Railgun Satellite Launcher (Deep Space)

[Evildead666]

Would it be possible to have a sort of Railgun in orbit, specifically for sending satellites and manned craft to far away places ?

It could accelerate a craft at some speed, without the craft in question having to have any extra fuel onboard.
It could also remove the need for taking 'the long route' circling other planets/moons to get enough speed.

Just point and fire, so to speak.

What are your thoughts on the electro-magnetic tolerances of spacecraft, and would this be possible for manned/unmanned craft ?

Of course, a return trip would be long, unless another one of these was sent to the destination orbit, around Mars maybe ?

[Dr Mordrid]

NASA has explored railgun style launchers on Earth to put sats in orbit and it is viable. Very viable. The most likely method would be to use it as a replacement for a 1st stage, then go to orbit ising a 2nd stage, scramjets or if it works a SABRE air breathing rocket.

Of course if SpaceX's reusable stages tech works all bets are off.

The main problem doing it in space is that it takes megawatts, meaning space rated nuclear reactors with the proper power density or big damned space-capable batteries to store up solar power - neither of which we have yet.

The best option up there is probably SEP (solar electric power) anyhow - ion or plasma drives. They can be powered by solar in the inner solar system and much smaller RTG's, or other more advanced nuclear devices further out, and can make round trips.

[Evildead666]

I was thinking of a Fuel Cell type thing, or even a bank of solar charged batteries.
I think Nuclear will always be out of the question for Orbit, due to the fear of one coming back down and 'landing' somewhere other than Chernobyl or Fukushima.

From Earth, manned missions would be impossible due to the acceleration, and G force sustained. This would only be for Orbit to further out.
In Space it could be toned down a bit. Just enough acceleration for the Humans to accept, and faster for the unmanned missions.

Maybe it would be a better tech to use from one of the Lagrange points, or even from the surface of the Moon why not ?

I was just thinking that this sort of thing could be scaled up to a very long 'tube' out into space, which would accelerate objects close to the Speed of light, and get us some more info on outer space, and shorten the times to reach certain areas.

I mean, in the beginning, there are going to be about one every few weeks, plenty of time to charge up a bank of batteries/capacitors.

Ion Drives and Plasma drives take awhile to get up to speed, and generally, thats when it will have to turn around and begin the slowing down phase.
They also will have to carry all their fuel with them.

If you use this as a 1st stage orbit to deep space, then that ion/plasma vehicle would only have to turn round a brake (hard) rather than accelerate for ages, and then decelerate for ages.

It could even possibly be guided into an orbit, and have atmospheric brakes, like a sort of parachute that would be dropped down into the upper atmosphere of the destination, to slow the craft down a bit, and save on even more fuel.

"Weigh the Anchor" sort of

[VJ]

The first problem that springs to my mind would be the action-reaction... You fire the railgun, the satellite goes one way, the railgun the other...

[cjolley]

That's what concrete is for.
I'm sure there are lot's of things to worry about.
That ain't one of them.

[MultimediaMan]

Not if they were using angular momentum.... people tend to think linearly when thinking about mass drivers... think a round racetack or a spiral...

[Evildead666]

Its also not firing like a bullet.
The object/craft gets accelerated bit by bit as it passes down the 'barrel'.
If it was placed on the moon, for example, the recoil would be negligible for small craft.

Large craft would still have to find there own way out there, or a bigger railgun.

And if you were really accurate, you could have the craft enter a reverse-railgun style thing that decelerates the craft at the other end of the journey.

A lot like the launch of a roller-coaster as it pushes suddenly out of the top at the beginning.