It is amazing that there are still people in the country who can fluently and seriously converse without vulgarisms and without stupid lame joking . Bravo and asking for more!!!
This David Dillon guy sounds very legit. So many of these startups look like "pie in the sky" funds or outright scams. I'm happy at least some of them are solid and honest. Good luck to the Mass Driver project!
I like the fact that he addressed the radial stresses caused through extreme amperage used in these coils, and the longitudinal force caused by equal and opposite forces as the projectile is ejected, while noting the fragility of current high temp superconductors. These problems are generally ignored or just given a hand wave. This company, in my opinion is likely to succeed.
before we build one that launches a projectile into space we should build one, that accelerate its payload to a speed where you can start a ramjet. That would be super useful for hypersonic research. And it would also be a need way to get to space.
The minimum speed at which a scramjet(I assume you mean that and not a ramjet) can operate, is mach 5. For that you need to be at least ~20km high to prevent everything burning up.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 no, I meant ram-jet. there is enough overlap between the two to do that in stages. But your Idea of strait up going for scramjet speed is also interesting. I would however suggest building mine first. It is cheaper and there is still a lot you can do with it. About "everything burning up" we are basically talking about a launch side here. So I would not worry to much about it. There are methodes to deal with that. also 20 km that is just a few seconds after leaving the mass driver at that kind of speed. also also for a big part of the interesting aerodynamic experiments, we would not even do a burn.
Interesting interview, thanks Fraser. David seems really humble despite ambitions for advancing a field that's still on the fringe of science, physics and engineering possibilities. Wish the EL crew the best of luck in their pursuit and hope to hear more from them soon! 👍
Using the comparison of a linear accelerator to a cyclotron doesn't exactly work here... But I think the advantage of spinlaunch is the slow input of energy without as much complexity. It seems like a better way to get small vehicles off the ground quicker (quicker in terms of building the launcher) Still I don't think it will ever be a practical direct to space system , not from earth anyway. On the moon I can see how it could me more practical as it would require less materials, less velocity, less complexity, and easy enough concept even an army guy could understand 😜.
Some of Event Horizon's content is a bit too "wishful thinking," in my opinion. Some, not all. I think he has great presentation and presence, and is a good story teller.
Great to get someone who is knowledgeable about mass drivers on the show! It was great that he could dispel some of the myths, such as the myth that the atmosphere is an insurmountable problem.
@@MCsCreations It was a kids TV series using puppets by Gerry Anderson in the 60s, he later did Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, UFO and Space 1999.
I can see the benefits, but have you also considered, payloads going to space don't just go straight up, but have to enter orbit, what is going to make it change direction to enter orbit, vacuum tubes 10+ kilometres long, can't remain straight, how will this be achieved? Good idea, but I doubt this is feasible.
The problem with evacuated maglev sled tubes replacing first stages is exiting the tube, not just a breakaway cap which is a source of all kinds of chaos, hitting the atmosphere is even worse. It's a complete loss of directional control and structural integrity, along with heat and turbulence.
Fireball XL5 was the first time I saw a science fiction electromagnetic rail launcher Moving an electromagnetic launcher to the moon or even just to orbital space seems pretty expensive!
Go back 30 years and read the book The millennial project. The author posits putting the accelerator on Kilimanjaro, already halfway out of the atmosphere requiring much lower launch speed and energy. I believe Martin Savage was the author. It's very very well thought out and I believe it was published around 1985. There used to be clubs around the US that would gather and discuss these ideas. The book goes way beyond that in terms of colonizing the galaxy but the mass driver on Kilimanjaro was the most striking idea in my mind. And as for spin launch, hahaha.
The engineering of the superconductors is going to be challenging. The mechanical forces on the ceramic superconductor during the quench are going to be extreme.
Fraser, now do a segment on the hydrogen launcher. Interview John Hunter at Greenlaunch about past efforts. You can launch to 8 km/sec with no superconductors, with a device so simple and cost effective, just concrete and steel, that it is remarkable more effort into it hasn't been deeply researched. This was worked on at LLL (SHARP program) during SDI, but dropped when SDI fell away. They got a ten lb projectile up to mach 9 before the money was cut.
I really like the idea of a 3 phase AC launcher. it has a series of coils that are all driven by a AC signal. Capacitors make each coil resonant. The spacing between coils would get farther as the projectile speeds up. There are limits to the spacing range so there would be different frequencies. The only problem is that super conductors don't like AC currents so this would have to use chilled copper. This would be for a lunar launcher for lots of small packages.
With any non-zero resistance circuit, any current change will introduce additional losses beyond purely resistive, and AC, being constant change, is no exception, not to mention poower factor losses.
They have found superconducting graphene that is controlled by a small angle from 2 sheets of 2 dimensional graphene. It's also one thousand times more energy density than copper. It's 200 times stronger than steel and 10 times lighter than aluminum. Check it out. A simple Google search is all you need.
This is my favorite interview so far. Clear, and focussed on the engineering. Awesome! Question, what would be the theoretical limit in speed for such a system,in a vaccum?
The theoretical maximum speed isn't known. We estimate four to six kilometers per second are achievable. The essential problem becomes one of how fast you can switch the quench motor. The good news is that the two magnetic fields, one from the carrier sleeve (the armature that is pulled) and one from the stator (that does the pulling) engage with each other at the speed of light. There isn't any good news after that. ; ) We aren't publicly sharing particular design details at this point.
With a spacecraft accelerated before leaving the ground I think we should find a way to beam energy to the craft as it goes up towards space. Possibly this could be done with stations on the ground using narrow coherent energy beams that stay aimed at a receiving dish on the craft - sending it energy that is used to provide thrust using an inert propellant or some other way, And as the craft rises to space, satellites using solar energy could send energy to it the same way.
Note that their code showed pull only was the best method for mass driver construction. The goal is lunar materials launched to catchers for materials for building L5 colonies.
Thanks Fraser! A solenoid-style launch system on the moon is something I've wondered about for years now, really glad proper engineers have been looking at this. If the technology were developed enough and the launch system long enough, might passenger launches become possible? I'd imagined a circum-lunar launcher with a long, gentle acceleration and shaped to carry a vehicle off at a tangent.. Great interview!
The one prime place to put a EM rail system, would be at Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It is on the Equator. It raises 4,900 metres and is the highest mountain in Africa. To the east is Indian Ocean (splash down area). When it comes to ramping up on a power rail, this is probably the best place on Earth to launch anything. Sadly one needs to avoid quakes and eruptions, for it is a volcano. In another idea. Get the thing up to 1.5 Speed of Sound, and then turn on our Ram-Jet or Rocket-Motors, and leave the power sled behind.
Sadly, those are the proof-of-concept prototypes that revealed all the problems Dillon explores in this video! It turned out that mass drivers are much more difficult to manufacture than anticipated, especially if you want to use them more than once before you have to rebuild them. (The US Navy managed at least six or seven firings of their railgun before it needed major refurbishment-I believe the actual number of rounds is classified? So I'm just passing along a guess- but their mass-driver approach wasn't feasible either, long term.) Let's hope that Dillon and his team have come up with a solution with this "quench" accelerator idea!
