A magnetic railgun that is only ten meters long can launch from the moon to Mars. It can have less than half the speed of the US Navy railgun. It only needs 3 kilometers per second versus 7 kilometers per second.
A light gas gun could also be used. There have been light gas guns that have reached 4 kilometers per second.
A 40-kilogram rocket could deliver 2 kilograms to Mars.
3 kilometers per second is more than lunar escape velocity. The mission would be a Hohmann transfer to anywhere on the solar orbit of Mars. Then the rocket would wait along the solar orbit of Mars for Mars to overtake the rocket and capture it in its gravity.
Mars Atmosphere Laser
The Mars atmosphere is the perfect pressure for a CO2 laser. You could make a CO2 laser that is open to the Mars atmosphere.
A kilowatt laser could fuse Mars regolith into glass. Massive amounts of glass could be made on Mars. The glass could be shaped into massive spheres for concentrating light into massive lasers.
With the system open to atmosphere, you could build giant lasers for nuclear fusion or for laser propulsion of probes to other solar systems.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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From the Launch Loop FAQ: The moon is an excellent place for launch loops. Launch loops can be operated only a few meters above the maria. Power can be provided by solar collectors on the surface, and supplemented by power from SPS during the long lunar nights. A short lunar launch loop with modest rotor speeds can reach lunar escape velocity. A longer and faster loop will be able to launch to Mars and beyond. A sheath is still needed – the lunar dust acts like a very nasty kind of abrasive “atmosphere” and must be shielded from the rotor. A lunar loop with alignment rings at the east end could capture and re-accelerate vehicles in Hohmann transfer orbits from Earth, circularizing orbits or perhaps pushing vehicles up to interplanetary velocities. Keep in mind that it must be kept in vacuum sheath – lunar dust is nasty, extremely sharp tiny fragments, just the thing to cause hypervelocity spalling cascades. Lunar dust is thrown into the sky by UV from the sun and the occasional cosmic ray; the moon does indeed have an atmosphere, a few hundred meters of tiny rock particles in ballistic trajectories. Very very low density, but enough to cause havoc in machinery.
You could build giant CO2 lasers in the Martian atmosphere, and that’s seriously cool, I can see lots of industrial applications for that. But has nothing to do with fusion; The output is infrared. Needless to say, the lack of low pressure CO2 is NOT why CO2 lasers aren’t used in fusion research. They’re just not suited for it.
So they finally found what Mars can contribute to the space economy – a planetary-scale laser for beam propulsion?
From the Launch Loop FAQ:The moon is an excellent place for launch loops. Launch loops can be operated only a few meters above the maria. Power can be provided by solar collectors on the surface and supplemented by power from SPS during the long lunar nights. A short lunar launch loop with modest rotor speeds can reach lunar escape velocity. A longer and faster loop will be able to launch to Mars and beyond. A sheath is still needed – the lunar dust acts like a very nasty kind of abrasive atmosphere”” and must be shielded from the rotor.A lunar loop with alignment rings at the east end could capture and re-accelerate vehicles in Hohmann transfer orbits from Earth”” circularizing orbits or perhaps pushing vehicles up to interplanetary velocities. Keep in mind that it must be kept in vacuum sheath – lunar dust is nasty extremely sharp tiny fragments just the thing to cause hypervelocity spalling cascades. Lunar dust is thrown into the sky by UV from the sun and the occasional cosmic ray; the moon does indeed have an atmosphere a few hundred meters of tiny rock particles in ballistic trajectories. Very very low density”” but enough to cause havoc in machinery.”””
You could build giant CO2 lasers in the Martian atmosphere and that’s seriously cool I can see lots of industrial applications for that. But has nothing to do with fusion; The output is infrared.Needless to say the lack of low pressure CO2 is NOT why CO2 lasers aren’t used in fusion research. They’re just not suited for it.
So they finally found what Mars can contribute to the space economy – a planetary-scale laser for beam propulsion?
The rotor can store kinetic energy for extended periods with very little parasitic loss due to the magnetic suspension/control system. Conversion between electrickinetic is a straight-up simple process. Should provide an option for solar/? energy storage for Lunar or Earth based grid tie peak leveling.
Try operating a laser of any significant power, with any surface dust contamination of the optics.
The rotor can store kinetic energy for extended periods with very little parasitic loss due to the magnetic suspension/control system. Conversion between electrickinetic is a straight-up simple process. Should provide an option for solar/? energy storage for Lunar or Earth based grid tie peak leveling.
Try operating a laser of any significant power with any surface dust contamination of the optics.
