/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.10972274]

How quickly could you send stuff between Earth and Mars if you built a giant railgun in Earth's orbit?

[Anonymous No.10972615]

>How quickly could you send stuff between Earth and Mars if you built a giant railgun in Earth's orbit?
Why don't you try it and find out?

[Anonymous No.10973150]

>>10972274
How would you slow them down?

[Anonymous No.10973313]

>>10973150
it would be aimed at another orbital ring on mars that would accelerate it down and dispatch a vessel to bring it safely down to the surface.

[Anonymous No.10973958]

I dont understand why anyone wants to go to Mars. There's nothing there. Its not even worthwhile real estate. Theres no possibility of terraforming it.

For that matter, I dont know why anyone wants to be in space period. Its literally nothing. Its freezing with no air and dark with lots of schrapnel shooting around.

Anyone saying we can even leave the solar system simply doesnt have a sense of its scale or the distance to the next nearest star

[Anonymous No.10973972]

>>10973958
Faggots and feminists have contaminated our society. Some people want to separate themselves from that kind of garbage. I'm sure you can imagine plenty of other societal issues some people would wish to escape. It's also an ego thing. A masculine thing, something men now seem incapable of comprehending since tney started getting feminised. Some of us want a real challenge to sink our teeth into. Something dangerous and risky. Something with a path to glory for the capable.There is no room on earth for real men anymore. We are not welcome here. We are being pushed out. We need somewhere to go.

We will harvest resources on mars and use them to build an orbital station with the mass of a moon. Fuck the doubters. Fuck the haters. Fuck everything and everyone who stands in the way. We will succeed.

>>10972274
The "railgun" will be built on the moon. It's a much cheaper methid of transportation than chemical propellants.

[Anonymous No.10973992]

>>10973972

A challenge would be saving Earth from the de-evolution of mankind. I dont see any virtue in ceding it to the dregs. I say the hell with retreating into some floating metal can or having ironic picnics on rocks with no air. Earth is the prize. Let space be what it is, a cold dark graveyard for all the planets that didnt make it, stars past their prime, a scrapbook of extinct galaxies and suns of distant peoples we can never meet.

I just got done listening to Newt talk up Trumps pitch for the moon and Mars. Talking about economic viability. How? Literally nothing up there. "We can extract and manufacture materials in space for conducting space craft. But for what? Why build hangars on the Moon for space craft that isnt there because theres nowhere worth going in reach for 80,000 years or more. How many times do we have to look at Mars to accept its dead and beyond resurrecting? Sure, you can build some tourist hotel on Mars. But no one really wants to spend the rest of their life inside a metal bubble that can pop and kill everyone instantly just to take some selfies

[Anonymous No.10974003]

>>10973992
I do not even understand how to debate you when you have ignored every point I made.

What I will say though is that earth is not going to be ceded to the dregs. Who do you think is going to be deported into the orbital habitat we build.

Are you stunted intellectually?

[Anonymous No.10974026]

>>10974003

Yeah, lets spend coin on making the dregs astronauts by 'deporting them' to space. Except a minute ago we were leaving Earth ourselves because you didnt want to be around degenerates.

I think you just want an excuse to ride a space-pony and play with ray-guns. Because your "points" were pure shit. You want to defend white-flight all the way off our own goddam planet one minute, then pay to 'deport' people off Earth the next instead of just returning them to compost for next to free.

just stfu if you have no goddam actual answers.

[Anonymous No.10974034]

>>10973958
>There's nothing there.
That’s what makes it worthwhile.

Mars is to be a forge world where we off-world as many nasty industrial processes as possible. All the environmental constraints we have on earth don’t exist on mars.

>open pits of waste
>exhausting fumes straight to atmosphere
>crashing asteroids into the surface and scooping up the good bits
>nuclear powered everything

Then we “terraform” earth and turn it into the garden of eden.