You let him off the hook with a fatal flaw very early in the video. As soon as he claimed that 5km/s speed through the atmosphere was a solved problem by orbital reentry vehicles, his credibility went to zero. Here's why. As you know, when reentering from orbit, you encounter the low end of the pressure gradient first. Initially, even 1.5 times the height of the Karmann line, atmospheric drag slowly takes place, scrubbing speed gently off your reentry vehicle. That slows you down enough to progressively encounter denser air as your speed decreases enough for you to survive it. It's well known that if you retrofire too long and your reentry angle is too high everybody dies. You have to stay in the more rarified atmosphere even above the Karmann line long enough to scrub off enough speed to survive progressively denser atmosphere. Nobody goes 11,000 miles per hour below the Karmann line. This guy is cavalierly proclaiming that all the problems of 5km/s through the atmosphere have been solved and jumping from a vacuum inside a several kilometer long tube to the lower or even mountaintop altitude is not a problem. And he's dead wrong. First of all there is no way to produce an acceptable vacuum in a several kilometer long tube. Secondly, when the projectile hits dense atmosphere at 5 km/s it will be instantly destroyed. Visit the American Meteor Society website and read the statistics. Meteors traveling at 11 km/s explode above 80 km altitude. 5 km/s is 11,000 miles per hour, The X-15 holds the all-time atmospheric speed record at 4500 mph at an altitude of 50 miles! This company proposes 11,000 mph at 20 miles or less. It's just not going to happen. A projectile emerging suddenly from an unattainable vacuum to atmospheric pressure at 11,000 mph might as well be shot into a concrete wall. Reentry vehicles benefit from working from the correct end of the pressure gradient. He was also wrong about tossing something into orbit with one boost from the ground, and to your credit you touched on that. When you apply prograde thrust all you do is raise the height of the apogee 180º around the planet from your position. Your perigee remains below ground level unless you wait half an orbit and apply prograde thrust from the apogee to raise your perigee above the atmosphere. Even if your projectile could survive launch, and it couldn't, it would just crash back to Earth well before it could perform an orbit. Working with much lower necessary velocities, launching from the Moon and with a rocket booster to achieve proper orbits and injection to Earth transfer could be useful. But on Earth, this thing is a dead project. From your standpoint your job is to get him to state his program as completely as possible. Had you presented the atmospheric problem and not letting him get away with his "those problems are all solved" malarkey, I realize the interview would have been over and we wouldn't have got to hear is spiel. It's important for people to realize how reasonable impossible things can be made to sound so they are less gullible in the future.
Just started the video, can't wait to finish it. I was recently thinking about a future system for orbital installations. Using scaled-up versions of similar technologies, by constructing a cascade of "boost" rings that function as force amplifiers/multipliers for the spacecraft, you can enhance the effect of an orbital gravity sling shot, resulting in increased local velocities and enabling extended exploration of deep space. Less fuel burn overall.
NOPE. doesn't work that way. adding deltaV that way causes a reverse delta V in the opposite direction. And that deltaV can only be nutralized by rockets.
I've been imagining this project in this exact design( Electromagnetic propulsion in a vacuum tube as a method of space launch) for the past 15 years. It's amazing to see someone actually bringing it to life. I only wish I could share some of my ideas with the design team.
High Temperature Superconductors are ceramics. For high stress environments use the low temperature superconductors like NbTi. Fermilab used them in Tevatron II and they are currently being used in the LHC. NbTi is cooled to 1.9K using liquid Helium and can achieve 9-10 Tesla fields.
Those ceramics are a thin film deposited on a high-strength Hastelloy substrate and are handling high stress. 400 MPa tensile stress is no exception as design stress. Operation at 1.9 K is fine for a DC magnet but the cooling costs and cool down time would be prohibitive in this application.
I am curious about the rate of reusability and efficiency of the a quench gun. When quenching the coils, presumably the magnetic field energy is converted to heat. That heat needs to be pumped out of the coils to get them to superconduct again in preparation for the next launch. How is the energy allocated between powering refrigeration equipment and charging the coils? How much of the total energy input is converted to kinetic energy? How long does it take to cool down a coil?
I imagine this could be combined with the spin launch idea to straighten out there launch trajectory and give an additional boost in velocity and not need a 5km vacuum tube
I wonder if a room temperature superconductor finding would be useful for this. I mean, actually ambient air temp. Maybe it would weigh less and get us closer to 8 km/s. Thanks, Fraser!
Actually what you want to launch needs to include electronics and they could be damaged be the strong electromagnetic fields in the - let's say - rail gun. So instead it's probably to use ordinary gas pressure like in a light gas cannon. Then we run into a scaling problem, are limited to small payloads etc. Btw you need to shield against the heavy air resistance which burns your "projectile" down if you don't.
I made a coil accelerator in high school (at home for science fair) that launched a magnetized sewing needle about a foot into a 3/4 plywood back board. It used a 12 volt battery, a high voltage transformer coil and 200 feet of very fine magnet wire wrapped arround a tiny glass tube for a smooth launch. It was wildly impractical and over heated after the 3rd launch but it was a fun learning experience.
ahh yeah -- midnight star -- some of cleveland's finest funk -- Electricity I got the power to energize I got the power to magnetize I'll fill you up with my energy You'll be my toy, I'll be your electricity You've got my head all wired up It seems I never can get enough My gears are running mighty hot It feels so good, don't you ever stop You never let me touch your lovely body You make me hot and I wanna party So won't you come a little closer to me You'll be my toy, I'll be your electricity (Electricity) Let me charge your battery, baby (Electricity) Energize me (Electricity) Use me (Electricity) I'm your utility, baby Well, come on, energize me
"Accidental quench event" -does that mean electricity arcing out of the MRI magnet? Or an exothermic explosion? Both? (And if this is disastrous for an MRI, how did the "quench" launcher work without destroying itself as its payload launches?)
I can see small payloads under high acceleration launched to something closr to low earth orbit. The biggest challenge is storing enough energy and delivering the intense amounts of power needed to accelerate a significantly meaningful ammount of mass over a short enough launch facility to reach a low earth orbit.
I have to listen it again. Can we consider the armature M. Dillon is talking about (12:20) as a stage 0 making the movement with the ship until the end of the rail gun? If Fraser you can return on that subject that would be awesome. A stage 0 making stuffs like at the Starbase, along the railgun. Thanks all.
Lol, great content. But still "Why call it a quench motor? it reminds meof a sword quenched in water" "Well....its coomplex" 26 mins later "well, they run as hot super condutors, then we cool them" THANK YOU! lol
If the launcher is stretched to about 50 to 100 km, the g forces can reduced to human-rated levels. Target 4 km/sec and 6000-7000 meter elevation, and the launch vehicle is basically a second stage. The atmospheric heat load and max Q are tolerable. Build it in Ecuador going east up the Andes mountains.
Surprisingly enough, that isn't the case. This is an area of engineering research that is fairly well understood and tested in specialized wind tunnels and evaluated in simulation with good numerical models. @@jessepollard7132
Not a bad thought. There are a couple of problems with longer. The first is economics although that may not be critical. Even though a ten times longer system would have (roughly) ten times higher up front capital costs, it turns out the critical cost is in the operating costs. (Like the railroads.) The greater problem might be that the launch tube really wants to be straight. Even a very slight curve is tough for package centering of the carrier sleeve in a non contact system. Maybe longer is V 2 !
Building just under a meter underground would give thermal properties, so at a depth for decent foundations, it can be built with potential use atop of it..perhaps under a road, as an example regardless of the particular viability
The kind of acceleration that would take place inside a electromagnetic "railgun" type tube would probably not be safe for humans, only inanimate objects. Otherwise I would imagine the acceleration inside the tube would peel the skin off our faces.
Yes, they did mention this briefly. He said the best uses would be raw matterials- rolls of metal sheeting, fuel, water, etc. Basically the higher the mass, the higher the volume, and the less squishy it is, the more this approach makes the most sense.
The rail gun is always a cool subject. Making contact is just a supid. You need a space to protect the projectile. A layer of aluminum solves the issue, and it acts like highspeed railroad rail. It creates a layer. They knew this in 1965.
This technology would work well with buoyant mega towers built somewhat like airships. They could use conventional electric lifts to get to the launch section. After separation from the launcher the orbital stage would have some kind of conventional rockets optimized for vacuum.
Fascinating stuff indeed! Fantastic interview, Fraser! Thanks!!! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊 BTW, I'm absolutely skeptical about the superconductor "breakthrough", but at the same time I'm kinda crossing my fingers... And I'm not superstitious either.
I wish I was in the ‘room’. And this was before the room temperature room pressure superconductor announcement. So much new stuff in this conversation. Thanks Fraser.
