Currently the cheapest way of getting to space is by means of Soyuz rocket.
Cost of launch is around 30 million $. :rolleyes: of course its much lower than that, so the profit is favorable anyways.

So my idea of getting into space is by using 2 new innovative ideas:

1) plasma technology to reduce air friction
2) ion propulsion
3) expandable wings

I propose to make a huge helicopter with many different specialized layers of rotors. The helicopter will be launched from the highest possible altitude atop of high altitude airplane. The helicopter will come off the mounted latches and will than climb upwards by itself using extremely wide huge area rotors, thus allowing it to climb and use the little air that is left in the atmosphere. At the mark of 40 miles it will create its own lift by using xenon propulsion ion engines mounted on the rotors surface while those are spinning. And it is in space.

Of course the idea is that the same way the rotors lift the helicopter in the atmosphere the helicopter's ion propulsion mounted engines on the rotors will lift it. But all that has to be tested whether the physics will allow it.

At all this time the helicopter body will be ionized by plasma, thus reducing the drag substantially. Expandable wings will be used to increase the area of the rotors thus making it the most efficient to climb upwards.

The main problem is this:

2) How far can a helicopter go taking advantage of the littler air that is left, taking into advantage the decrease drag of air on the body due to plasma and the expandable rotors area?

3) At what altitude is the ion propulsion sufficient enough to create a lift for that mass? perhaps ion propulsion acceleration is way too low to create any force upwards, so is there any chemical fuel that will allow the helicopter to climb by itself up?

anyone? any aerospace engineers?

The reason you didn't get any reply: There is no cheap way to get into space... :)

The reason you didn't get any reply: There is no cheap way to get into space... :)

cheapest way? :o

cheapest way? :o
Avoid it.

Cheap ways of getting to space.
Hitch hiking!

Wouldn't the ion engines on the rotors be hindered dy the layering of the rotors themselves? As a rotor blade passed over another, the ions will be pushing down on the lower blade, breifly eliminating thier effectiveness.

Besides that, it is my understaaanding that while ion engines could possibly work great in zero G due to the near lack of friction to slow the craft, shooting out a even a few thousand ions every second isn't even close to enough power to break earth's gravity.

To add to that issue, would a helicopter design be in any way capable of sustaining lift at altitudes approaching those of a forward-moving aeroplane? My understanding is that even the most advanced helicopter designs can't reach a fraction of the altitude of commercial airliners.

I think I'll need a diagram of the design to go any further.

There are too many flaws in this idea to point out every one so I'll just mention two of them in passing. First, it's impossible for a helicopter to reach your desired altitide. Second, ion engines produce only a very tiny amount of thrust.

There are too many flaws in this idea to point out every one so I'll just mention two of them in passing. First, it's impossible for a helicopter to reach your desired altitide. Second, ion engines produce only a very tiny amount of thrust.

I will revise my idea, and come uP w/ a diagram soon.

As for a cheap way to space, NASA got a guy into the ionosphere in the 60's using a massive balloon. Then he jumped back to earth. 0_0

Start there, and then rocket yourself the last bit, maybe?

the XPrize clubs were dealing with this exact question over the past few years - check out thier solutions.

draqon,

No diagram will change the uselessness of an ion engine in an atmosphere,
especially if you want to lift things up.

Considering that you hadn't done even this basic research, I doubt the feasibility of the rest of your plan.

Lysergic acid diethylamide.

This is a pretty crazy idea, could it work?
Magnetic Ring to Launch Satellites into Space, Cheap and Fast (http://www.spacescan.org/entry/space-exploration-now-cheaper-and-faster/)
http://www.spacescan.org/images/magnetic-ring_65.jpg

draqon,

No diagram will change the uselessness of an ion engine in an atmosphere,
especially if you want to lift things up.

Considering that you hadn't done even this basic research, I doubt the feasibility of the rest of your plan.

I noticed that and that is why I am revising my idea. Ion engines are out, thank you. :p

Perhaps magnetic ring and rocket. Use both because imparting ground based energy will partially reduce the total energy one needs to carry to get to space.

