would this work

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forspace

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im just wondering if this idea for a new launch prototype would work, would it be possible for a rail gun with opposing nuclear magnets be able to launch pods , shuttles etc. into space? another idea i had would be for a underwater rail gun to force air pressure under an object propelling it to a fast enough speed to break our atmosphere. ive been thinking about this as a kid and i would just like someone to let me know why or why not it would work. my email is durand216@yahoo.com ( please make subject of email "dreamed"
 
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mental_avenger

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Nuclear magnets? What are they?<br /><br />In any case, accelleration is determined by structural strength, Q-Max, and altitude.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p style="margin-top:0in;margin-left:0in;margin-right:0in" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="2" color="#ff0000"><strong>Our Solar System must be passing through a Non Sequitur area of space.</strong></font></p> </div>
 
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nacnud

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I think that the idea of sinking a tube vertically into the ocean, pumping out the water slowly and then letting it back in fast to propel a rocket out the end has been looked at, but I don't have any details.<br />
 
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rogers_buck

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My first rocket worked kinda like that. You filled it half full (half empty) with water and pumped it up with air. It would go shooting off a few 10s of feet and land on the roof. I then graduated to a two part liquid rocket, vinegar and baking soda. After that, it was time to set the deseert on fire with solids. But I never had a nuclear magnet...<br />
 
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nacnud

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Mine too <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />, in fact my only rocket as well. I was on a rest day on a mountaineering trip to the Alps and a bit board. A bicycle inner tube, some glue, a 2L coke bottle and a pump later and I wasn’t board any more but I was a lot damper <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />What I meant was sinking a tube, a bit like a missile silo, 100s of meters into the ocean. Pumping out the water, putting a rocket in the silo and letting the water rush back in, acting as a method for assisted launch. <br /><br />Dunno where I heard about this as its not my idea...<br />
 
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grooble

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I remember the germans building a railgun in france to shoot artillery shells 200 miles over the sea to hit london. Luckily the airforce destroyed it in time.
 
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najab

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That wasn't a railgun. It was just a big artillery piece.
 
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nacnud

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I don't think that was a rail gun, it was more like Sadams super guns but with a multi-stage charge reducing the maximum chamber pressure to managable levels but I'm not sure of the specifics...
 
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a_lost_packet_

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Well, there were "railguns" in WWII but they weren't of the type being discussed. They were huge guns mounted on railroad tracks. ie: "rail"gun. The mobility factor was key since control of the air was an issue.<br /><br />There was a large gun mounted outside of Paris if I recall correctly.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1">I put on my robe and wizard hat...</font> </div>
 
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eldensmith

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The V3 project was a Nazi "super-gun"<br /><br />V3 in the same series as V1 & V2 - - astronautix has some interesting stuff on this. or google "gun launched projectiles"<br /><br />Today, the US military is looking at shooting mini scram jets from anti-tank guns to maintain velocity and armor penetration capability over longer distances.
 
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meteo

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It's called a "mass driver." I had the idea independently as a kid too, I got it when I learned how an electric motor works; eventually I searched the web and unfortunately someone had allready come up with the idea.<br /><br />The mass driver is more popular as an idea for launching material instead of people. The reason for this is the mass driver has to be pretty long for the G's to be tolerable for people.<br /><br />It would technically work small scale models have been built, the problem is cost. <br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver<br />http://www.permanent.com/t-massdr.htm <br /><br />Edit: As other's have pointed out your confusing nuclear magnet with something else. I've only heard of nuclear magnets in two places the movie Mystery Men and with nuclear magnetic resonance (different), at least you didn't propose a quantum magnet. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />
 
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rogers_buck

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If the hole in the sea were 3200 ft deep then the pressure on the outside would be 100 atmospheres at the bottom or 1400psi. If the launch "plunger" were 200 inches in diagmeter that would give a total area (assuming a circle) of pix100x100 or 31,416in^2 for a total force of ~3*10^7 pounds at the bottom and -0- at the top. For a 100,000 lb rocket that would mean that it would stall somewhere down the shaft after the initial max acceleration at the verry bottom. Did I miss something?
 