I noticed he said "pull, pull, pull"- and this is the main reason why most electric motors waste current and produce excessive heating. If he was to design these linear motors to both pull and push, the pushing phases would "self-quench" (invert or repel) the current, while simultaneously amplifying (or at least doubling) the total B field flux density which is applied to the forward momentum of the payload (because there is virtually no inductive time delay on the quench). This method would greatly reduce the actual current consumed by the stator coils, as well as greatly reducing the heating of the coils (because the electrons in the stator are decelerated by polar opposition to the magnetized rotor or capsule. This method greatly reduces the initial "start-up" current drain, while it would also help to use starting motor (or an initial push from a chemical explosive) so as to initiate the applied current on the push or "quench phase" of operation. Of course, this would require a permanently magnetized (or electromagnetic) capsule that would still need to be recovered by some means (if not sent to orbit with the payload); but ordinary, copper coils could be used effectively and repeatedly, and affordable means of cooling, such as liquid nitrogen could be used.
When you think of what makes any "gun" useful, it's the ability to launch enough mass, with enough velocity to impart force on the intended target. But as every hunter knows having the capacity to fire a second shot quickly and accurately is a requirement that can't be ignored. A battleship that could only fire once and need a new barrel immediately is impractical, so in time they improved the technology to changing barrels every few hundred shots. It became a useable weapon that still required a huge amount on guidance technology to get them accurate at least a few times. The main hurdle was materials. Inventing the metals that could withstand the friction and pressures involved with launching a 2000 pound projectile 20 miles. The rail gun effort was never able to solve the materials part of the challenge.
Exactly, as he said in the interview, the generals were sick of people bringing them railgun concepts that tore themselves apart with each firing. They need to be used hundreds of times.
on a side note, you could put a person in a tank of liquid ie a launch chamber the liquids may cushion Excelleration and deceleration ie liquids become like solids under shock or use Oblak or make Oblak with olive oil and make a fluid that hardens via electric current ie corn flour and olive oil becomes solid when electricity is added
Jan Troska was writing about this in 1940’s. He wrote books published in Czech called Zápas s nebem (Fight with the sky). I read it as a child and has been wondering why that never got implemented.
Thanks for this one, Fraser.. I hope you'll consider bringing David Dillon back for a later interview to share progress being made on this project at some future date.
I remember spending several years in my school years trying to figure out where in the world you could place a roughly 10-mile-long rail launcher, the roughly best location I could find was launching up over the Western Sahara, low population density, nearish the equator, there is a mountain to build along and the climate is dry. Beyond that, maybe the island of new guinea? Could also be a few other small islands that have suitable mountain terrain and big enough. but regardless finding a good launch location that also has a suitable mountain side is pretty difficult.
@@frasercain that could work though mt kilimanjaro is a popular destination as well as there are a few local population centers that would make it complicated
quenching a fire is lowering the energy produced. so he's saying stopping the thing at the right time to release the projectile at its highest velocity. like snapping a whip. so magnetic system can be like wormholes which act like rubber bands.
For the Moon it should be great. On Earth though it may well be able to replace a first stage. High temperature super conductors should be able to help. (You said "low temperature" in the intro'). Liquid nitrogen temperature super conductors are not so big a problem now I understand. Ground based energy helps to over come the limits of the rocket equation. So yeah any velocity you can put in by an electromagnetic launcher before you light the engines is good.
Once again, clearly conquering the moon is the priority. We must build a moon base, get comfortable in that environment and reach out from there. Let’s walk before we run.
Hmmm. Normally when a superconductor quenches, there is a huge release of magnetic energy that will quickly turn into heat if it isn't used to do work... You would have to time this so the magnetic energy would be absorbed by the projectile as it passes. If you don't, it goes boom. That would be a very hard system to time correctly. Cool thought problem.
Great video ! Arthur C. Clarke B. Sc. wrote an artical for the Journal of the BIS in November 1950 titled "Electromagnetic Launching as a Major Contribution to Spaceflight" for on the moon ! And T.A.Heppenheimer wrote a paper in in 1977/1978 for the AIAA from a known location since July 19, 1976 (just East of the Apollo 11 landing site) to L2 ! ! ! Talked to a person who had a patent issued 1989 for an electromagnetic launcher for him and his uncle. At an open house saw a demo of a small scale launcher for use on earth or the moon. The design for the lunar launcher would be about 200 m long at 2000 gees. and reach L2 in about 2.97 days. The solar powered machine would launch twice an hour to L2. The mass of the launcher could be equaled in about nine months. Virgin Glalaric is doing a bunney hop for September the 8th in New Mexico ! R. Lipinski
im wondering if the "quenching" really is fast enough to prevent the "projectile" from getting pulled back. it doesnt really sound like something that can be done in milliseconds.
Hmmm say the projectile was magnetized to one polarity then magnetize the rails to the same polarity, perhaps with microscopic clearances... worth a try?
In the future the boring company may be able to drill up through Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. Which is the Most Ideal place for this as the Highest point near the Equator by far ( actually about 12 miles further from Earth's center than Mount Everest due to the equatorial bulge) This gives a 14 mile headstart on a LEOrbit journey of 1200 miles. The typical first stage of a rocket goes only 40 miles high so one might need to have an explosive charge shoot the rocket from a launch casing howitzer to reach the 40 mile equivalent of a first stage. Then a starship type rocket takes it the other 1160 miles. But I think one could eliminate the entire first stage with all that fuel burning. With the possibility of higher temperature and cheaper superconductors and modular nuclear fission or possibly fusion plants in the future. This could really get a lot of mass to orbit very cheaply ( like water, fuel, food, and metals or structural building supplies ) The number two ideal site is Mount Killamanjero in Africa or a 3rd possibility is in Borneo. I really hope that some Billionaires decide to fund more work on this effort.
This is exactly how I think we should be getting space vehicles off the ground. No ground based system will ever be able to get objects into orbit because the highest the perigee can ever be is the point of launch. A secularization burn will be required. However, getting the first 5km/s without using any propellants would enable single stage to orbit and landing. That would be a huge game changer. Also, I would like to see the g force calculations for 0 to 5 km/s. It may not be comfortable, but possible for manned missions eventually. A 10 km long vacuum tube with its end at the top of a mountain (preferably a really high mountain) is the right idea. The more of the atmosphere these launches can bypass, the better.
@@malcolmrickarby2313 1. They want the beginning of the trajectory to be over an unpopulated area to minimize casualties in the event of a rapid unscheduled disassembly. 2. Shipping things by sea is convenient for objects that are too massive to ship by road or rail. 3. The initial velocity off the launch pad means that drag from air isn't a really big problem. Max Q, the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure occurs when the launch vehicle is several thousand feet in the air and velocity is close to super-sonic. An object travelling at 5 km/s at sea level would experience so much heating that it would melt or simply disintegrate from the compression stress that it would encounter. With an evacuated launch tube about 10 km long, the start point could be at sea level while the exit point could be at the peak of the tallest mountain on Earth.
Spinlaunch uses an electromagnetic motor to spin and slowly add energy to its hybrid rockets and a weight to ballance it on the other side. At the point of release, it releases tgr hybrin rocket in one direction and a mass with identical angular momentum in the other direction. I wonder if energy can be recovered from that and delivered to the hybrid rocket throug a comparably short electromagnetic accelerator.
I've often thought about this since I first saw that Superman ride! I seem to recall, providing enough power was an issue even with that, but that doesn't stop one from dreaming. I posted a question on another video as to why we don't use this sort of system, or even a fuel powered carriage on rails to launch rockets. Even if a rocket was launched at 100mph, that would save a massive amount of fuel and weight in simply overcoming that initial static inertia. Elon needs to sort himself out and produce a fleet of Boring Company 'StarBorers' that dart into the moon and bore tunnels for Spaceport runways as well as sub-terrain environments to live in without the worry of surface regolith 🚀
100% the right approach for space or moon launches. Too many issues with the thermal and physical shock of hitting our atmosphere, suddenly at Mach 10, let alone Mach 20. Hypersonic flight is far from a 'done thing' Its still very experimental and not fully understood. Yes re-entry vehicles do it but they are hitting very thin atmosphere at Mach 20 and slowing down gradually. Even if the launch tube could somehow be a mile tall, the air is still very thick. I guess you could build it in the Atacama Desert! Maybe something launching with a scramjet on it might work. Get it to a more modest launch speed and then accelerate it with the scramjet. At least you only need to carry some fuel and no oxidizer.
