landing sites so everything wouldnt be so cluttered up and laggy

[Mekan1k]

Railgun-to-space is, in real life, not practical. However, In KSP, Anything, and indeed everything, is possible. I look forward to seeing this.

[ahappydude]

but plain railing would be awesome if it were modular and able to "click together" just by itself...could put a mono rail or track system on other planets/moons to get to other landing sites so everything wouldnt be so cluttered up and laggy

I think that would be possible doing what the crew at magnetic modular did. I dont know much about nodes but those you could almost clip on and of. An railsystem like the prev use said would help in transporting and other stuff so good idea=)

[apoch1999]

mekanik..only thing would be funding..i saw a design a few years back that built one in a vacuum tube untill it hit the end of the run, then from there was further accelerated by the laser propulsion method i mentioned. seems like over the long run this would be very practical..total reusability, you just launch the sat, cargo, etc. by itself with a container of ice for propulsion

[Mekan1k]

mekanik..only thing would be funding..i saw a design a few years back that built one in a vacuum tube untill it hit the end of the run, then from there was further accelerated by the laser propulsion method i mentioned. seems like over the long run this would be very practical..total reusability, you just launch the sat, cargo, etc. by itself with a container of ice for propulsion

The issue is that no matter how fast it leaves the barrel at, it still ends up leaving the atmosphere, and the combined impact of hitting the atmosphere causes a tremendous force. Especially if there is enough energy to achieve orbit, you would need to take into account the density of the air at altitude, and the drag that the object going into to orbit has when the object leaves the barrel.

Look at it this way- think of a car. When it driving along at low speeds, the air does not do much to affect the car. However, the faster you go, the faster the air needs to get out of the way. If you are traveling fast enough to achieve orbit, hitting the air after leaving the barrel would be like a .22 unjacketted bullet hitting a tank, or a person skydiving from 50k feet and hitting a parking lot at the bottom, but worse. Think hypersonic plasma-shockwave and complete obliteration upon hitting atmosphere. It would need to fire the projectile after a travel outside the atmosphere, with a payload capable of surviving the intensive magnetic fluctuation.....

A long-rod launcher was devised for using smaller fields to accelerate a payload into rendezvous with a satellite in orbit around the moon, from a starting point on the lunar surface. This would be feasible, due to the moon's lower gravity and lack of atmosphere, but on an earth-like planet, the launcher is not really feasible.

[apoch1999]

The issue is that no matter how fast it leaves the barrel at, it still ends up leaving the atmosphere, and the combined impact of hitting the atmosphere causes a tremendous force. Especially if there is enough energy to achieve orbit, you would need to take into account the density of the air at altitude, and the drag that the object going into to orbit has when the object leaves the barrel.

Look at it this way- think of a car. When it driving along at low speeds, the air does not do much to affect the car. However, the faster you go, the faster the air needs to get out of the way. If you are traveling fast enough to achieve orbit, hitting the air after leaving the barrel would be like a .22 unjacketted bullet hitting a tank, or a person skydiving from 50k feet and hitting a parking lot at the bottom, but worse. Think hypersonic plasma-shockwave and complete obliteration upon hitting atmosphere. It would need to fire the projectile after a travel outside the atmosphere, with a payload capable of surviving the intensive magnetic fluctuation.....

while you are correct sir,please reference that i specified ina previous posting that the end of the tube was turned upwards...go far enough up and the atmospheric density lessens to a degree that its negligable...got an idea where the air is thinnest on earth?..mt. everest you say..ok...so we hollow out a tube under the himilayans, run the tube up the core of mt everest and come out somewhere on the slope...your already a mile up almost before you come out. expensive yes...undoabble, i wouldnt think so...we carved out a tunnel under the english channel...could probably do it under a mountain as well