[Anonymous No.10974043]

>>10974026
>just stfu if you have no goddam actual answers

Are you a faggot or trans? Genuine question because you literally ignored my best points. Get fucked. You're obviously some kind of retarded basedboy. Refusing to engage further.

You're the sook bitching about the expense not me. Let us worry where the money will come from. Go back to getting bummed out the back of toilet blocks and leave the thinking and work to the real men.

You're a disapointment to your species. Why don't we just gas the poor people like hitler. Fuck I hate you so much.

[Anonymous No.10974052]

>>10974034

Well, that doesnt sound so bad except why build anything from Mars when no one is around, Its like having a gas-station & garage in a place with no traffic.

As for a place where we can dump anything, we already have that here. Theres already a hell-scape in Antarctica we never use for anything.

There has to be some environmental rules, even if they arent biological. We already have rules on how to avoid littering in LEO

[Anonymous No.10974071]

>>10974052
>why build anything from Mars when no one is around

Low Delta V to get off the planet. Close proximity to the asteroid belt. You can’t make many things in zero G, you need a planet.

>Antarctica
You can’t stuff terawatts of nuclear power into the Antarctic. You can’t dump waste into the Antarctic. You, really, shouldn’t be doing any of this industry stuff on the planet at all.

>there has to be environmental rules
Why? It’s like you said, nothing is there. There is no environment to ruin. We don’t let trash in LEO because it can rain back down on us. Mars is far enough away that none of that shit matters.

[Anonymous No.10974105]

>>10974071
>You can’t make many things in zero G, you need a planet.

Yeah but why pay to make it on Mars if you have to lift it back off anyways. Where would it go that it would be worth it. Everyone talking about manufacturing stuff, presumably for craft or habitat, but no one can say why there would be enough craft around anywhere if theres nowhere commercially viable to go or why anyone would be living or staying nearby.

As for the environment, I mean the literal physical environment, not an ecosystem. One can just leave radioactive stuff laying around to damage some other companies equipment. You dont want to dump plutonium any where then find out the spot would've been perfect for landing or developing.

[Anonymous No.10974115]

>>10974105
Because without environmental constraints and a bountiful supply of nuclear energy you can do it for cheap. More importantly, you aren’t doing it here on earth, emitting greenhouse gasses and polluting the water ways with heavy metals. The payoff is we get to have an earth with clean water and air and an ecosystem finely tuned for life while still reaping the benefits of technology and industry.

If you need some examples of things that would be done better off-world, semiconductors and batteries are two off the top of my head.

[Anonymous No.10974121]

>>10974043
>my best points
a rat's nest of inconsistent and irrational ramblings

[Anonymous No.10974134]

>>10974115
This anon gets it.
>>10974121
This anon does not.

[Anonymous No.10974173]

>>10973150
You wouldn't. It's a gun.

[Anonymous No.10974447]

>>10974173
It will be built on the darkside of the moon so it cannot ever be pointed at earth. Probably there will be a bunch of them all arranged to line up with different locations throughout the orbital period of the moon and earth.

[Anonymous No.10974460]

>>10974447
Is thos gun still in orbit? Or is it parked on the moon? I skipped a few posts. Oh, anyhow equal/opposite reaction. Dont let gun fly away.

[Anonymous No.10974492]

>>10974460
On the moon. The darkside of the moon. Which will be a militarised spaceport. All goods and persons moving between earth and the other colonies will pass through there. It will be a buffer to mitigate terrorism and act as a quarantine site. There is a great deal of concern that we may either pick up extraterrestrial infections or that mutations in existing illnesses will occur in deep space.

There is also a great deal of paranoia that somebody may launch destructive projectiles at the earth. Any mass detected which will not rendezvous with the moon and is instead headed straight for earth will be obliterated long before it reaches the earth.

[Anonymous No.10974569]

>>10973972
>Faggots and feminists have contaminated our society
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.10974587]

>>10972274
This is interesting. What if you did fire something like that and that first thing you shot with the giant railgun builds a landing pad or something to slow down and connect with the future shots. That way, you'll have a port in a way to constantly send things to. Only issue is that I don't know if railguns can at all be adjusted in space. Planets spin, so in essence, you'll just always miss your original spot. Unless you cover an entire thousand kilometer area with a form of landing pads.