29:40 i had been thinking much the same for half the interview - imagine an interstellar voyage (generation ship?) where firing mined asteroid/s back to Earth is your reaction mass.
correct me if I'm wrong but the joules needed would be Work = Force*distance with Force=mass*acceleration so work = mass*accel*distance. Assume 10 km long pipe with a 9,100 kg (10 tons) package reaching 5,000 m/s at pipe exit. You come up with 9,100 kg * 1000 m/s/s*10,000 m = 91,000,000,000 Joules. Is that 91 gigajoules? I don't remember my prefixes when numbers get that big.
At 91 gigajoules per shot and one shot per day = 33 terajoules. I don't have all the stats but I think we're talking about more energy than some nations produce. I'd love to see some real data from the folks that are planning this.
The acceleration must be 1250 m/s^2 and that translates into a work of 113.75 GJ . The energy is not the problem, but the power needed. Accelerating 9100 kg from 0 to 5000 m/s in a 10 km track takes 4 seconds, so the power is about 28.4 GW (and I'm not even considering the losses). They definitely need superconductors not just for the track but also for storing energy and realease it quickly through a superconducting magnetic energy storage.
You need to use "KineticEnergy = 1/2 m v^2". It works out to 113 TJoules which is 32 MWh of electricity. At say $100 per MWh, this is $3,200 worth of electricity. The cost of electricity will be $0.35 per kg divided by the electrical efficiency of the launcher. Much better than the ~$80,000 per kg that NASA pays SpaceX (and other companies) to resupply the ISS.
I accidentally made an electric gun in electrical shop in Jr High. I coiled lots of wire around a hollow wood core. Dropped a screw with the head cut off in it when I plugged it in. It got sucked in, left a big dent in the wood base. It bounced out, luckily missed my head. We never found the bolt.
I find it not appropriate just like the giant rail cannon with the same magnetic launch system. The other is a land based laser system in which a study by McGill University professors is also inadequate and cost , mostly safety will make them part of the not so brilliant idea. The real fundamental step is with Wernher Von Braun's system, it's to increase and incorporate a viable sustainable solution. The problem is the ignition, heating and cooling. Although the payoff is greater displacement and fuel efficiency and a much longer duration. The plan is a hybrid spacecraft that uses a runway and lands on a runway but also continues to be a useful platform for landing on other planets to moons with a change in configuration again. The weight of the craft is also important as well but there are many tricks still waiting to be applied. The ion thrusters are not making progress as they should but the application of more and sent through a magnetic coupling which will provide the extra torque will be an inventive measure that apparently no one has looked to but I did so I can have steering also a way to slow down. All what I said here isn't fiction but aligned with facts to build a better craft .
Reminds me of the atom bomb rocket (50's ?) .. set 1 bomb off, it hits the pusher plate coupled by springs/shock absorbers ta da. Replace the bomb with a quench tube and voila, high efficiency propulsion. Might be fun to engineer/analyze wrt present rockets.
Why not just use this system to launch fule instead of a hole rocket, we can do just a payload that way its lighter and easer to throw. That way we combined that with star ship and have its fule already up there ready to be refule
Would such a system (build on the moon) be able to shoot transport capsules directly to earth (without getting into moon or earth orbit first, and with no propulsion system on board). Would be great to just shoot your stuff from the moon directly to earth.
Might think about launching buckets of water to a low earth orbiting station that processes the water to rocket fuel and supplies the fuel for the next stage to rockets destined for significantly higher orbits. Cheaply moving buckets of water to space may also serve other purposes like shielding for micrometeors and radiation or hydroponic and or algae based food supplies for future deep space missions to Mars and beyond.
I always had the idea of a electromagnetic-assist launch system. The system would assist the launch of a chemical rocket so you don’t burn up so much fuel during the launch. Kind o f a hybrid-launch-system.
One benefit of this approach on the Moon is the lack of kick up of lunar regolith that you have with rockets.
There would still be dust kickup with the ionization of the regolith by the sun, however still much less so than a traditional rocket of course.
The lunar regolith actually gets flung out at faster than orbital velocities.
It would probably be worse unless it's self contained on the moon
@veilmont688 still would create orbital dust debris clouds. Although the lower velocties of the moon it isnt as dangerous still worsens maintence
@@gabrieldavis5794 oh yea absolutely. I know I was a bit vague with my comment.
It is amazing that there are still people in the country who can fluently and seriously converse without vulgarisms and without stupid lame joking . Bravo and asking for more!!!
This David Dillon guy sounds very legit. So many of these startups look like "pie in the sky" funds or outright scams. I'm happy at least some of them are solid and honest. Good luck to the Mass Driver project!
He was actually quite realistic about the challenges.
I like the fact that he addressed the radial stresses caused through extreme amperage used in these coils, and the longitudinal force caused by equal and opposite forces as the projectile is ejected, while noting the fragility of current high temp superconductors.
These problems are generally ignored or just given a hand wave.
This company, in my opinion is likely to succeed.
It's utter bollox. The projectile will vapourise in atmosphere.
@@dougaltolan3017, that was - as was stated in the interview - resolved 60 yrs ago.
Do you mean Rocket lab
before we build one that launches a projectile into space we should build one, that accelerate its payload to a speed where you can start a ramjet. That would be super useful for hypersonic research.
And it would also be a need way to get to space.
The minimum speed at which a scramjet(I assume you mean that and not a ramjet) can operate, is mach 5. For that you need to be at least ~20km high to prevent everything burning up.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 no, I meant ram-jet. there is enough overlap between the two to do that in stages. But your Idea of strait up going for scramjet speed is also interesting. I would however suggest building mine first. It is cheaper and there is still a lot you can do with it.
About "everything burning up" we are basically talking about a launch side here. So I would not worry to much about it. There are methodes to deal with that. also 20 km that is just a few seconds after leaving the mass driver at that kind of speed.
also also for a big part of the interesting aerodynamic experiments, we would not even do a burn.
@General_Cornelius what sounds sketchy? to build a massdriver to do high velocity aerodynamic research?
@@MusikCassette Actually, the idea of a mass driver to do hypersonic aerodynamic research is really a good thought.
@@freeprint thx
Interesting interview, thanks Fraser. David seems really humble despite ambitions for advancing a field that's still on the fringe of science, physics and engineering possibilities. Wish the EL crew the best of luck in their pursuit and hope to hear more from them soon! 👍
I had a CFD course under Dr Graham Candler! The man is an awesome teacher and a great researcher from what I hear. So nice to see him get recognition
Candler is a national treasure. Pretty good on a bicycle too.
Absolutely great Fraiser! Super, super exciting conversation! Thank you very much! As always! 😊
Agreed, great vid 👍👍👍
by nature this is more viable than spin launch.
Spin launchers are just a bad idea
@@slo3337 And a con as they know it can never get off the ground.
Using the comparison of a linear accelerator to a cyclotron doesn't exactly work here... But I think the advantage of spinlaunch is the slow input of energy without as much complexity. It seems like a better way to get small vehicles off the ground quicker (quicker in terms of building the launcher)
Still
I don't think it will ever be a practical direct to space system , not from earth anyway. On the moon I can see how it could me more practical as it would require less materials, less velocity, less complexity, and easy enough concept even an army guy could understand 😜.
Yep, spin launch puts a spin on the item launched.
No rail wear on spinlaunch. Easier to reuse.
I worked under Michael Schoenfeld as a nuclear propulsion intern in 2014. We worked on an NTP reactor design under the name of "SCCTE".