Let’s see. We leave the lasers on the moon. The laser beam would get there faster (1.28 sec), but would spread too far. So we make rods. We put rail guns near the visible edges of the moon (which always face earth). At 7 miles per second, it takes about 9 1/2 hours for the rods to reach earth. Hard to defend against and leaves on radioactivity. There’s a good 1950’s-1960’s story in there somewhere. 😉 But sending materials to Mars this way sounds a bit un-Musk-like. Still, it deserves a look.
Let’s see. We leave the lasers on the moon. The laser beam would get there faster (1.28 sec) but would spread too far. So we make rods. We put rail guns near the visible edges of the moon (which always face earth). At 7 miles per second it takes about 9 1/2 hours for the rods to reach earth. Hard to defend against and leaves on radioactivity. There’s a good 1950’s-1960’s story in there somewhere. 😉 But sending materials to Mars this way sounds a bit un-Musk-like. Still it deserves a look.
I’m just loving the Ian Malcolm screencap.
I’m just loving the Ian Malcolm screencap.
A lunar mass driver would be a great way to deliver lunar metals to the earth or to the earth’s orbit. If you were insane you could use a large number of mass drivers to shoot rods to the earth were they would drop into large vats of molten salts. The heat from the molten salts would be used to drive turbines.
A lunar mass driver would be a great way to deliver lunar metals to the earth or to the earth’s orbit.If you were insane you could use a large number of mass drivers to shoot rods to the earth were they would drop into large vats of molten salts. The heat from the molten salts would be used to drive turbines.
I think that a railgun is a bad trade-off for electromagnetic launch from the Moon, you don’t need to keep the thing to 10 meters long, with the lower accelerations demanded by a launcher 100 meters long, you can use a coil gun like the mass driver that SSI tested. This will avoid the barrel erosion issues that a railgun would give, which might be acceptable if you only need to shoot at the occasional fleet defense target but won’t work if you are looking to loft large amounts of mass from the lunar surface. Yeah, you take a penalty in mass budget up front, but you soon get it back by not needing spare barrels (plus the down-time for replacing the barrel).
I was just about to comment this. At minimum you would need to enclose the laser in a cleanroom. Which brings up the need for at least _some_ cooling again.
I think that a railgun is a bad trade-off for electromagnetic launch from the Moon you don’t need to keep the thing to 10 meters long with the lower accelerations demanded by a launcher 100 meters long you can use a coil gun like the mass driver that SSI tested. This will avoid the barrel erosion issues that a railgun would give which might be acceptable if you only need to shoot at the occasional fleet defense target but won’t work if you are looking to loft large amounts of mass from the lunar surface. Yeah you take a penalty in mass budget up front but you soon get it back by not needing spare barrels (plus the down-time for replacing the barrel).
I was just about to comment this.At minimum you would need to enclose the laser in a cleanroom.Which brings up the need for at least _some_ cooling again.
I recall years ago that I ran some calculations: With reasonable efficiency, and regenerative braking at LEO, you could generate power while mining the Moon. Put a regenerative braking catcher at LEO, and launch to it, and the pellets or whatever gain a huge amount of kinetic energy falling from the Moon towards the Earth. You’d have to launch a small fraction of them retrograde, though, to balance momentum properly.
I recall years ago that I ran some calculations: With reasonable efficiency and regenerative braking at LEO you could generate power while mining the Moon.Put a regenerative braking catcher at LEO and launch to it and the pellets or whatever gain a huge amount of kinetic energy falling from the Moon towards the Earth. You’d have to launch a small fraction of them retrograde though to balance momentum properly.
I recall years ago that I ran some calculations: With reasonable efficiency, and regenerative braking at LEO, you could generate power while mining the Moon. Put a regenerative braking catcher at LEO, and launch to it, and the pellets or whatever gain a huge amount of kinetic energy falling from the Moon towards the Earth. You’d have to launch a small fraction of them retrograde, though, to balance momentum properly.
I recall years ago that I ran some calculations: With reasonable efficiency and regenerative braking at LEO you could generate power while mining the Moon.Put a regenerative braking catcher at LEO and launch to it and the pellets or whatever gain a huge amount of kinetic energy falling from the Moon towards the Earth. You’d have to launch a small fraction of them retrograde though to balance momentum properly.
I think that a railgun is a bad trade-off for electromagnetic launch from the Moon, you don’t need to keep the thing to 10 meters long, with the lower accelerations demanded by a launcher 100 meters long, you can use a coil gun like the mass driver that SSI tested. This will avoid the barrel erosion issues that a railgun would give, which might be acceptable if you only need to shoot at the occasional fleet defense target but won’t work if you are looking to loft large amounts of mass from the lunar surface. Yeah, you take a penalty in mass budget up front, but you soon get it back by not needing spare barrels (plus the down-time for replacing the barrel).