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rogers_buck

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There was discussion about buildin a mass-driver on Kauai (my favorite island) a decade or so ago. It was to start around Barking Sands area and extend over the sea. It was proposed to launch small satellies into LEO. I had mixed feelings about it because I didn't want my haven sullied... So many ugly places in the world, y'know.<br />
 
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rogers_buck

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On the theme of kids rockets come to life, I posted a thread in Space Business & Tech on the "Cheapest way to orbit". The idea was to simulate a rubber band by using a long tether coated with PETN with a racoon at the end. The heavy lifting was done by the PETN high reslence explosive and elasticity was simulated by the racoon taking up the slack in the tether. It produced thrust equivalent to a decent first stage at the payload (earth-end). Since the impulse was propagating up the fiber and imparting thrust you wouldn't need a heavier object to anchor the far end, just the rockcoon to keep the fiber taught.<br /><br />
 
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nacnud

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Eeek imperial units! But in principle I think your right, however I think it was the initial acceleration and resulting velocity which was what the idea was about, I can’t really remember to be honest.<br /><br />So you could ignite the rocket when it reaches max velocity, use the hot gas in a confined space to help propel the rocket out of the silo, hum… this idea is going nowhere fast <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br />
 
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halman

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forspace,<br /><br />I am sorry to rain on your parade, but accelerating anything to orbital velocity inside the atmosphere is generally considered impossible, due to the fact that material objects burn up in the atmosphere at 8 or 9 kilometers per second, which is how fast an object has to be going to stay in orbit. It is possible to shoot something straight up into space, but it won't stay there without being accelerated to orbital velociity. The United States at one time welded two 155mm howitzer barrels end-to-end, and was able to shoot small items weighing 1 or 2 kilograms high enough to be considered 'in space,' but that subjects the payload to several thousand times the force of Eath's gravity for a moment, which is very hard on things. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>
 
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forspace

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hi i am the original poster. now to ask another question if the mass driver was an issue of cost. my theory would be that cost would be very little...magnets energy lasts for thousands of years. and to luanch material into orbit later being retrieved by a shuttle or other means could be worlds of less time, money,effort for nasa (private companies). back to the original subject, if rockets were atached when flight from this magnetic railgun was achieved would it be able to launch into space and acheive orbit? any answers would be greatly apreciated. i would just like to hear some other ideas that anyone else has regarding new sub-orbital or orbital flight! thanks for listening
 
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halman

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forspace,<br /><br />Adding rockets to any vehicle which is attempting to enter orbit is certainly going to improve the chances of success. Magnetic launchers are not considered practical for use on Earth because of the dense atmosphere. Although there are ideas for using them on Earth, the problem lies in the fact that velocities much greater than about 1000 miles per hour (1666 kph) cannot be safely acheived close to sea level. You have to climb about 5 miles (8 kilometers) before it is safe to travel that fast.<br /><br />Perhaps one of the most promising methods of launching is called airborne launching, where a carrier aircraft hauls the spaceship up to about 50,000 feet, or about 8 miles, and then lets it go, to ascend to orbit seperately. SpaceShip One was launched this way. This allows using the densest part of the atmosphere to help get the rocketship high enough to be the most effective, where there is very little air.<br /><br />Almost all launches currently use step-rockets, which have different stages, which are dropped as the fuel in each stage is used up. The space shuttle uses two solid fueled rockets to help it get to orbit. They seperate at about 130,000 feet, and parachute back down into the ocean, where they are recovered to be used again. The shuttle has to throttle its engines back right after take-off, so that it will not get going too fast before it has climbed a few miles. This is to prevent the vehicle from being torn apart by the atmosphere.<br /><br />Not until we get to the Moon, where there is no atmosphere, are magnetic launchers likely to be used. The Moon is a perfect place to use them, because the gravity there is very weak, in addition to there being no atmosphere. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>
 
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nexium

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I'll assume nuclear magnets means stronger than usual. My guess is such magnets could accellerate a space craft at 10 g for perhaps 1/10 second, but would become ineffective in just a meter or two, still at low speed. The magnet in the space craft could be dumped as soon as it became ineffective, but even so, I think a giant compressed spring would work as well or better = the same principle as a popgun. Neil
 
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meteo

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http://travel.howstuffworks.com/maglev-train.htm<br />http://science.howstuffworks.com/question610.htm<br /><br />A mass driver would not have a big chunk of magnetized iron or magnetite providing the magnetic current from it's undercarriage. The carriage would use superconducting magnets. The specifics would be very different depending on the size of the object you are launching. The propulsion would come from the electromagnetics on the rail switching. I belive that one problem with the switching for a mass-driver to deliver large objects to orbit, stems from how quickly the electromagnets on the rail have to switch. The enormous amounts of energy released by not 100% efficient wires with this much electiricty is a cooling problem. From an enginieering perspective the whole thing must be built with very small tolerances. Building something so large and percisely would be very expensive. The benefits are reusability, if your large amounts of stuff into space you don't want to send a rocket up each time. <br /><br />If such a mass driver was large enough (key) it would be able to send objects into space. Attatching a small rocket to the projectile could also be used.
 
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