[Mekan1k]

while you are correct sir,please reference that i specified ina previous posting that the end of the tube was turned upwards...go far enough up and the atmospheric density lessens to a degree that its negligable...got an idea where the air is thinnest on earth?..mt. everest you say..ok...so we hollow out a tube under the himilayans, run the tube up the core of mt everest and come out somewhere on the slope...your already a mile up almost before you come out. expensive yes...undoabble, i wouldnt think so...we carved out a tunnel under the english channel...could probably do it under a mountain as well

I mile is not enough... You would need to be at least 10 miles up, above the height of Long range civilian passenger jests for the atmosphere to be thin enough, and said railgun would be ~2 to 3 times the height of Everest. The presure of air at that altitude is <100 millibars.

Not feasible, save in KSP. A number of my professors have written papers on the subject.

[ahappydude]

I think i found some good pictures just for ideas for this kind of stuff http://www.startram.com/

[comham]

Railgun-to-space is, in real life, not practical. However, In KSP, Anything, and indeed everything, is possible. I look forward to seeing this.

If anything it's more feasible in real life than KSP. In real life you can (with the right materials) build one long and high enough to deal with atmospheric drag, whereas in KSP you've got the 2.5km limit on craft length. I don't think the engine supports this, in other words.

[Mekan1k]

If anything it's more feasible in real life than KSP. In real life you can (with the right materials) build one long and high enough to deal with atmospheric drag, whereas in KSP you've got the 2.5km limit on craft length. I don't think the engine supports this, in other words.

It isn't the drag on acceleration! Look, If you wanted to do this right, You would build the tube so that inside, where the craft is accelerating, there is a vacuum, to decrease the required energy needed to accelerate the projectile, right? The issue is when the object DOES end up hitting atmosphere again, you end up with the equivalent of (and I hate to use the human analogy, so I'll use this instead) a grape being dropped from 50k feet and hitting a pond. Due to the speed, the grape appears to hit a solid wall, and gets destroyed, as well as loses most of it's energy into the water. Even if you keep the acceleration -zones of the tub filled with atmos on the planet, there is always the issue of superheated plasma-shock getting tangled inside the magnetic acceleration and supporting lines.

Here is the issue: plasma is, by definition, a superheated and magnetic form of gaseous matter. IE, Plasma has a noticeable effect upon magnetic fields. Plasma shockwaves would occur at the speed that these would need to be traveling, interfering with the overall accelerative medium (the magnetic field that levitates and pushes the craft up to speed), and as soon as the craft leaves the barrel, the plasma-shock would be providing an immense amount of force on the craft, slowing it down to sub-orbital speed.

To make this point, here is an analogy. Take that grape, and put it in a cannon that can fire it at mach 20. Now, lets fire the grape... Wow. That grape exploded.

Lets get a titanium marble then, with a magnet at it's core. the gun then levitates the object and fires it. The resulting upscale-downscale sonic booms you are hearing is the result of all the energy that the gun is putting into the marble being lost as the marble hits air faster then the air can move out of the way.

I have seen studies for this, and in order for it to be feasible the 'end' of the railgun wpuld need to be in a pressure zone of 100 millibars or less, approximately 10 miles up, or 3x the height of everest.

That said, if there was no atmosphere, this would be feasible. I still hope someone can mod this into being.

[OrbitusII]

If anything it's more feasible in real life than KSP. In real life you can (with the right materials) build one long and high enough to deal with atmospheric drag, whereas in KSP you've got the 2.5km limit on craft length. I don't think the engine supports this, in other words.

The limitation is not caused by Unity itself, but by a limitation Squad implemented to keep the game practical. i.e., if KSP kept everything loaded no matter how far you went, ships would have to be a lot simpler or the physics setup currently in use would not be used. The Lazor system expands the limit, but it's an implemented restriction rather than a default restriction. I can send you an example project if you'd like to see what I mean.