I think that a railgun is a bad trade-off for electromagnetic launch from the Moon you don’t need to keep the thing to 10 meters long with the lower accelerations demanded by a launcher 100 meters long you can use a coil gun like the mass driver that SSI tested. This will avoid the barrel erosion issues that a railgun would give which might be acceptable if you only need to shoot at the occasional fleet defense target but won’t work if you are looking to loft large amounts of mass from the lunar surface. Yeah you take a penalty in mass budget up front but you soon get it back by not needing spare barrels (plus the down-time for replacing the barrel).
I was just about to comment this. At minimum you would need to enclose the laser in a cleanroom. Which brings up the need for at least _some_ cooling again.
I was just about to comment this.At minimum you would need to enclose the laser in a cleanroom.Which brings up the need for at least _some_ cooling again.
A lunar mass driver would be a great way to deliver lunar metals to the earth or to the earth’s orbit. If you were insane you could use a large number of mass drivers to shoot rods to the earth were they would drop into large vats of molten salts. The heat from the molten salts would be used to drive turbines.
A lunar mass driver would be a great way to deliver lunar metals to the earth or to the earth’s orbit.If you were insane you could use a large number of mass drivers to shoot rods to the earth were they would drop into large vats of molten salts. The heat from the molten salts would be used to drive turbines.
I recall years ago that I ran some calculations: With reasonable efficiency, and regenerative braking at LEO, you could generate power while mining the Moon.
Put a regenerative braking catcher at LEO, and launch to it, and the pellets or whatever gain a huge amount of kinetic energy falling from the Moon towards the Earth. You’d have to launch a small fraction of them retrograde, though, to balance momentum properly.
I’m just loving the Ian Malcolm screencap.
I’m just loving the Ian Malcolm screencap.
I think that a railgun is a bad trade-off for electromagnetic launch from the Moon, you don’t need to keep the thing to 10 meters long, with the lower accelerations demanded by a launcher 100 meters long, you can use a coil gun like the mass driver that SSI tested. This will avoid the barrel erosion issues that a railgun would give, which might be acceptable if you only need to shoot at the occasional fleet defense target but won’t work if you are looking to loft large amounts of mass from the lunar surface. Yeah, you take a penalty in mass budget up front, but you soon get it back by not needing spare barrels (plus the down-time for replacing the barrel).
I was just about to comment this.
At minimum you would need to enclose the laser in a cleanroom.
Which brings up the need for at least _some_ cooling again.
Let’s see. We leave the lasers on the moon. The laser beam would get there faster (1.28 sec), but would spread too far. So we make rods. We put rail guns near the visible edges of the moon (which always face earth). At 7 miles per second, it takes about 9 1/2 hours for the rods to reach earth. Hard to defend against and leaves on radioactivity. There’s a good 1950’s-1960’s story in there somewhere. 😉 But sending materials to Mars this way sounds a bit un-Musk-like. Still, it deserves a look.
Let’s see. We leave the lasers on the moon. The laser beam would get there faster (1.28 sec) but would spread too far. So we make rods. We put rail guns near the visible edges of the moon (which always face earth). At 7 miles per second it takes about 9 1/2 hours for the rods to reach earth. Hard to defend against and leaves on radioactivity. There’s a good 1950’s-1960’s story in there somewhere. 😉 But sending materials to Mars this way sounds a bit un-Musk-like. Still it deserves a look.
The rotor can store kinetic energy for extended periods with very little parasitic loss due to the magnetic suspension/control system. Conversion between electrickinetic is a straight-up simple process. Should provide an option for solar/? energy storage for Lunar or Earth based grid tie peak leveling.
The rotor can store kinetic energy for extended periods with very little parasitic loss due to the magnetic suspension/control system. Conversion between electrickinetic is a straight-up simple process. Should provide an option for solar/? energy storage for Lunar or Earth based grid tie peak leveling.
Try operating a laser of any significant power, with any surface dust contamination of the optics.
Try operating a laser of any significant power with any surface dust contamination of the optics.
From the Launch Loop FAQ: The moon is an excellent place for launch loops. Launch loops can be operated only a few meters above the maria. Power can be provided by solar collectors on the surface, and supplemented by power from SPS during the long lunar nights. A short lunar launch loop with modest rotor speeds can reach lunar escape velocity. A longer and faster loop will be able to launch to Mars and beyond. A sheath is still needed – the lunar dust acts like a very nasty kind of abrasive “atmosphere” and must be shielded from the rotor. A lunar loop with alignment rings at the east end could capture and re-accelerate vehicles in Hohmann transfer orbits from Earth, circularizing orbits or perhaps pushing vehicles up to interplanetary velocities. Keep in mind that it must be kept in vacuum sheath – lunar dust is nasty, extremely sharp tiny fragments, just the thing to cause hypervelocity spalling cascades. Lunar dust is thrown into the sky by UV from the sun and the occasional cosmic ray; the moon does indeed have an atmosphere, a few hundred meters of tiny rock particles in ballistic trajectories. Very very low density, but enough to cause havoc in machinery.
