Why aren't NASA, etc. building mass drivers?

[MobiusPizza]

Mass drives I meant is a huge rail structure. A train like vehicle is used to deliver payload like shuttles to the space. It works as follows:

A extremely long horizontal railway track powers the train cartridge with payload stuck on top is accelerated through horizontally by alternating electromagnets (Like monorail the train cartidge floats on the tracks to minimise friction). At the end of the horizontal track there's a long shallow bend curve to change the course from horizontal to vertical. The track terminates at the vertical point.
From then on a rocket helps maintain the constant escaping velocity.

This design is similiar to theme park rollercoaster rides. but at a much larger scale.

This stucture is huge but can be built in places like a desert. Although I know building something in this scale is very expensive; but once up and running it should make launching shuttles very cheap since much less traditional chemical fuel is required; and electricity is cheap compared to chemical fuel to power the launch. Also since chemical fuel is not required safety is also ensured. You can even terminate a lauch easily by braking with the electromagnetic acceleration track.

Another huge bonus is that such structure would be more efficient in delivering heavy payloads that a traditional rocket/shuttle can't carry. Once the escaping velocity is reached when the terminal track is reached, traditional rockets maintaining speed would not required more fuel than maintaining speed of a lighter payload. (Mass doesn't come into drag and friction force with air, but the shape of the craft does)

With the advances in nanotechnology I heard that even a space lift can be build with the extrememly strong (stronger than steel) carbon nano fibre materials. Such materials should be able to be used cheaply in building the mass driver.

 

[Armitage]

One issue that comes to mind immediately is launch azimuth. Changing the orientation of the orbital plane (inclination or right ascention of ascending node) of a satellite is very expensive in terms of dV. For large plane changes it approaches (and passes!) the orbital velocity itself. So some of the savings due to this system will be eaten up by the extra fuel you need to carry to get into the right plane - unless you can come up with some way re-orient this whole mechanism to launch at different azimuths.

Another issue is how much does it really save you? At 8 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle is already going over 100 MPH. I'm not sure how fast you can expect to move a few million pounds down a rail , and then turn it from horizontal to straight up. I really don't know - my WAG is you'd be lucky to get more then 150-200 MPH. So billions of dollars in infrastructure for the first few seconds of flight.

Another issue is power - while electricity may be cheap compared to chemical fuel, the fuel cost of a rocket launch is trivial wrt everything else. And while the amount of electricity needed may not seem like much, remember that it will have to be delivered over the span of just a few seconds.

And finally a practical issue - except for polar launches, you want to launch as close to due east as possible, and close to the equator. And, unlike the russians or chinese, the US has historically had issues with launching over populated areas. We don't have any big stretches of unpopulated desert on the east coast to build this thing.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: Armitage
One issue that comes to mind immediately is launch azimuth. Changing the orientation of the orbital plane (inclination or right ascention of ascending node) of a satellite is very expensive in terms of dV. For large plane changes it approaches (and passes!) the orbital velocity itself. So some of the savings due to this system will be eaten up by the extra fuel you need to carry to get into the right plane - unless you can come up with some way re-orient this whole mechanism to launch at different azimuths.

Another issue is how much does it really save you? At 8 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle is already going over 100 MPH. I'm not sure how fast you can expect to move a few million pounds down a rail , and then turn it from horizontal to straight up. I really don't know - my WAG is you'd be lucky to get more then 150-200 MPH. So billions of dollars in infrastructure for the first few seconds of flight.

Another issue is power - while electricity may be cheap compared to chemical fuel, the fuel cost of a rocket launch is trivial wrt everything else. And while the amount of electricity needed may not seem like much, remember that it will have to be delivered over the span of just a few seconds.

And finally a practical issue - except for polar launches, you want to launch as close to due east as possible, and close to the equator. And, unlike the russians or chinese, the US has historically had issues with launching over populated areas. We don't have any big stretches of unpopulated desert on the east coast to build this thing.

Good points.
However, regarding the azimuth... The mass driver I described should work the same as a vertical launched shuttle. They both lauch the payload vertically. So therefore it should have no difference in operation and changing azimuth orientation.

