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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."
You're being facetious, but that's exactly what would happen.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
"Fall down and miss" is orbital dynamics at is most basic.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Everyone is banging their head over trying to hit Mach 10 on the track.
TFS and everyone else is misunderstanding the proposal.
The current idea is for the sled on the track to accelerate a scramjet up to about 600mph, then the scramjet lifts off, flies up to altitude and at about mach 10, releases a rocket which boosts the payload into orbit.
Sled (reusable) on the ground = 1st Stage
Scramjet (reusable) in the atmosphere = 2nd Stage
Booster Rocket in space = 3rd Stage
All extensions of more or less current technology.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Yeah but going mach 10 at ground level isn't exactly rainbows and ponies either...
True, but you do have the potential to turn ponies into rainbows...
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