/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11031897
Because they're enormous, it's true that they're a more familiar megaproject and governments spend money to build enormous roads and bridges pretty often, but something of that scale hasn't been done for space before, and nobody's ever built a mass driver even a fraction as large as you'd need to accelerate space vehicles of significant tonnages. I'd support it though, build what is essentially a bigly bridge out into the gulf and prop your mass driver rails ontop of it, the bridge can be skeletal since it won't need to have cars driving over it, just a frame of girders to support the weight of the driver rail.

the Startram Project:
http://www.startram.com/

Get the idea of a space elevator platform out of your head.

Introducing the Lofstrom Launch Loop.

The design features an extremely long metal cable moving very fast. The momentum of the cable moving around a loop keeps the structure from falling down, while also supplying the energy needed to launch a spacecraft into orbit.

The calculations have been done. And it IS feasible with current technology. And at a price tag a bit under $5 billion who could say no?

Time to dump the elevator meme. Help me bring the Launch Loop to fruition.

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

Has anyone else looked into this? I wanted to devote my life to constructing it back in school but then life actually happened..... Here is a link with supporting documents from a conference. http://launchloop.com/LaunchLoop?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=isdc2002loop.pdf