Someday, one could build a space elevator and use ground based energy to move the elevator...

Far in future we could convert one of the primary forces to build anti-gravity ships....

Finally, if we can compress space, we could teleport objects to space.

I believe the most likely "break through" is either going to be a space elevator, or a normal rocket that can extract a part of his oxygen supply from the air. Altough such low weight solar planes that can take over tasks of satelites without actually being in space could also proof useful and help space flight by eliminating the costs that those previous missions needed.

This is a pretty crazy idea, could it work?
Magnetic Ring to Launch Satellites into Space, Cheap and Fast (http://www.spacescan.org/entry/space-exploration-now-cheaper-and-faster/)
http://www.spacescan.org/images/magnetic-ring_65.jpg

Not a chance in hell! Well, certainly not to escape velocity anyway. It's just not feasible to support and control a vehicle up to speeds of 11km/s using a maglev.

The fastest maglev train runs at about 600km/h, or 600/60/60km/s = 0.1666km/s, or, about 1/66th the speed required. The engineering task of achieving the increase in speed therefore, is immense. The control of the vehicle at such speeds would have to be incredibly precise, as the consequences of a wobble towards the track dire. It would have to be kept meticulously clean, preferably indoors, so dust swept up would not stil be in the air when the vehicle came back on it's next pass. Let's do some more maths,...

The largest superconducting ring built so far, is the Large Hadron Collider I think, at about 27km. So, if we could use it to accelerate heavier payloads, they would do one circuit in less than three seconds at escape velocity. That's pulling 270G's by the way, people would be very dead, and instruments totally destroyed under their own weight.

Therefore to get the G force down the ring has to be much, much bigger, in fact, 66 times bigger would be a good number again, and 100 times very useable.

The LHC cost a couple of Billion dollars, so if you have a trillion, you might just make a Maglev launch system work. I can think of better ways to spend the money.

plasma is the answer people...reducing air density

plasma is the answer people...reducing air density


No it isn't. The problem is climbing out of the Earth's gravity well.

Hoo, did I screw up the calculation in my earlier post. I used the circumference (27)instead of the radius (4.3), and screwed up the RPM part too, using the time to complete a circuit (3s), instead of the RPM (20 rpm!)

At near escape velocity, (11km/s)on a track the same size as the LHC (27Km)

we get a figure of about 2,000G.

2,000G!

Somebody sanity check these figures please, because I can't believe if they are correct, that the US Air Force would look into this as a launch method! The numbers are just horrible, it's an impossible engineering task.

Are you using v^2/r?

draqon,

Recall the movie with those three boys (one was Ethan Hawke) that built a spaceship to get to space.

One of them was gay.

Somebody sanity check these figures please, because I can't believe if they are correct, that the US Air Force would look into this as a launch method! The numbers are just horrible, it's an impossible engineering task.
Depends what you're launching - cannon shells full of electronics pull about 3,500 G.

I think the altitude record for a helicopter is 40,000ft.

draqon,

Recall the movie with those three boys (one was Ethan Hawke) that built a spaceship to get to space.

One of them was gay.

I can't recall such a movie. No data in my database.

How long Maglev is needed for reaching the escape velocity ?

Depends on the acceleration.

v^2 = u^2 + 2.a.s

Specify final velocity (v), initial velocity (u - zero in this case), acceleration (a) and distance needed (s).
Transpose as required.

Depends on the acceleration.

:rolleyes:

...

Not required. You can look up the Earth's escape velocity easily (around 11 km/sec)
So you just have to work out what length/ acceleration combination you need from the railgun/ maglev/ lineac/ whatever you want to call it.

Transpose for S gives
(v^2)/2.a = s and just plug in various values for a

So 60.5E6/a = s in metres, using metres/sec/sec for a....
example: at 100 g (rounding g to 10 m/s^2) gives a length of 605 km.
(I think, doing this in my head... :D )

Depends what you're launching - cannon shells full of electronics pull about 3,500 G.

... but they don't fly round in circles,.... just how can it be in any way energy efficient to steer something around a track pulling that kind of G?

We're talking about a maglev 'wall of death' here!

