NASA's Next-Gen Spacelaunch System Could Launch Scramjets from a Massive Railgun

They just need to build a nuclear reactor and some HUEG capacitors and make a reinforced railgun. They just need a few days to soak up enough juice to get something to the edge of the atmosphere.

Why not a vacuum in a tube approach? Like the banks use to wisk around containers? With a vacuum a rail type gun could accelerate to even higher speeds and then exit into the atmosphere going make mach 10. Then the scramjet just maintains the speed.

A lightning bolt produces a vacuum, briefly. That is what causes the thunder. Maybe a controlled lightning bolt just ahead of the payload would create enough of a vacuum to reduce drag.

@gizmowix

The problem with a vaccum tube, which is normally a very good idea, is that you're not traversing a distance, but firing something out of it.

The Scram-jet operates by compressing the air that feeds into it by its own speed, and igniting fuel with it. Therefore it generates zero propulsion in a vaccum. If you read about scramjets, its also not easy to just lauch it from vacuum to atmosphere and have it immediately take off. Its an amazingly delicate balance that would be nigh impossible to activate in a split second.

Second is how you create a vaccum tube you can still shoot things out off. The tube must be entirly closed, so if you open the exit as the aircraft gets close, it will be buffeted by a random amount of air, very possibly setting it off balance. at those kinds of speeds, a little off balance means things break.

That being said, there is a compromise of sorts. You start in a vaccum tube and as the object accelerates, slowly let in air so that at the point you must open the firing end of the tube, the air pressure in and out is equal. This will give the partial benefit of reduced drag through much of the acceleration. However that wouldnn't give you nearly the same value as accelerating something through a complete vaccum, and probably isn't worth the cost.

Don't let such inspiring, humanity-transforming vision stay on the drawing board: fund it. No effort would be wasted as both technologies have multiple uses.

Why dont they just have one Giant one arm spinning thing( dont remember what its called) and spin it for a bit till it reaches maximum speed then release the payload at the right moment onto a railgun and then use the rail gun so the energy from both is being used and you dont need so much energy for the railgun

haven't they been assisting launches on aircraft carries ever since the first 1???? I also thought the DOD was in the processes of transforming our navy into a 100% electric system including magnetic launch systems instead of steam based. This is old news. I read that in popsci ten years ago.

@NOM

thunder is caused by the rapid expansion and contraction of air molecules briefly superheated by the lightning.

hmm... Seems like a long time will pass until this will actually be used by NASA. If at all, that is.

@new
Because things on spinning arms tend to spin, and setting spinning things on rails is generally a bad idea. Plus that sounds unnecessarily hard.

...My bad @wryip350.

Has anyone considered what the G-forces of launching from a railgun type device would be??

podbog,

I was thinking the same thing. It seems to me that only no-human payloads could be launched that way.

You guys are a bunch of twat heads.

This idea isn't a new one, NASA talked about rail launch, scamjets and gravity assist launches for decades. In the past how many time have you looked into Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine and saw some new rail launched system. My favorite is a gravity assist type first stage launch system like this one I designed 7 years ago,

http://shineinnovations.com/6312.html

With gravity assist accelerating down an incline like what you experiment on in first year of physics on a Galileo incline, the spacecraft and launch system could have about the maximum takeoff weight as a Airbus A380 with 650 metric tonne, over 1,400,000 pounds. The gradual acceleration pick up of speed down a side of a mountain with that much mass could launch a heavy lifting two stage wing rocket when it hits over 450 kph, 277 mph. The Space Shuttle uses 1/4 of its fuel by weight to get it up to 450 kph, this is fuel you don't need to carry with you. On a gravity assist we can use an optional rail system but we wouldn't need one if we use a similar landing gear structure as the A380 on the first stage accelerating platform. As a result we wouldn't have to take the heavy landing gear assembly up into orbit, a much lighter weight one would land the spaceplane because it's landing mass is much less than what it is when we take off, it isn't carrying all that fuel.

This is something we can do now, we don't have to wait another 100 years until the scramjets are perfected....

Ron Bennett

It would save a lot of fuel and help in the transition if they adapted this for commercial aircraft. Too much Fuel wasted on take off maybe we could save some money on airfare.

@riffmage:

Why bother conserving fuel, when they can just cram in more seats/saddles? ;)

thats a space elevator and yes we want to build that two

good idea, but the g forces would be a problem.

besides couldnt a gigantic blackbird-type vehicle release the scramjet vehicle?

bell x-1 worked like that, just multiply the carrier plane and the rocket planes speeds by 10

lnwolf41 Most people are equating a railgun weapon with a railgun launch system. Weapon system lauch a low mass at high velocity, on impact huge energy conversion.
Launch system you you start slow and build up speed.
0-60 mph in 5 seconds at 100 feet, or 0-60 mph in 1 minute at 1000 feet. same speed less G force. we have the land area availble but, we won't do it because it is too simple. the beuacrats would never understand it.

Why not start at a higher elevation??? Even a city like Denver would save thousands of pounds of fuel. A mountain launch would save more.

Otherwise why not use large rubber bands?

Just kidding about the rubber bands.

ARC RAILGUN, using lighting as a current to travel through and the rail gun to sustain that current, kind of like the aliens from War of the Worlds (Remake)

Exploring new space launch schemes is essential for mankind to advance toward outer space exploration. I dream with a more advanced space technology revolution.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ScAHXN_kAY
www.crossfirefusion.com/thruster

Inwolf: thatisthe problem w/politicians
jefro: how big would those bands be? ;P

I proposed to NASA a launch mechamism with an orbiting locomotive, which can be mostly solar powered. (As an entry for an idea competition they held last November, but I never heard any results or feedback from this.)
My idea: www.on-nor.net/orbitloc

I think we all know what happens at 88 Miles per hour anyway when their is a flux capacitor involved.