Don't know. Levitating monorails have very little friction hence acceleration should require no more energy than a passenger bullet train. The mass may even be lighter than a long bullet train. If that's the case, acceleration should even be quicker.

I don't quite know where the NASA shuttle port is currently located (sorry bad in US geofraphy. Not from US I am) But a structure I mentioned may even be cheaper to be built as a tunnel underground then a hole to have a track come out the groud as the vertical termination point.

TBM Tunnel boring machines should do the job pretty quick. By having the structure underground, not only does it save space; The tunnels can be sucked out of air to minimise air friction. Also the supports to the tracks and all that don't have to be built as they would have to be above ground. Less structual checks and may potentially be cheaper.

And since it's underground it even can be built just under the shuttle port NASA has. Eliminating the near equator, heading east problems

One disadvantage of underground is that the tunnel has to be wide to launch something of large dimension. But shuttles currently are small enough. It might be great though after having one of these structures to serve as a support to deliever heavy payloads to help creating massive structures in space

As I mentioned the advantage it has is it should be capable of accelerating very heavy stuff through escape velocity, compared to chemical rocket.

The space hotels scientists forsee... the building materials can be delivered much more efficient with such mass drivers (more massive things can be set up). They should also, be in theory, be use more frequently in shorter preperation interval than conventional shuttles

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX

Originally posted by: Armitage
One issue that comes to mind immediately is launch azimuth. Changing the orientation of the orbital plane (inclination or right ascention of ascending node) of a satellite is very expensive in terms of dV. For large plane changes it approaches (and passes!) the orbital velocity itself. So some of the savings due to this system will be eaten up by the extra fuel you need to carry to get into the right plane - unless you can come up with some way re-orient this whole mechanism to launch at different azimuths.

Another issue is how much does it really save you? At 8 seconds after liftoff, the shuttle is already going over 100 MPH. I'm not sure how fast you can expect to move a few million pounds down a rail , and then turn it from horizontal to straight up. I really don't know - my WAG is you'd be lucky to get more then 150-200 MPH. So billions of dollars in infrastructure for the first few seconds of flight.

Another issue is power - while electricity may be cheap compared to chemical fuel, the fuel cost of a rocket launch is trivial wrt everything else. And while the amount of electricity needed may not seem like much, remember that it will have to be delivered over the span of just a few seconds.

And finally a practical issue - except for polar launches, you want to launch as close to due east as possible, and close to the equator. And, unlike the russians or chinese, the US has historically had issues with launching over populated areas. We don't have any big stretches of unpopulated desert on the east coast to build this thing.

Good points.
However, regarding the azimuth... The mass driver I described should work the same as a vertical launched shuttle. They both lauch the payload vertically. So therefore it should have no difference in operation and changing azimuth orientation.

While the shuttle (and most other launch vehicles) lifts off vertically, it doesn't keep that up for long. It starts to roll and head down-range almost immedietely. Although, I guess if you're only going to get the first few seconds worth of launch velocity out of this, maybe that isn't much different anyway.

Don't know. Levitating monorails have very little friction hence acceleration should require no more energy than a passenger bullet train. The mass may even be lighter than a long bullet train. If that's the case, acceleration should even be quicker.

I don't know how heavy a bullet train is, but remember that there's no way this thing can be as long as a bullet train. The weight will be concentrated over a relatively short distance. And when you turn it vertical, you'll have the acceleration vector pushing it into the rails even harder. Not sure that you'll be able to float this sucker

I don't quite know where the NASA shuttle port is currently located (sorry bad in US geofraphy. Not from US I am)

East coast of Florida

But a structure I mentioned may even be cheaper to be built as a tunnel underground then a hole to have a track come out the groud as the vertical termination point.

TBM Tunnel boring machines should do the job pretty quick. By having the structure underground, not only does it save space; The tunnels can be sucked out of air to minimise air friction. Also the supports to the tracks and all that don't have to be built as they would have to be above ground. Less structual checks and may potentially be cheaper.

Interesting idea - It likely wouldn't be wide enough for anything intended to glide back. The chunnel diameter is about 9 meters IIRC.