You can do funky things with magnets, as teh large hadron collider shows.
This kind of Em accelerator has been a popular idea for a while. But expensive.

The cheapest way to do it, (And it has been for a decade or three) is to build re-usable launch vehicles, that would bring the cost down to a few hundred dollars per kilogram. (Its currently a few thousand per kilogram). And we can almost do it- computers and composites and fancy alloys mean we can just about do it. Then you launch the bits necessary to capture and steer a carbonaceous asteroid into orbit around the earth. (This will take af ew years, and you might not be able to get insurance)

Then you build your beanstalk. Once that is in place, it can run off solar power most of the time.

But all this would take 20 years or more.

http://hotimg8.fotki.com/a/124_7/91_47/TehterThrow.jpg

http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1395053&postcount=170

Wondrous news.

Possibly the cheapest and most reliable way to get into space is through the developed versions of Gerard Bull's guns that were developed in the 1980's. He worked with Saddam Hussein to build what was then the world's largest gun, but it never became reality. The HARP project showed a lot of promise - all you have to do is to encapsulate the payload in an aerodynamic needle that can effortlessly slice through the air, and an internal mechanism to dampen the g-forces or shock that sensitive components may be susceptible to. The blasting would in total involve less energy than what is stored inside the booster rockets of a conventional launch vehicle.

This is a pretty crazy idea, could it work?
Magnetic Ring to Launch Satellites into Space, Cheap and Fast (http://www.spacescan.org/entry/space-exploration-now-cheaper-and-faster/)
http://www.spacescan.org/images/magnetic-ring_65.jpg
Very interesting :) what about payload's initial and final (after leaving atmosphere) speed? What about launch cost? :rolleyes:

Very interesting :) what about payload's initial and final (after leaving atmosphere) speed? What about launch cost? :rolleyes:

I did the maths, in fact, I linked to this thread so you could see the maths were rather unfavourable. A ring 27Km in diameter, to accelerate particles, cost $2Bn.

That radius would make the G forces deadly for humans.... and I doubt a structure could withstand keeping an object which became 2000 times heavier confined to a loop, or least it would seriously limit the mass of the payload. Plus, travelling at 11km/s,... that's quick,. Really, really, quick. Slightest glitch or wobble, and the whole thing is one really big train wreck. It would _have_ to be enclosed, ... wind blown debris could be fatal,... all of these things increasing cost and risk. It's not going to happen this way.

There's a great video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7cMlV_ktgg) of Esthar's technological capabilities, from Final Fantasy VIII (back in the tender year of 1999).

I did the maths, in fact, I linked to this thread so you could see the maths were rather unfavourable. A ring 27Km in diameter, to accelerate particles, cost $2Bn.
That ring required much higher precision, because of the much higher speeds involved.
An $2Bn for the space program? Not so much, surely. The shuttle program had a budget of $5Bn or so each year.


That radius would make the G forces deadly for humans.... and I doubt a structure could withstand keeping an object which became 2000 times heavier confined to a loop, or least it would seriously limit the mass of the payload.
It seems you can make a very useful satellite at under 100kg.
LEO velocity is about 8000m/s, which gives us another break... and there might be some tradeoff achieveable by launching extra fuel so that the magnetic launch doesn't have to do all the work.

Say a 4km radius, with launch velocity at 7000m/s, gives us around 1250g.

For a 100kg satellite plus fuel, that makes a 125 tonne weight on the outside of the track, distributed over a fairly small area.

But 125 tonnes... they make bridges that can easily hold that kind of weight, so why not a circular track? Especially if it's set into the ground.

Cheapest way to get into Space? My sleep deprived vote is for trampolines....REALLY big trampolines...And cheerleaders...cant have trampolines without cheerleaders...

But on a serious note...I seem to remember talk a decade or so ago about mounting a reusable re-entry vehicle to a large airliner, like a boeing 777, flying it up to maximum altitude for the "parent vehicle" and then launching from there. It would alleviate the cost of massive SRB systems and the huge fuel tank that current shuttle missions use. Come to think of it I thought they (being NASA) were going to begin testing of the idea sometime in the past five years or so... Of course with the flood of accidents and budget cuts it may just be a pipedream at this point.