That being said, it's more practical for it to be done in KSP than real life, ignoring any lag and removing the unloading system to make the playing field even. Kerbin's atmosphere ends abruptly at 69.7whatever kilometers above sea level, whereas we have atmosphere going past 300-400 km (thus requiring stationkeeping). [Taking realism into account, real life becomes more practical because Kerbin would have fewer resources as it is much smaller. Unfortunately we then have to consider n-body gravity, ease of space access, and a whole plethora of other variables, so we'll ignore those for now] This basically changes the 30+ mile tube in real life to a 20ish km tube in KSP, with these values thats more than 50% complexity and cost reduction.

Mek is right, liquids and gases are both fluids, so both can flow, but if you go fast enough, it takes the liquid/gas longer to move than it takes for you to move through it, so the fluid behaves similar to a solid (at least for a time), and thus we have terminal velocity. The energy required to go faster than Vt (terminal velocity in this case) is immense and doing so will most likely destroy the object you are accelerating, depending on its structure. [You also have to consider the heat generated by all that friction, so the structure may not matter at the speed you want– the object in question may just melt or vaporize and then where will you be? This is one of the design constraints for Skylon's SABRE engines, in fact]

In order to counteract/negate these issues, a really big vacuum tube would be used to remove drag, and magnets would hold the object away from the walls of the tube. Unfortunately this tube must be huge in order to get the projectile to a useful pressure area before releasing it, and by that point and speed a heatshield may be necessary for leaving the atmosphere at the speeds you want without falling apart and/or burning up, then you also need boosters to finish off the orbit, and you're finally in space!

Still, this is a very cool concept and I look forward to whatever anyone does with it.

[apoch1999]

so i think we might be thinking of this the wrong way as far as real life goes...if we were going that fast when we hit full atmo then yes it would be like a solid..but what IF...the vacuum tube was not there...we start out at full atmo..accelerate to terminal , and of course like its been stated it gets thinner as you go up..so we gradually increase speed using the mag lev to keep it strait and on course...untill such time as it leaves the tube and is then pushed further by the laser propulsion method stated..seems like it would STILL cost less over the long run. and since a renewable fuel is used basically(ice turns to water vapor in the air) it would be cleaner...

[Mekan1k]

so i think we might be thinking of this the wrong way as far as real life goes...if we were going that fast when we hit full atmo then yes it would be like a solid..but what IF...the vacuum tube was not there...we start out at full atmo..accelerate to terminal , and of course like its been stated it gets thinner as you go up..so we gradually increase speed using the mag lev to keep it strait and on course...untill such time as it leaves the tube and is then pushed further by the laser propulsion method stated..seems like it would STILL cost less over the long run. and since a renewable fuel is used basically(ice turns to water vapor in the air) it would be cleaner...

I covered this. The speed necessary would still end up hitting hypersonic, and even with the lazor propulsion method, it still is not feasible. Even IF the acceleration was barley supersonic, the lazors would need to deal with both atmospheric effects, the airflow turbulence, and the spread of the beam as per the inverse square law. Ice is also heavy, and water absorbs alot of energy before vaporizing... It could be done, but there are ALOT of problems with it being done.

Again, Still, KSP, So not a problem. Mod on.

[Devo]

I have tried a few ways to get a space elevator going, really there is only one possibly scenario I can think of, whether it works in KSP or not only time will tell. The biggest issue is sight, you need to use plugins to allow you to see the object that far away, or it dissapears after 2.5km. your rails should be ok tho,

[Mekan1k]

I have tried a few ways to get a space elevator going, really there is only one possibly scenario I can think of, whether it works in KSP or not only time will tell. The biggest issue is sight, you need to use plugins to allow you to see the object that far away, or it dissapears after 2.5km. your rails should be ok tho,

You could use the Lazor Plugin to do it, it renders objects up to 98 Km away

[ghost010]

tekkaman blade(teknoman blade) had a nice design for a space catapult.

if any one would make this than id would be the bomd,also a smaller version for the boat parts mods would be cool.