And since it's underground it even can be built just under the shuttle port NASA has. Eliminating the near equator, heading east problems

I doubt that Floride is a good candidate geologically, but other sites might be. I still think cost would be prohibiti ve though - didn't the chunnel cost 10's of billions? Even a fraction of that will take forever to pay back considering that, at best, you will only save a fraction of your launch cost, and have to design a completely new type of launch vehicle to work with the system.

One disadvantage of underground is that the tunnel has to be wide to launch something of large dimension. But shuttles currently are small enough. It might be great though after having one of these structures to serve as a support to deliever heavy payloads to help creating massive structures in space

As I mentioned the advantage it has is it should be capable of accelerating very heavy stuff through escape velocity, compared to chemical rocket.

You're not going to come close to orbital velocity, let alone escape velocity (~ 25,000 MPH) with this thing.

The space hotels scientists forsee... the building materials can be delivered much more efficient with such mass drivers (more massive things can be set up). They should also, be in theory, be use more frequently in shorter preperation interval than conventional shuttles

 

[imported_Stratago]

This has been my idea for curing the trash problem on the Earth. Put everything we don't want in a capsule an launch it out of one of those things at the sun. I think i figuered that it would have to be about 100km long to get the capsule to 15km/s, escape velocity is 11200m/s, at 1.125 km/s/s acceleration. Not safe for humans but it would get any toxic waste away from us.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Sorry I just found out the technical name
They're called magnetic levitated train (MAGLEV)
bad English

Originally posted by: Armitage

However, regarding the azimuth... The mass driver I described should work the same as a vertical launched shuttle. They both lauch the payload vertically. So therefore it should have no difference in operation and changing azimuth orientation.

While the shuttle (and most other launch vehicles) lifts off vertically, it doesn't keep that up for long. It starts to roll and head down-range almost immedietely. Although, I guess if you're only going to get the first few seconds worth of launch velocity out of this, maybe that isn't much different anyway.

hm no the mass driver I meant is an acceleration aid. The craft would still need a smaller rocket after leaving the track to do minor acceleration or to keep speed constant. So manuvering is still possible

Originally posted by: Armitage

Don't know. Levitating monorails have very little friction hence acceleration should require no more energy than a passenger bullet train. The mass may even be lighter than a long bullet train. If that's the case, acceleration should even be quicker.

I don't know how heavy a bullet train is, but remember that there's no way this thing can be as long as a bullet train. The weight will be concentrated over a relatively short distance. And when you turn it vertical, you'll have the acceleration vector pushing it into the rails even harder. Not sure that you'll be able to float this sucker

Conventional satellite is less than 1 Tonne. The train cartridge should be around 3 tonnes at most. But you reminded me a point that passenger train has long contact surface to have many more electromagnets to push it.

Originally posted by: Armitage

I don't quite know where the NASA shuttle port is currently located (sorry bad in US geofraphy. Not from US I am)

East coast of Florida

Thanks

Originally posted by: Armitage

But a structure I mentioned may even be cheaper to be built as a tunnel underground then a hole to have a track come out the groud as the vertical termination point.

TBM Tunnel boring machines should do the job pretty quick. By having the structure underground, not only does it save space; The tunnels can be sucked out of air to minimise air friction. Also the supports to the tracks and all that don't have to be built as they would have to be above ground. Less structual checks and may potentially be cheaper.

Interesting idea - It likely wouldn't be wide enough for anything intended to glide back. The chunnel diameter is about 9 meters IIRC.

Well heheh of couse I don't mean the shuttle has to crash land into a hole and land on a runway inside the tunnel. They can build a runway on the surface

Originally posted by: Armitage

And since it's underground it even can be built just under the shuttle port NASA has. Eliminating the near equator, heading east problems

I doubt that Floride is a good candidate geologically, but other sites might be. I still think cost would be prohibiti ve though - didn't the chunnel cost 10's of billions? Even a fraction of that will take forever to pay back considering that, at best, you will only save a fraction of your launch cost, and have to design a completely new type of launch vehicle to work with the system.

The launch vehicle should not be expensive. It's just the track with the powering system that is expensive.
Tunnel boring machines makes digging tunnel very cost effective nowadays.

