/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15606918
starship makes mass drivers for lunar sample return viable.
unfortunately launching humans from the moon is another matter. you would want a track dozens of kilometers long.

Real space colonies won't be glamorous

>>15107291
What's meme about mass drivers? Just suspend it from balloons above Venus and there's your export facility.

>>14773618

I'd reccomend you guys take a look at the Orion's Arm website.

I'm dropping this link for anyone interested in space colonization ideas. Keep in mind it's a little on the hippy side regarding social aspects (I.E. David Brin's Uplift series, democracy=good, some Culture wankery), but there's stuff ranging from low-gravity adaptation to future foods to solar habitation. Isaac Arthur is a member on the site, but only mentioned it once. Pretty good source of worldbuilding data. Kinda disapointed there's no article on mass drivers.

I'd actually post links, but the bots are retarded.

>>14762259
Spinlaunch is a bad idea on earth, but is it a bad idea on other bodies? Do mass drivers make sense on the moon or mars compared to just using a cheap rocket like Starship? Is it even the configuration of a mass driver that is cheapest/makes the most sense on these other bodies if it works? Does the tech they are developing have any way to pivot to something useful if Starship etc starts working (like some have speculated that relativity space only uses the rockets to get funding for large metal 3d printing and the rockets themselves are just a tool to get hype and investment from VCs).
I was listening to this ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrc632oilWo ) with one ear while playing some games and basically the only thing I remember is that they are perhaps developing something new with respect to vacuum, perhaps it has other applications? Thats the only way this makes sense to me, they can't really expect to compete with actual rockets?

>>14678570
Gotta walk before you can run. A mass driver can deliver payloads to near anywhere in the solar system. Have the Mars colony automated, maybe even put some cylinders in L5 around Mars for remote operation. I don't know about you, but if we're going to space, I'd prefer not having my grandchildren get weak bones and be unable to visit other planets.

I think you're conflating this with the expansion into the Americas, but you'd be better off with established semi-regular orbital "islands" of people and cargo, and a cheap location for domestic agriculture and industry.

I'd reccomend you read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein for reference.

>>12399672
Outer Space Treaty
Even if you pretend it's just paper or say it's ok if it's done by private company other countries will treat it as a power grab and take measure to force your hand.

>I'm pretty sure the need for supplies from Earth would keep a Mars colony loyal.
Not in the mind of dreamers, some usually expect their Mars rebellion in the first generation (although that have more to do with storytelling convention requiring to keep the same characters)

>Satan
I get it

>>12399689
By the time Mars obtain the "self sustaining" technology developed on Earth I expect us to discover it is vastly easier and more efficient to remain in space or go straight for the Jovian system. A single asteroid can sustain several time human population.
Decades of movies taking the easy way with "terraformed planet" have indoctrinated people into thinking any planet shaped surface are equal.
It would be easier to colonize the Moon than Mars.

>hyper competent
Doesn't really take competence to have your name on ownership paper of a company too big to fail. We've honestly just reworked monarchy to live of the democracy they corrupt.
I give credit to SpaceX actual engineers, still, Starship is not actually a good design to do anything useful on Mars. Assuming its actually rated for month/year long mission.

>>12202880
It's not the wrong direction, just the wrong places.

We've brainwashed people to believe that planet like Mars are easy to live on, so easy that we might carelessly terraform them as we grow.
The truth is that Mars will not be easier to farm on than anywhere else, it's all going to be airtight space habitat, Mars is only barely good for resources and if we really wanted to expand as fast as possible we should colonize the Moon as a trial, then the Jovian moons for its incredible resources pools.

>>12043646
Nah that would be too expensive, earth's gravity well is too strong.
O'Neil cylinders would mainly be build from asteroid and moon materials.
That's one of the reasons why the moon is so important, we can just build big railguns and shoot the mined materials into space!

>>12016944
If his ambition is to be the most stupid individual on Earth, there's better way to do so.

Colonizing Mars is a meme born from
decades of SF show/story with too little budget or imagination, doing it easy with a earth-bis planet,
decades of president who want to plant another flag but don't want to spend the money,
decades of new frontier myth that ignore the size of infrastructure needed for self-sufficiency.