From the Launch Loop FAQ:The moon is an excellent place for launch loops. Launch loops can be operated only a few meters above the maria. Power can be provided by solar collectors on the surface and supplemented by power from SPS during the long lunar nights. A short lunar launch loop with modest rotor speeds can reach lunar escape velocity. A longer and faster loop will be able to launch to Mars and beyond. A sheath is still needed – the lunar dust acts like a very nasty kind of abrasive atmosphere”” and must be shielded from the rotor.A lunar loop with alignment rings at the east end could capture and re-accelerate vehicles in Hohmann transfer orbits from Earth”” circularizing orbits or perhaps pushing vehicles up to interplanetary velocities. Keep in mind that it must be kept in vacuum sheath – lunar dust is nasty extremely sharp tiny fragments just the thing to cause hypervelocity spalling cascades. Lunar dust is thrown into the sky by UV from the sun and the occasional cosmic ray; the moon does indeed have an atmosphere a few hundred meters of tiny rock particles in ballistic trajectories. Very very low density”” but enough to cause havoc in machinery.”””
You could build giant CO2 lasers in the Martian atmosphere, and that’s seriously cool, I can see lots of industrial applications for that. But has nothing to do with fusion; The output is infrared. Needless to say, the lack of low pressure CO2 is NOT why CO2 lasers aren’t used in fusion research. They’re just not suited for it.
You could build giant CO2 lasers in the Martian atmosphere and that’s seriously cool I can see lots of industrial applications for that. But has nothing to do with fusion; The output is infrared.Needless to say the lack of low pressure CO2 is NOT why CO2 lasers aren’t used in fusion research. They’re just not suited for it.
So they finally found what Mars can contribute to the space economy – a planetary-scale laser for beam propulsion?
So they finally found what Mars can contribute to the space economy – a planetary-scale laser for beam propulsion?
A lunar mass driver would be a great way to deliver lunar metals to the earth or to the earth’s orbit.
If you were insane you could use a large number of mass drivers to shoot rods to the earth were they would drop into large vats of molten salts. The heat from the molten salts would be used to drive turbines.
I’m just loving the Ian Malcolm screencap.
Let’s see. We leave the lasers on the moon. The laser beam would get there faster (1.28 sec), but would spread too far. So we make rods. We put rail guns near the visible edges of the moon (which always face earth). At 7 miles per second, it takes about 9 1/2 hours for the rods to reach earth. Hard to defend against and leaves on radioactivity. There’s a good 1950’s-1960’s story in there somewhere. 😉 But sending materials to Mars this way sounds a bit un-Musk-like. Still, it deserves a look.
The rotor can store kinetic energy for extended periods with very little parasitic loss due to the magnetic suspension/control system. Conversion between electric<-->kinetic is a straight-up simple process. Should provide an option for solar/? energy storage for Lunar or Earth based grid tie peak leveling.
Try operating a laser of any significant power, with any surface dust contamination of the optics.
From the Launch Loop FAQ:
The moon is an excellent place for launch loops. Launch loops can be operated only a few meters above the maria. Power can be provided by solar collectors on the surface, and supplemented by power from SPS during the long lunar nights. A short lunar launch loop with modest rotor speeds can reach lunar escape velocity. A longer and faster loop will be able to launch to Mars and beyond. A sheath is still needed – the lunar dust acts like a very nasty kind of abrasive “atmosphere” and must be shielded from the rotor.
A lunar loop with alignment rings at the east end could capture and re-accelerate vehicles in Hohmann transfer orbits from Earth, circularizing orbits or perhaps pushing vehicles up to interplanetary velocities. Keep in mind that it must be kept in vacuum sheath – lunar dust is nasty, extremely sharp tiny fragments, just the thing to cause hypervelocity spalling cascades. Lunar dust is thrown into the sky by UV from the sun and the occasional cosmic ray; the moon does indeed have an atmosphere, a few hundred meters of tiny rock particles in ballistic trajectories. Very very low density, but enough to cause havoc in machinery.
You could build giant CO2 lasers in the Martian atmosphere, and that’s seriously cool, I can see lots of industrial applications for that. But has nothing to do with fusion; The output is infrared.
Needless to say, the lack of low pressure CO2 is NOT why CO2 lasers aren’t used in fusion research. They’re just not suited for it.
So they finally found what Mars can contribute to the space economy – a planetary-scale laser for beam propulsion?