Great channel fraser. You and event horizon, some of the best content on all of youtube.
This channel is much better than Event Horizon.
@@daemeonation3018event horizon is first class.
@@Pacer... I have an m.s. in physics. In order to not say anything negative, I will just say that Frasier Cain asks much better questions.
@daemeonation3018 so what.. I don't care what qualifications you have. You are a nobody. Event horizon is top quality.
Some of Event Horizon's content is a bit too "wishful thinking," in my opinion. Some, not all.
I think he has great presentation and presence, and is a good story teller.
More interviews like these please. Would be cool to see some visuals of what you are speaking too.
Seconded
Great to get someone who is knowledgeable about mass drivers on the show! It was great that he could dispel some of the myths, such as the myth that the atmosphere is an insurmountable problem.
Fireball XL5 electromagnetic sled launcher , yes please . Needs to be attached to an easily land able space plane thingy
The Fireball XL5 sled launcher was rocket propelled, and SpaceX have already solved the landing.
I don't know what that is, but sounds like something I should make in my backyard... 🤔
@@MCsCreations It was a kids TV series using puppets by Gerry Anderson in the 60s, he later did Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, UFO and Space 1999.
The late 1970's tv show 'Buck Rogers, In The 25th Century' used electro-magnetic propulsion to launch their spaceships.
thanks Frazer I am 87 I wish I was 27 and could see all these ideas comming to fruition a great interview as allways
I can see the benefits, but have you also considered, payloads going to space don't just go straight up, but have to enter orbit, what is going to make it change direction to enter orbit, vacuum tubes 10+ kilometres long, can't remain straight, how will this be achieved? Good idea, but I doubt this is feasible.
The problem with evacuated maglev sled tubes replacing first stages is exiting the tube, not just a breakaway cap which is a source of all kinds of chaos, hitting the atmosphere is even worse. It's a complete loss of directional control and structural integrity, along with heat and turbulence.
well, it is the heat and turbulence that causes the loss of structural integrity.
Fireball XL5 was the first time I saw a science fiction electromagnetic rail launcher
Moving an electromagnetic launcher to the moon or even just to orbital space seems pretty expensive!
Go back 30 years and read the book The millennial project. The author posits putting the accelerator on Kilimanjaro, already halfway out of the atmosphere requiring much lower launch speed and energy. I believe Martin Savage was the author. It's very very well thought out and I believe it was published around 1985. There used to be clubs around the US that would gather and discuss these ideas. The book goes way beyond that in terms of colonizing the galaxy but the mass driver on Kilimanjaro was the most striking idea in my mind. And as for spin launch, hahaha.
I remember that book. I think he proposed putting blocks of ice on the back of the EM-launched spacecraft and then zapping them with lasers.
Sounds like it essentially changes from a super conductor to a resistor when it warms up.
This is a VERY good interview!!!! I wish more (interviews in general) were like this..!!
Awesome interview Frasier!!!
The engineering of the superconductors is going to be challenging. The mechanical forces on the ceramic superconductor during the quench are going to be extreme.
Fraser, now do a segment on the hydrogen launcher. Interview John Hunter at Greenlaunch about past efforts. You can launch to 8 km/sec with no superconductors, with a device so simple and cost effective, just concrete and steel, that it is remarkable more effort into it hasn't been deeply researched. This was worked on at LLL (SHARP program) during SDI, but dropped when SDI fell away. They got a ten lb projectile up to mach 9 before the money was cut.
I really like the idea of a 3 phase AC launcher. it has a series of coils that are all driven by a AC signal. Capacitors make each coil resonant. The spacing between coils would get farther as the projectile speeds up. There are limits to the spacing range so there would be different frequencies. The only problem is that super conductors don't like AC currents so this would have to use chilled copper. This would be for a lunar launcher for lots of small packages.
With any non-zero resistance circuit, any current change will introduce additional losses beyond purely resistive, and AC, being constant change, is no exception, not to mention poower factor losses.
They have found superconducting graphene that is controlled by a small angle from 2 sheets of 2 dimensional graphene. It's also one thousand times more energy density than copper. It's 200 times stronger than steel and 10 times lighter than aluminum. Check it out. A simple Google search is all you need.
This is my favorite interview so far. Clear, and focussed on the engineering. Awesome! Question, what would be the theoretical limit in speed for such a system,in a vaccum?
The theoretical maximum speed isn't known. We estimate four to six kilometers per second are achievable. The essential problem becomes one of how fast you can switch the quench motor. The good news is that the two magnetic fields, one from the carrier sleeve (the armature that is pulled) and one from the stator (that does the pulling) engage with each other at the speed of light. There isn't any good news after that. ; ) We aren't publicly sharing particular design details at this point.
@@freeprint Thank you for this answer. In true scientific manner it only strenghtens my curiosity.
600000 miles per second
With a spacecraft accelerated before leaving the ground I think we should find a way to beam energy to the craft as it goes up towards space. Possibly this could be done with stations on the ground using narrow coherent energy beams that stay aimed at a receiving dish on the craft - sending it energy that is used to provide thrust using an inert propellant or some other way, And as the craft rises to space, satellites using solar energy could send energy to it the same way.
Note that their code showed pull only was the best method for mass driver construction. The goal is lunar materials launched to catchers for materials for building L5 colonies.
Thanks Fraser! A solenoid-style launch system on the moon is something I've wondered about for years now, really glad proper engineers have been looking at this.
If the technology were developed enough and the launch system long enough, might passenger launches become possible? I'd imagined a circum-lunar launcher with a long, gentle acceleration and shaped to carry a vehicle off at a tangent.. Great interview!
Amazing to think that the whole of humanity could become focused on space colonization within the next few decades.
The one prime place to put a EM rail system, would be at Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It is on the Equator. It raises 4,900 metres and is the highest mountain in Africa. To the east is Indian Ocean (splash down area). When it comes to ramping up on a power rail, this is probably the best place on Earth to launch anything. Sadly one needs to avoid quakes and eruptions, for it is a volcano. In another idea. Get the thing up to 1.5 Speed of Sound, and then turn on our Ram-Jet or Rocket-Motors, and leave the power sled behind.
Read Dr O'Neill space settlement. Grad students built one and did the sim code for mass drivers in the 70's.
Sadly, those are the proof-of-concept prototypes that revealed all the problems Dillon explores in this video!
It turned out that mass drivers are much more difficult to manufacture than anticipated, especially if you want to use them more than once before you have to rebuild them. (The US Navy managed at least six or seven firings of their railgun before it needed major refurbishment-I believe the actual number of rounds is classified? So I'm just passing along a guess- but their mass-driver approach wasn't feasible either, long term.)
Let's hope that Dillon and his team have come up with a solution with this "quench" accelerator idea!
A mass driver is not a rail gun. It is a series of electtomagnetic hoops using pull only to accelerate the bucket. There is no physical contact.
when an object is launched into orbit at 8km/s, its direction must be correct and still at 8km/s, it is not enough that its initial speed is 8km/s.
You let him off the hook with a fatal flaw very early in the video. As soon as he claimed that 5km/s speed through the atmosphere was a solved problem by orbital reentry vehicles, his credibility went to zero. Here's why. As you know, when reentering from orbit, you encounter the low end of the pressure gradient first. Initially, even 1.5 times the height of the Karmann line, atmospheric drag slowly takes place, scrubbing speed gently off your reentry vehicle. That slows you down enough to progressively encounter denser air as your speed decreases enough for you to survive it.
It's well known that if you retrofire too long and your reentry angle is too high everybody dies. You have to stay in the more rarified atmosphere even above the Karmann line long enough to scrub off enough speed to survive progressively denser atmosphere. Nobody goes 11,000 miles per hour below the Karmann line. This guy is cavalierly proclaiming that all the problems of 5km/s through the atmosphere have been solved and jumping from a vacuum inside a several kilometer long tube to the lower or even mountaintop altitude is not a problem. And he's dead wrong.