>>11941412
You didn't get it. You confuse extracting ore/gasses with actually using it,
That's why you missed the reason I brought up dry ice, radioactivity or temperature. Read it again, it was NOT a comparison it was a reminder of how complex even the basic are. You won't be expanding your habitable area with IRSU before you have complete industry chain.

Power source is the one aspect we will have the least trouble with, it's self-contained the input is simple and the fundamental won't change. External factor like pressure, temperature or dust, can be tested on Earth before risking human life. You will not discovers some kind of "Mars petrol" and work out the trick to refine and burn it using starship scavenged part.
The point of life-support/hydroponic system is to consume as little external ingredient as possible, the best place to test it would be in orbit to fix the errors when you are a shuttle away. The ideal would be a closed life-support.

Locating and extracting Mars resources will be the least complex part, it is a matter of probes, money and basic chemistry.
The hardest part is to learn how to build an efficient infrastructure, live there and repair every single part of it without a Earth-like atmosphere, air/water for washing, or spare part delivered in 24 hours.
This part is the 90% we don't know, Mars will just make it harder and slower to learn the same.

The Moon with a vacuum, 0.16G and conditions that stay constant for days before switching is likely the best and most rewarding place to learn.
But his is not just what you'll learn, everything you'll build for the Moon (like space dock) are also PREREQUISITE for any proper colonization of basically anywhere else, Phobos/Deimos or Mars.

>we'll have to throw out 90% of it and start again with the version for Mars.
You couldn't even get right what those systems are.

>Even engineers know this shit.
...making them far above you, because THEY think about the practical aspect.

In the Moon is a Harsh Mistress it is stated
>But Luna also has energy of position; she sits at top of gravity well eleven kilometers per second deep and kept from falling in by curb only and two and a half km/s high. Mike knew that curb; dayle he tossed grain freighters over it, let them slide downhill to Terra.
>Mike had computed what would happen if a freigher grossing 100 toones(or same mass of rock) falls to Terra, unbraked.
>Kinetic energy as it hits is 6,25x10^12 joules - over six trillion joules. This converts in split second to heat. Explosion, big one!
>(...)Wyoh honey' I said gently 'that's not how it works. Turn it around.. A two-kilotonne yield is equivalent to exploding two million kilograms of trinitrotoluol... a a kilo of TNT is quite an explosion - Ask any drillman. Two million kilos will wipe out good-sized town. Check, Mike.

The part I'm wondering, is that a projectile thrown from the moon with that mass and speed and impacting Earth would probably not reach the surface but rather transmit it's energy to the atmosphere and explode way before it reaches the surface(and therefore not hitting any hard target).

The thing is, that the atmosphere is a gradual distribution of gasses and wouldn't explode immediately, so the idea of Heinlein can still be true BUT only if the projectile explodes at the right altitude(and that's considering if the atmosphere doesn't act like a cushion disintegrating the projectile in mid air)

>>8588748
You can also use coilguns.
illustrations of future lunar bases often has such a launch track visible.

>>8461900
one wouldn't even need the development of the daedalus drive, a rail-launch ramp from the moon would work great given that deuterium would fuel the tokamak to achieve enough power to propell the vehicle at a high velocity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

Let's talk mass drivers

What are the biggest challenges currently stopping mass drivers from being a viable method for sending payloads into space?

How feasible is a small-scale mass driver that could launch a few cubesats up into space?

>>6956889
I like this idea, it sounds somewhat feasible. The moon is not exactly the most resource abundant place, but it's still far more effective than trying to bring shit from earth or to try and mine a passing asteroid...

It would OFC be far far easier for payloads to escape the Moon's gravity.... All the mining/production/industry would happen on a manned facility on the surface, and all the actual ship assembly would happen in lunar orbit, as it would be much easier to launch cargo off the moon than off the earth.

The biggest hurdle in this case is building the original habitat/production/mining facility on the moon in the first place... All the parts would have to be brought over from earth on small rockets.

And before anyone is willing to even start going on manned spaceflight missions (even to the moon), we are going to need a better way to protect ourselves from space radiation. Until this problem is solved no one is ever going to seriously even consider manned space expansion.

>>6956746
There is a lot of orbital debris out there, but it would definitely have to be taken to a manned processing/recycling facility (maybe one on the moon?) to be made useful