Ah, I was thinking more of a spinlaunch thing. Yours would make more sense, but would require a fuckton of industry in space or on the moon to have it work. I wonder how much more effective a self contained spinlaunch style thing would be on the moon.
Yeah, the application kind of assumes a lot of industry though. I mean if there isn’t a lot of industry, what are you shipping off the moon? But still, 50 km of rail is a lot, but it’s far less than the 325,000 km of tether that a space elevator would need…
Spin launch would definitely be feasible for some cargo, theoretically it would be a bit easier in vacuum, though that would probably also present other challenges. However, with a reasonably sized spin launch system (like the size of a 4 story apartment building), the payload needs to handle forces around 3000 Gs (which is a lot even for cargo). Unfortunately, you’d need to go larger for lower G force. So this also requires a lot of industry.
Ah, I was thinking more of a spinlaunch thing. Yours would make more sense, but would require a fuckton of industry in space or on the moon to have it work. I wonder how much more effective a self contained spinlaunch style thing would be on the moon.
Yeah, the application kind of assumes a lot of industry though. I mean if there isn’t a lot of industry, what are you shipping off the moon? But still, 50 km of rail is a lot, but it’s far less than the 325,000 km of tether that a space elevator would need…
Spin launch would definitely be feasible for some cargo, theoretically it would be a bit easier in vacuum, though that would probably also present other challenges. However, with a reasonably sized spin launch system (like the size of a 4 story apartment building), the payload needs to handle forces around 3000 Gs (which is a lot even for cargo). Unfortunately, you’d need to go larger for lower G force. So this also requires a lot of industry.