First of all there is no way to produce an acceptable vacuum in a several kilometer long tube. Secondly, when the projectile hits dense atmosphere at 5 km/s it will be instantly destroyed. Visit the American Meteor Society website and read the statistics. Meteors traveling at 11 km/s explode above 80 km altitude. 5 km/s is 11,000 miles per hour, The X-15 holds the all-time atmospheric speed record at 4500 mph at an altitude of 50 miles! This company proposes 11,000 mph at 20 miles or less. It's just not going to happen. A projectile emerging suddenly from an unattainable vacuum to atmospheric pressure at 11,000 mph might as well be shot into a concrete wall. Reentry vehicles benefit from working from the correct end of the pressure gradient.
He was also wrong about tossing something into orbit with one boost from the ground, and to your credit you touched on that. When you apply prograde thrust all you do is raise the height of the apogee 180º around the planet from your position. Your perigee remains below ground level unless you wait half an orbit and apply prograde thrust from the apogee to raise your perigee above the atmosphere. Even if your projectile could survive launch, and it couldn't, it would just crash back to Earth well before it could perform an orbit.
Working with much lower necessary velocities, launching from the Moon and with a rocket booster to achieve proper orbits and injection to Earth transfer could be useful. But on Earth, this thing is a dead project.
From your standpoint your job is to get him to state his program as completely as possible. Had you presented the atmospheric problem and not letting him get away with his "those problems are all solved" malarkey, I realize the interview would have been over and we wouldn't have got to hear is spiel. It's important for people to realize how reasonable impossible things can be made to sound so they are less gullible in the future.
Thanks Fraser for the answer for my question. I'm just a layman who now a little bit about quenching ❤❤
Hah, me too. You could see I had no idea about this topic either.
Just started the video, can't wait to finish it. I was recently thinking about a future system for orbital installations. Using scaled-up versions of similar technologies, by constructing a cascade of "boost" rings that function as force amplifiers/multipliers for the spacecraft, you can enhance the effect of an orbital gravity sling shot, resulting in increased local velocities and enabling extended exploration of deep space. Less fuel burn overall.
NOPE. doesn't work that way. adding deltaV that way causes a reverse delta
V in the opposite direction. And that deltaV can only be nutralized by rockets.
I've been imagining this project in this exact design( Electromagnetic propulsion in a vacuum tube as a method of space launch) for the past 15 years. It's amazing to see someone actually bringing it to life. I only wish I could share some of my ideas with the design team.
High Temperature Superconductors are ceramics. For high stress environments use the low temperature superconductors like NbTi. Fermilab used them in Tevatron II and they are currently being used in the LHC. NbTi is cooled to 1.9K using liquid Helium and can achieve 9-10 Tesla fields.
Those ceramics are a thin film deposited on a high-strength Hastelloy substrate and are handling high stress. 400 MPa tensile stress is no exception as design stress. Operation at 1.9 K is fine for a DC magnet but the cooling costs and cool down time would be prohibitive in this application.
Fascinating, excellent interview 😊
I am curious about the rate of reusability and efficiency of the a quench gun. When quenching the coils, presumably the magnetic field energy is converted to heat. That heat needs to be pumped out of the coils to get them to superconduct again in preparation for the next launch. How is the energy allocated between powering refrigeration equipment and charging the coils? How much of the total energy input is converted to kinetic energy? How long does it take to cool down a coil?
I imagine this could be combined with the spin launch idea to straighten out there launch trajectory and give an additional boost in velocity and not need a 5km vacuum tube
How much of an advantage would it be to overcome gravity by launching at altitude, like Denver, or higher, than what they do now at sea level?
Nope. such a thing requires changes in deltaV - and that change has to be compensated for somehow - and currently only rockets work.
I wonder if a room temperature superconductor finding would be useful for this. I mean, actually ambient air temp. Maybe it would weigh less and get us closer to 8 km/s. Thanks, Fraser!
Absolutely, it would be a total gamechanger.
A room temperature superconductor would help with literally anything and everything technology
If it's magnetic or uses electricity, a room temperature superconductor would make it better.
@@frasercain That LK-99 room temp superconductor has maybe been confirmed by independent researchers.
I saw someone confirm it for 100 K, but that's well below room temperature.
Actually what you want to launch needs to include electronics and they could be damaged be the strong electromagnetic fields in the - let's say - rail gun. So instead it's probably to use ordinary gas pressure like in a light gas cannon. Then we run into a scaling problem, are limited to small payloads etc. Btw you need to shield against the heavy air resistance which burns your "projectile" down if you don't.
I made a coil accelerator in high school (at home for science fair) that launched a magnetized sewing needle about a foot into a 3/4 plywood back board. It used a 12 volt battery, a high voltage transformer coil and 200 feet of very fine magnet wire wrapped arround a tiny glass tube for a smooth launch. It was wildly impractical and over heated after the 3rd launch but it was a fun learning experience.
What a fantastic project!
Did you mean half a inch into 3/4 ply ?
@@petertaylor4758 yes from about 12 inches from the 3/4 plywood. Didn't win because "it could be a weapon" but I saw it as a prooff of concept.
@@gooberclese oh ok, I wasn't sure what you meant
Really love your channel Fraser - fascinating interview and conversation!
Alternate title: "Rocket and powerful magnetic launcher inadvertently destroyed by a technician who stands too close while holding a tablet".
ahh yeah -- midnight star -- some of cleveland's finest funk --
Electricity
I got the power to energize
I got the power to magnetize
I'll fill you up with my energy
You'll be my toy, I'll be your electricity
You've got my head all wired up
It seems I never can get enough
My gears are running mighty hot
It feels so good, don't you ever stop
You never let me touch your lovely body
You make me hot and I wanna party
So won't you come a little closer to me
You'll be my toy, I'll be your electricity
(Electricity) Let me charge your battery, baby
(Electricity) Energize me
(Electricity) Use me
(Electricity) I'm your utility, baby
Well, come on, energize me
"Accidental quench event" -does that mean electricity arcing out of the MRI magnet? Or an exothermic explosion? Both?
(And if this is disastrous for an MRI, how did the "quench" launcher work without destroying itself as its payload launches?)
generally explosions as the coolant is wildly execeeded in its capacity which is the cause of the explosion.
I can see small payloads under high acceleration launched to something closr to low earth orbit. The biggest challenge is storing enough energy and delivering the intense amounts of power needed to accelerate a significantly meaningful ammount of mass over a short enough launch facility to reach a low earth orbit.
I have to listen it again. Can we consider the armature M. Dillon is talking about (12:20) as a stage 0 making the movement with the ship until the end of the rail gun? If Fraser you can return on that subject that would be awesome. A stage 0 making stuffs like at the Starbase, along the railgun. Thanks all.
Lol, great content. But still "Why call it a quench motor? it reminds meof a sword quenched in water"
"Well....its coomplex"
26 mins later
"well, they run as hot super condutors, then we cool them"
THANK YOU! lol
If the launcher is stretched to about 50 to 100 km, the g forces can reduced to human-rated levels. Target 4 km/sec and 6000-7000 meter elevation, and the launch vehicle is basically a second stage. The atmospheric heat load and max Q are tolerable.
Build it in Ecuador going east up the Andes mountains.
Not really. hitting the atmosphere is still like hitting a brick wall.
Surprisingly enough, that isn't the case. This is an area of engineering research that is fairly well understood and tested in specialized wind tunnels and evaluated in simulation with good numerical models. @@jessepollard7132
Not a bad thought. There are a couple of problems with longer. The first is economics although that may not be critical. Even though a ten times longer system would have (roughly) ten times higher up front capital costs, it turns out the critical cost is in the operating costs. (Like the railroads.) The greater problem might be that the launch tube really wants to be straight. Even a very slight curve is tough for package centering of the carrier sleeve in a non contact system. Maybe longer is V 2 !
