NASA Looks At Railgun-Like Rocket Launcher

coondoggie writes "NASA is looking hard at a way to blast spacecraft horizontally down an electrified track or gas-powered sled and into space, hitting speeds of about Mach 10. The craft would then return and land on a runway by the launch site."

Comments

Re:Maybe someone should tell them...

[sconeu]

You're being facetious, but that's exactly what would happen.

Re:NASA still cannot do simple math.

[vlm]

Once ignited, Mach 10 wouldn't be outrageous for a Scramjet.

Well, that seems a bit optimistic for a device that has been successfully flown, what, twice? Its kind of like planning the Boeing 777 the day after the wright brothers first flight.

The real killer with all these "hybrid" lifter designs is they are all ignorant of the virtually unknown 666 rule.

The 666 rule is that Mach 6 (which is tricky for an air breathing aircraft) at 60000 feet (again, tricky) is a whopping 6% of the way to orbit.

So, if, in your wildest dreams, you can simultaneously achieve mach 6 at 60Kft, which would be quite the noteworthy achievement, you've still got 94% of the way to go.

Alternately, you could take the required second stage, and make the fuel tank at least 6% bigger and skip all this air breathing foolishness.