But 125 tonnes... they make bridges that can easily hold that kind of weight, so why not a circular track? Especially if it's set into the ground.

Sure, out of concrete, but we're talking about a maglev here. We can't have rails, or wheels, or any contact, as the velocity required far exceeds any capability we have to use traditional chassis,....

So we need to make a maglev that can support and guide 125tonnes at 7000ms, that requires it to be enclosed I think, to safeguard the satellite from any debris that could be blown onto the track. That starts to sound rather expensive,... 50Km of enclosed maglev. Nearly twice the length of the LHC,....

But on a serious note...I seem to remember talk a decade or so ago about mounting a reusable re-entry vehicle to a large airliner, like a boeing 777, flying it up to maximum altitude for the "parent vehicle" and then launching from there. It would alleviate the cost of massive SRB systems and the huge fuel tank that current shuttle missions use. Come to think of it I thought they (being NASA) were going to begin testing of the idea sometime in the past five years or so... Of course with the flood of accidents and budget cuts it may just be a pipedream at this point.

Er dude, that's exactly the design being used by Burt Rutan. Except it's all custom made.

Sure, out of concrete, but we're talking about a maglev here. We can't have rails, or wheels, or any contact, as the velocity required far exceeds any capability we have to use traditional chassis,....

So we need to make a maglev that can support and guide 125tonnes at 7000ms, that requires it to be enclosed I think, to safeguard the satellite from any debris that could be blown onto the track. That starts to sound rather expensive,... 50Km of enclosed maglev. Nearly twice the length of the LHC,....

4km radius means 26km of track, not 50.
Wikipedia say maglev costs around $40 million per km including trains and stations, so about a billion. Double that to make it enclosed and evacuated, I guess.

Maybe doable?

4km radius means 26km of track, not 50.

oops, I did a quick Pi r^2 in my head,... 2Pi R,.. oops!


Wikipedia say maglev costs around $40 million per km including trains and stations, so about a billion. Double that to make it enclosed and evacuated, I guess.

Maybe doable?

At those numbers,... maybe doable,.... but I guess it's only suitable for non-manned flight,.... but then manned flight is a waste of money anyway, so I'd defo think this is worth a feasibility study,... although the velocities bother me, it's a bit quick.

Let's go extreme!

Say a 10km radius for 63km of track, and wind a 1000 kg load up to 12km/s for interplanetary launch capability, or a 1200kg load up to 8km/s for LEO.

That's really simplistic of course, because it completely ignores how our launch vehicle is supposed to cope with exiting the atmosphere at 12km/s, and it still needs to carry fuel to change from launch trajectory to orbit, but I don't know how to figure those parts out. I'll just wave my hands and call it 'minor details' :).

So anyway, that's maybe 1500 tonnes weight on a small section of our maglev track, which is going to bump up the engineering challenge. Our costs are also going to be significantly higher than base maglev, because we're running at much(!) higher speeds, which again makes engineering fun.

So, let's say $200million per km, plus padding, for a nice total of $15 billion, or 3 years of space shuttle budget.

Would it be worth it?

A Falcon 1e (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_1) can lift 1000kg to LEO for about $10million per launch.

So if this system could reduce that cost to $1 million per launch, then we can recoup costs in 1500-2000 launches.

Since there will be few launch windows each year, and the market for LEO launches isn't that great... we should break even in about 100 years. Hmm. Will definitely have to keep construction costs at around that $2 billion mark after all.

Cool conference paper from IEEE:
Low-cost propellant launch to LEO from a tethered balloon (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/srchabstract.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5446741&queryText%3Dlow+cost+propellant%26openedRefinement s%3D*%26searchField%3DSearch+All)

Surprised nobody has mentioned an obvious real world approach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

Yes! Build an elevator into space. Basically a cable has one end in the taxpayers pocket and the other end in outer space.

See the wikipedia link I have posted. This idea has been around for over 100 years and is seen as practical, although building materials for such a cable seem to be a problem at the moment. Not practical for us, but Nasa maybe.