Building just under a meter underground would give thermal properties, so at a depth for decent foundations, it can be built with potential use atop of it..perhaps under a road, as an example regardless of the particular viability
The kind of acceleration that would take place inside a electromagnetic "railgun" type tube would probably not be safe for humans, only inanimate objects. Otherwise I would imagine the acceleration inside the tube would peel the skin off our faces.
Yes, they did mention this briefly. He said the best uses would be raw matterials- rolls of metal sheeting, fuel, water, etc. Basically the higher the mass, the higher the volume, and the less squishy it is, the more this approach makes the most sense.
The rail gun is always a cool subject. Making contact is just a supid. You need a space to protect the projectile. A layer of aluminum solves the issue, and it acts like highspeed railroad rail. It creates a layer. They knew this in 1965.
This technology would work well with buoyant mega towers built somewhat like airships. They could use conventional electric lifts to get to the launch section. After separation from the launcher the orbital stage would have some kind of conventional rockets optimized for vacuum.
Fascinating stuff indeed! Fantastic interview, Fraser! Thanks!!! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
BTW, I'm absolutely skeptical about the superconductor "breakthrough", but at the same time I'm kinda crossing my fingers... And I'm not superstitious either.
There was no breakthrough. The material turned out not to be a superconductor.
Seriously? Come on man you can do better than that.
I wish I was in the ‘room’. And this was before the room temperature room pressure superconductor announcement. So much new stuff in this conversation. Thanks Fraser.
the "room temperature room pressure superconductor" turned out to be false.
I noticed he said "pull, pull, pull"- and this is the main reason why most electric motors waste current and produce excessive heating. If he was to design these linear motors to both pull and push, the pushing phases would "self-quench" (invert or repel) the current, while simultaneously amplifying (or at least doubling) the total B field flux density which is applied to the forward momentum of the payload (because there is virtually no inductive time delay on the quench). This method would greatly reduce the actual current consumed by the stator coils, as well as greatly reducing the heating of the coils (because the electrons in the stator are decelerated by polar opposition to the magnetized rotor or capsule. This method greatly reduces the initial "start-up" current drain, while it would also help to use starting motor (or an initial push from a chemical explosive) so as to initiate the applied current on the push or "quench phase" of operation. Of course, this would require a permanently magnetized (or electromagnetic) capsule that would still need to be recovered by some means (if not sent to orbit with the payload); but ordinary, copper coils could be used effectively and repeatedly, and affordable means of cooling, such as liquid nitrogen could be used.
it still generates heat.
When you think of what makes any "gun" useful, it's the ability to launch enough mass, with enough velocity to impart force on the intended target. But as every hunter knows having the capacity to fire a second shot quickly and accurately is a requirement that can't be ignored. A battleship that could only fire once and need a new barrel immediately is impractical, so in time they improved the technology to changing barrels every few hundred shots. It became a useable weapon that still required a huge amount on guidance technology to get them accurate at least a few times. The main hurdle was materials. Inventing the metals that could withstand the friction and pressures involved with launching a 2000 pound projectile 20 miles. The rail gun effort was never able to solve the materials part of the challenge.
Exactly, as he said in the interview, the generals were sick of people bringing them railgun concepts that tore themselves apart with each firing. They need to be used hundreds of times.
on a side note, you could put a person in a tank of liquid ie a launch chamber the liquids may cushion Excelleration and deceleration ie liquids become like solids under shock or use Oblak or make Oblak with olive oil and make a fluid that hardens via electric current ie corn flour and olive oil becomes solid when electricity is added
Jan Troska was writing about this in 1940’s. He wrote books published in Czech called Zápas s nebem (Fight with the sky). I read it as a child and has been wondering why that never got implemented.
People have tried. The problem is that the enormous forces tear the gun itself apart.
Thanks for this one, Fraser.. I hope you'll consider bringing David Dillon back for a later interview to share progress being made on this project at some future date.
Oh, if it actually works... you bet. :-) There's got to be something better than rockets.
I remember spending several years in my school years trying to figure out where in the world you could place a roughly 10-mile-long rail launcher, the roughly best location I could find was launching up over the Western Sahara, low population density, nearish the equator, there is a mountain to build along and the climate is dry. Beyond that, maybe the island of new guinea? Could also be a few other small islands that have suitable mountain terrain and big enough. but regardless finding a good launch location that also has a suitable mountain side is pretty difficult.
I've heard Mt Kilimanjaro as a suggestion .
@@frasercain that could work though mt kilimanjaro is a popular destination as well as there are a few local population centers that would make it complicated
Crap, I need to go to sleep but I don't want to miss one second of this video. Back to your playlist, I guess...
Pace yourself, I've got a 1000 videos.
Quenching also refers to dissipating the charge on a photoconductor by exposing it to controlled light.
Great questions Fraser
quenching a fire is lowering the energy produced. so he's saying stopping the thing at the right time to release the projectile at its highest velocity. like snapping a whip. so magnetic system can be like wormholes which act like rubber bands.
Very informative and interesting.
very cool...so many different exciting technologies being explored for space commercialization.
For the Moon it should be great. On Earth though it may well be able to replace a first stage. High temperature super conductors should be able to help. (You said "low temperature" in the intro'). Liquid nitrogen temperature super conductors are not so big a problem now I understand.
Ground based energy helps to over come the limits of the rocket equation. So yeah any velocity you can put in by an electromagnetic launcher before you light the engines is good.
You'd have to stiffen the launch vehicle considerably, maybe too considerably.
This is very intriguing.
Once again, clearly conquering the moon is the priority. We must build a moon base, get comfortable in that environment and reach out from there. Let’s walk before we run.
The KEY to the solar system is rh return to the moon to sray. tjl
I hope more funds will be allocated to the development of electromagnetic fields altogether. Within a few years you'll see the greater benefits of it
Solid!
Top KEK!
Peace be with you.
Hmmm. Normally when a superconductor quenches, there is a huge release of magnetic energy that will quickly turn into heat if it isn't used to do work...
You would have to time this so the magnetic energy would be absorbed by the projectile as it passes. If you don't, it goes boom.
That would be a very hard system to time correctly.
Cool thought problem.
Great video ! Arthur C. Clarke B. Sc. wrote an artical for the Journal of the BIS in November 1950 titled "Electromagnetic Launching as a Major Contribution to Spaceflight" for on the moon ! And T.A.Heppenheimer wrote a paper in in 1977/1978 for the AIAA from a known location since July 19, 1976 (just East of the Apollo 11 landing site) to L2 ! ! ! Talked to a person who had a patent issued 1989 for an electromagnetic launcher for him and his uncle. At an open house saw a demo of a small scale launcher for use on earth or the moon. The design for the lunar launcher would be about 200 m long at 2000 gees. and reach L2 in about 2.97 days. The solar powered machine would launch twice an hour to L2. The mass of the launcher could be equaled in about nine months. Virgin Glalaric is doing a bunney hop for September the 8th in New Mexico ! R. Lipinski
that is T. Lipinski musr proof read more...
im wondering if the "quenching" really is fast enough to prevent the "projectile" from getting pulled back. it doesnt really sound like something that can be done in milliseconds.
Quenching is removing the energy from an object or system. Blacksmiths remove heat from their work. Therefore, they quench it.😊
Hmmm say the projectile was magnetized to one polarity then magnetize the rails to the same polarity, perhaps with microscopic clearances... worth a try?
In the future the boring company may be able to drill up through Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
Which is the Most Ideal place for this as the Highest point near the Equator by far ( actually about 12 miles further from Earth's center than Mount Everest due to the equatorial bulge)
This gives a 14 mile headstart on a LEOrbit journey of 1200 miles. The typical first stage of a rocket goes only 40 miles high so one might need to have an explosive charge shoot the rocket from a launch casing howitzer to reach the 40 mile equivalent of a first stage. Then a starship type rocket takes it the other 1160 miles. But I think one could eliminate the entire first stage with all that fuel burning.