[Anonymous No.10974641]

There's clearly very little understanding of orbital mechanics and too much political whining in this thread.
Why don't you guys go ask your parents if they'll let you buy Kerbal Space Program and then come back?

[Anonymous No.10974656]

>>10974641
Here we have the classic example of a jackass.
A jackass has no information to offer, only insults.
A jackass knows nothing but pretends he does.

[Anonymous No.10974660]

>>10974656
If this thread is really full of experts then why does it take 25 posts before OP gets the very basic answer to his simple question: it takes as much time as any conventional technique ~7 months

[Anonymous No.10974669]

>>10972274
Depends on how big the rail gun is. The problem is getting the payload into space. The advantage is that you would only need propellant to get to LEO and rendezvous with the gun. The gun provides the delta v to intercept Mars, the remaining propellant inserts it into orbit. Probably not much faster but maybe more efficient.

[Anonymous No.10974672]

>>10973958
I really want this not to be true but I know it is. And yet I keep dreaming of space exploration. Why does it have such a pull?

[Anonymous No.10975243]

>>10974641
where can I read about orbital mechanics to properly address this problem?

[Anonymous No.10975266]

>>10975243
This is a great website based on a older textbook from like the 60s.
http://www.braeunig.us/space/
Covers most of the important maths and describes the most important trajectories and maneuvers.

The suggestion to play Kerbal Space Program was a serious one, any misconceptions you have will be immediately exposed and if you cba with maths you can't still get a good physical intuition just from playing it.

A good more modern textbook is Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students by Curtis.
Doing this you would realize that:
>Railgun trajectories and conventional instant impulse rocket trajectories are identical since they're equally governed by the planets, not the method of acceleration
>The recoil from firing a railgun in orbit to launch a payload would change the railgun's orbit, potentially deorbiting it or making repeated uses very inconvenient (having to wait ages until successive shots cancel each other out)
>A railgun on the far side of the Moon could aim at Earth (>>10974492). Just shoot the payload opposite to the Moon's velocity and the payload will have lost velocity compared to the centre of the Earth, bringing its orbit closer. It's unlikely there will ever be a railgun powerful enough to do this.

[Anonymous No.10975270]

>>10975266
>The suggestion to play Kerbal Space Program was a serious one, any misconceptions you have will be immediately exposed and if you cba with maths you can't still get a good physical intuition just from playing it.
Meant to say you CAN get intuition from playing KSP

[Anonymous No.10976085]

>>10973958
by your logic, Europeans should never have traveled and conquered and discovered new worlds and territories. because will be a waste of time and the distances were too big.

[Anonymous No.10976106]

>>10973958
it's still worth it to make the rest of our solar system habitable for humans, and to eventually harness the power of the Sun. These are realistic goals that should inspire everybody.

[Anonymous No.10976266]

>>10974660
Who was claiming to be an expert? Could this seven month limit be broken with a more powerful railgun?

>>10975266
>A railgun on the far side of the Moon could aim at Earth
Very interesting. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.10976528]

>>10976266
>Could this seven month limit be broken with a more powerful railgun?
The faster you can accelerate your rocket the more direct a trajectory you can take and the shorter the time taken, this goes for railgun powered or rocket powered. This will cost (a lot) more fuel (for a rocket) and require a much more powerful railgun. Generally it is extremely expensive to do anything in space so when designing missions they optimise for cost.

See pic related for how changing the dates of launch/arrival changes the total amount of acceleration required to achieve the trajectory.

[Anonymous No.10976709]

>>10973992

It's the opposite man, when society starts getting good at setting up shop it will be the poor people who go into space. Earth property/wilderness would become the most valuable thing around.

[Anonymous No.10977228]

>>10973313
>accelerate it down