Giant catapult?

Giant catapult?

I've wondered if they could build a giant railgun with some sort of supercapacitor banks, use a wind turbine to build charge?

Basically a giant space cannon to shoot things into orbit.

I kind of assume that would be for launching large amounts of cargo only. Assuming anything alive would go all red and squishy under acceleration.:eek:

So if this system could reduce that cost to $1 million per launch, then we can recoup costs in 1500-2000 launches.

Since there will be few launch windows each year, and the market for LEO launches isn't that great... we should break even in about 100 years. Hmm. Will definitely have to keep construction costs at around that $2 billion mark after all.
I suspect that such a system would have very high fixed costs and very low marginal costs per launch, so the average "cost per launch" would depend very heavily on how often you used it.

I've wondered if they could build a giant railgun with some sort of supercapacitor banks, use a wind turbine to build charge?

Basically a giant space cannon to shoot things into orbit.

I kind of assume that would be for launching large amounts of cargo only. Assuming anything alive would go all red and squishy under acceleration.:eek:

I think you'd pretty much break anything you launched that way! You'd need a really long barrel to spread out the acceleration, hence the discussions of maglevs and tracks tens of kilometres long.

I bet it's possible to blast objects into space from the tops of tall mountains.

I bet it's possible to blast objects into space from the tops of tall mountains.

Wow, why have none of the eggheads at NASA thought of this?

Is it because it's a stupid idea? Everest is just under 9km tall. The low part of an LEO is about 160km, so hauling everything up Everest still means you need to be able to climb 151 kilometres, so you've not saved much fuel. Plus there's no road, it's really cold, and the weather can close it off, making launches impossible.

You could try and pick a place with infrastructure,... near a city, at least there would be roads and services, ... somewhere like La Paz in Bolivia, or Quito, in Ecuador, but they are around 3000m, so you are gaining even less altitude. At least Quito is near the Equator though, so you'll get a boost from the rotation of the Earth.

Why do forums have to be this way? I guess they do, they're all the same. This is why adults stay away.

Why not estimate how much atmosphere mass-wise is in the lower 9km? Why not estimate how much risk and rocket mass is eliminated by traveling up the low 9km?

Also I did not say 'Everest'. Also I did not mean a rocket. I meant a projectile, from a shooter, at a high elevation.

I bet it's possible to blast objects into space from the tops of tall mountains.

Sure it is. It's also possible to blast them into space from the bottom of Death Valley. It's just that neither one has significant advantages over (for example) launching them near the equator.

I've wondered if they could build a giant railgun with some sort of supercapacitor banks, use a wind turbine to build charge?


I think you'd pretty much break anything you launched that way!

Hmm. Artillery shells experience accelerations of 13,000 G's - and yet they build guidance systems and telemetry systems into them.

You probably wouldn't be able to launch anything living that way. But electronics/propulsion/fuel - I bet you could design a vehicle that could survive those accelerations.

I bet it's possible to blast objects into space from the tops of tall mountains.

I was thinking about the neutrinos in the mountain today. Funny.

Why do forums have to be this way? I guess they do, they're all the same. This is why adults stay away.

I am an adult, and I used to work with a bunch of Astronomers and engineers, so retain an interest in Rocketry.


Why not estimate how much atmosphere mass-wise is in the lower 9km? Why not estimate how much risk and rocket mass is eliminated by traveling up the low 9km?

You think hauling a rocket up to the freezing heights of 9km is going to eliminate risks? You are aware of the Challenger disaster? That it was a frozen 'o' ring that caused that? Familiar materials behave in less than optimal ways at low temperatures. I've had equipment fail on me at -23degC/3500m that works just fine when it's simply chilly.


Also I did not say 'Everest'.

No, I did. To illustrate that if you go to the highest point on Earth, you only shorten your journey of 160km, by 9km. Now, do you drive? Would you drive up Everest, to shorten your overall car journey by 9km?

I then gave some other options, cities that are at elevation. Cities, that have roads leading to them, so you could at least transport your rocket and staff to the launch site,... but they are only around 3000m up, so of even less gain.