With the possibility of higher temperature and cheaper superconductors and modular nuclear fission or possibly fusion plants in the future. This could really get a lot of mass to orbit very cheaply ( like water, fuel, food, and metals or structural building supplies )
The number two ideal site is Mount Killamanjero in Africa or a 3rd possibility is in Borneo.
I really hope that some Billionaires decide to fund more work on this effort.
Good thought. I would love to talk with folks at The Boring Company about this.
This is exactly how I think we should be getting space vehicles off the ground. No ground based system will ever be able to get objects into orbit because the highest the perigee can ever be is the point of launch. A secularization burn will be required. However, getting the first 5km/s without using any propellants would enable single stage to orbit and landing. That would be a huge game changer. Also, I would like to see the g force calculations for 0 to 5 km/s. It may not be comfortable, but possible for manned missions eventually. A 10 km long vacuum tube with its end at the top of a mountain (preferably a really high mountain) is the right idea. The more of the atmosphere these launches can bypass, the better.
Why do they currently do the launching from sea level instead of mountain tops? 🤷♂️
@@malcolmrickarby2313 1. They want the beginning of the trajectory to be over an unpopulated area to minimize casualties in the event of a rapid unscheduled disassembly.
2. Shipping things by sea is convenient for objects that are too massive to ship by road or rail.
3. The initial velocity off the launch pad means that drag from air isn't a really big problem. Max Q, the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure occurs when the launch vehicle is several thousand feet in the air and velocity is close to super-sonic.
An object travelling at 5 km/s at sea level would experience so much heating that it would melt or simply disintegrate from the compression stress that it would encounter. With an evacuated launch tube about 10 km long, the start point could be at sea level while the exit point could be at the peak of the tallest mountain on Earth.
Spinlaunch uses an electromagnetic motor to spin and slowly add energy to its hybrid rockets and a weight to ballance it on the other side. At the point of release, it releases tgr hybrin rocket in one direction and a mass with identical angular momentum in the other direction. I wonder if energy can be recovered from that and delivered to the hybrid rocket throug a comparably short electromagnetic accelerator.
I've often thought about this since I first saw that Superman ride! I seem to recall, providing enough power was an issue even with that, but that doesn't stop one from dreaming. I posted a question on another video as to why we don't use this sort of system, or even a fuel powered carriage on rails to launch rockets. Even if a rocket was launched at 100mph, that would save a massive amount of fuel and weight in simply overcoming that initial static inertia. Elon needs to sort himself out and produce a fleet of Boring Company 'StarBorers' that dart into the moon and bore tunnels for Spaceport runways as well as sub-terrain environments to live in without the worry of surface regolith 🚀
100% the right approach for space or moon launches. Too many issues with the thermal and physical shock of hitting our atmosphere, suddenly at Mach 10, let alone Mach 20. Hypersonic flight is far from a 'done thing' Its still very experimental and not fully understood. Yes re-entry vehicles do it but they are hitting very thin atmosphere at Mach 20 and slowing down gradually. Even if the launch tube could somehow be a mile tall, the air is still very thick. I guess you could build it in the Atacama Desert! Maybe something launching with a scramjet on it might work. Get it to a more modest launch speed and then accelerate it with the scramjet. At least you only need to carry some fuel and no oxidizer.
29:40 i had been thinking much the same for half the interview - imagine an interstellar voyage (generation ship?) where firing mined asteroid/s back to Earth is your reaction mass.
you still have to find or keep asteroids to slow down. you aren't changing the problem, just different means of gaining delta V.
I would be interested to see how this compares to spin launch... also is would a rotating space tethers replace a second stage?
Really good and interesting interview. David Dillon is a wealth of functional knowledge.
Does quenching stop the current in the coil? When the current stops, the energy stored in the magnetic field is released as the field collapses?
yes, as it turns into heat.
correct me if I'm wrong but the joules needed would be Work = Force*distance with Force=mass*acceleration so work = mass*accel*distance. Assume 10 km long pipe with a 9,100 kg (10 tons) package reaching 5,000 m/s at pipe exit. You come up with 9,100 kg * 1000 m/s/s*10,000 m = 91,000,000,000 Joules. Is that 91 gigajoules? I don't remember my prefixes when numbers get that big.
At 91 gigajoules per shot and one shot per day = 33 terajoules. I don't have all the stats but I think we're talking about more energy than some nations produce. I'd love to see some real data from the folks that are planning this.
How much could be accomplished by launching a Falcon9 or starship at 1-2km/s!?
The acceleration must be 1250 m/s^2 and that translates into a work of 113.75 GJ . The energy is not the problem, but the power needed. Accelerating 9100 kg from 0 to 5000 m/s in a 10 km track takes 4 seconds, so the power is about 28.4 GW (and I'm not even considering the losses).
They definitely need superconductors not just for the track but also for storing energy and realease it quickly through a superconducting magnetic energy storage.
You need to use "KineticEnergy = 1/2 m v^2". It works out to 113 TJoules which is 32 MWh of electricity. At say $100 per MWh, this is $3,200 worth of electricity. The cost of electricity will be $0.35 per kg divided by the electrical efficiency of the launcher. Much better than the ~$80,000 per kg that NASA pays SpaceX (and other companies) to resupply the ISS.
I accidentally made an electric gun in electrical shop in Jr High. I coiled lots of wire around a hollow wood core. Dropped a screw with the head cut off in it when I plugged it in. It got sucked in, left a big dent in the wood base. It bounced out, luckily missed my head. We never found the bolt.
excellent interview...this is so important.
he also eludes to the issue with thermal nuc that nasa is pursuing. electricity is much better...
Thanks a lot, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I find it not appropriate just like the giant rail cannon with the same magnetic launch system. The other is a land based laser system in which a study by McGill University professors is also inadequate and cost , mostly safety will make them part of the not so brilliant idea.
The real fundamental step is with Wernher Von Braun's system, it's to increase and incorporate a viable sustainable solution. The problem is the ignition, heating and cooling.
Although the payoff is greater displacement and fuel efficiency and a much longer duration. The plan is a hybrid spacecraft that uses a runway and lands on a runway but also continues to be a useful platform for landing on other planets to moons with a change in configuration again. The weight of the craft is also important as well but there are many tricks still waiting to be applied. The ion thrusters are not making progress as they should but the application of more and sent through a magnetic coupling which will provide the extra torque will be an inventive measure that apparently no one has looked to but I did so I can have steering also a way to slow down. All what I said here isn't fiction but aligned with facts to build a better craft .
fascinating, thank you
Reminds me of the atom bomb rocket (50's ?) .. set 1 bomb off, it hits the pusher plate coupled by springs/shock absorbers ta da. Replace the bomb with a quench tube and voila, high efficiency propulsion. Might be fun to engineer/analyze wrt present rockets.
So on the NIMBY issue, is it louder than regular rocket launches? Cuz those are pretty loud....
yup.
Why not just use this system to launch fule instead of a hole rocket, we can do just a payload that way its lighter and easer to throw. That way we combined that with star ship and have its fule already up there ready to be refule
This is one of my childhood ideas.
Would such a system (build on the moon) be able to shoot transport capsules directly to earth (without getting into moon or earth orbit first, and with no propulsion system on board). Would be great to just shoot your stuff from the moon directly to earth.
Yes it could. Orbital mechanics are complicated but the fact is, you could send a payload to just about anywhere in the solar system.
sure. you might read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" as that is how the Luna colonies declared independence.
Might think about launching buckets of water to a low earth orbiting station that processes the water to rocket fuel and supplies the fuel for the next stage to rockets destined for significantly higher orbits.
Cheaply moving buckets of water to space may also serve other purposes like shielding for micrometeors and radiation or hydroponic and or algae based food supplies for future deep space missions to Mars and beyond.
From the tyranny of the rocket equation to the tyranny of Newton's third law 😅
Yep, pretty much. The tyranny of physics either way you go!
I always had the idea of a electromagnetic-assist launch system. The system would assist the launch of a chemical rocket so you don’t burn up so much fuel during the launch. Kind o f a hybrid-launch-system.