Also I did not mean a rocket. I meant a projectile, from a shooter, at a high elevation.

'from a shooter', .. such a technical exposition! Are you labouring under the impression that it's nearly feasible, bar the last few Km?

Hmm. Artillery shells experience accelerations of 13,000 G's - and yet they build guidance systems and telemetry systems into them.

That is true, but Satellites are far more complex, so I don't think it's a fair comparison. Weight is the enemy or rocketry, so satellites are engineered to be as light as possible, and therefore there are limits on how robust they can be made. I don't see mechanisms that unfurl solar panels surviving that kind of acceleration for one. While artillery shells are heavy, they aren't complex, when compared to a satellite, and are much smaller and more dense.

I also kinda think if it could be done, we'd be doing it already. There have been many 'super gun' projects, and while they got close to the numbers required, never (unless it's classified, but I doubt that, as they are energetic events when they go off, and are hard to conceal) managed to get anything into orbit. The last attempt at building such was the 'Iraqi Super Gun' in the 90's, but they never managed to get the parts to build the full sized version, as the international security community realised what they were up to.

Why not estimate how much atmosphere mass-wise is in the lower 9km? Why not estimate how much risk and rocket mass is eliminated by traveling up the low 9km?

Why not consider where the Shuttle is at SRB separation?

It's 2 minutes into the flight.

It's at an altitude of 150,000 ft (46 km)

But more importantly, it has increased its velocity by over 3,000 mph

In comparison, being a mile or so up and having zero velocity is pretty much nothing.

Launching things into space via cannon has been tried a few decades ago, as in government funded research. I did a little bit of reading around this topic a few years ago. It seems they were able to launch things like 50 km into the atmosphere, but no more than that. I wonder if new advances in material science would change that.

I think launching from a high altitude could definitely help - not only less gravity and less potential energy required, but also less air friction and perhaps less winds to mess with the electronics. There is a train track going through the Tibetan plateau which goes up to something like 7,000 meters - that would be a good start. However, maybe a partial space elevator would be better - a giant platform floating on helium balloons 30 km up, with a winch on it :D
the rockets would launch without puncturing the helium balloons, of course

. . . (Humor here-->) . . . did you really mean "winch" . . .or "wench"?

However, maybe a partial space elevator would be better - a giant platform floating on helium balloons 30 km up, with a winch on it :D
the rockets would launch without puncturing the helium balloons, of course

Post 46:

Cool conference paper from IEEE:
Low-cost propellant launch to LEO from a tethered balloon (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/srchabstract.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5446741&queryText%3Dlow+cost+propellant%26openedRefinement s%3D*%26searchField%3DSearch+All)

I think launching from a high altitude could definitely help - ..., but also less air friction and perhaps less winds to mess with the electronics.

Yes, but not a mountain. Everest, the highest place on Earth, is hardly free from wind now is it? It's smack bang in the middle of the troposphere:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Atmosphere_layers-en.svg/170px-Atmosphere_layers-en.svg.png (Wikipedia)

And there is no infrastructure to support a lunch site. Like I said earlier, there are cities high up, with roads and services, but they are around 3000m, so even less of a head start.

The little aeroplane in the pic is a clue,... it's far better to launch off the back of a regular plane, than from up a mountain.

If you're moving a lot of mass, I'd say something like a launch loop ( "active structure maglev cable transport system").

It's like a bundle of hollow tubes with no air inside them, and each tube is made of electromagnets, and lumps of iron run through the tubes at very ( very !) high speed, shedding some of their vertical momentum into the cable through the magnets. I think you can recoup some of the energy when they come down, then you send them through a tunnel back to the start.

Then you just climb up it.

But this is only cost effective if you're moving a LOT of mass. Like if people live on the moon or something, because your initial commissioning cost is high, but after that you can send as much as you want for the cost of the electricity to move the iron.

Yikes, that was a terrible explanation.

Go to launchloop.com if you're interested. The first page is a picture with summary. There are pdfs on the site with lots of diagrams and math, and I think wikipedia has a page.

To me it seems possible with today's materials.