Originally posted by: Armitage

One disadvantage of underground is that the tunnel has to be wide to launch something of large dimension. But shuttles currently are small enough. It might be great though after having one of these structures to serve as a support to deliever heavy payloads to help creating massive structures in space

As I mentioned the advantage it has is it should be capable of accelerating very heavy stuff through escape velocity, compared to chemical rocket.

You're not going to come close to orbital velocity, let alone escape velocity (~ 25,000 MPH) with this thing.

oh yeah good point. If the tunnel is made to have low air pressure inside; 600 MPH might be possible. Not very much isn't it?
I knew we'd still need rocket. How much fuel would be saved given a headstart?

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: Stratago
This has been my idea for curing the trash problem on the Earth. Put everything we don't want in a capsule an launch it out of one of those things at the sun. I think i figuered that it would have to be about 100km long to get the capsule to 15km/s, escape velocity is 11200m/s, at 1.125 km/s/s acceleration. Not safe for humans but it would get any toxic waste away from us.

100km long mass drivers...
lol not feasible
What about we learn lessons from particle accelerators? Linear particle accelerators have this problem as well. What ehy developed now is a cyclotron. Instead of accelerating a straight line, particle accelerates in a circular fashion to save space.

A spiral of tracks to be built and finaly a linear track design would have enough length to get the train fast enough?
hmm sounds insane though. Not to mention such structure would probably be impossible to build.

 

[MobiusPizza]

I got the answer now~ phew

http://www.permanent.com/t-massdr.htm

Unfortunately, the mass driver is feasible to operate only on the Moon, because it needs vacuum. A mass driver operating on Earth would cause meteoric friction heat to such hypervelocity payloads and great physical stresses, at the dense bottom of Earth's atmosphere (ocean of air) as they left the catapult tunnel. Secondly, the air would aerodynamically deflect such objects in unpredictable ways which would disperse their trajectories. Thirdly, an operable mass driver on Earth would require a long vacuum tunnel (much longer than on the Moon, since the escape velocity is higher). Fourth, the air would create hypersonic sonic boom shockwaves that would be loud for a long distance. Fifth, individual payloads would have to be massive enough to punch through the atmosphere in an acceptable way. Such massive payloads demand alot of the catapulter as well as the orbital based catcher/collector.

Guess a space lift is the best feasible alternative then

 

[imported_Stratago]

I thought it seemed pretty long.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
Sorry I just found out the technical name
They're called magnetic levitated train (MAGLEV)
bad English

Originally posted by: Armitage

However, regarding the azimuth... The mass driver I described should work the same as a vertical launched shuttle. They both lauch the payload vertically. So therefore it should have no difference in operation and changing azimuth orientation.

While the shuttle (and most other launch vehicles) lifts off vertically, it doesn't keep that up for long. It starts to roll and head down-range almost immedietely. Although, I guess if you're only going to get the first few seconds worth of launch velocity out of this, maybe that isn't much different anyway.

hm no the mass driver I meant is an acceleration aid. The craft would still need a smaller rocket after leaving the track to do minor acceleration or to keep speed constant. So manuvering is still possible

I just don't see how you're going to get enough velocity to make a worthwhile difference in the booster. What does the fastest MagLev train do? 300MPH? So that gets you maybe the first 10-15 seconds of flight? You still need an additional 6865 meters/second out of the 7000 meters/second required to get to orbit.

Originally posted by: Armitage

Don't know. Levitating monorails have very little friction hence acceleration should require no more energy than a passenger bullet train. The mass may even be lighter than a long bullet train. If that's the case, acceleration should even be quicker.

I don't know how heavy a bullet train is, but remember that there's no way this thing can be as long as a bullet train. The weight will be concentrated over a relatively short distance. And when you turn it vertical, you'll have the acceleration vector pushing it into the rails even harder. Not sure that you'll be able to float this sucker

Conventional satellite is less than 1 Tonne.

They are about to launch a 7 ton satellite to GEO on an Ariane 5: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0506/09ipstar/

The train cartridge should be around 3 tonnes at most. But you reminded me a point that passenger train has long contact surface to have many more electromagnets to push it.

The mass of the payload is almost trivial. The space shuttle has a payload 55,000 lbs and a liftoff weight of 4,500,000 lbs for a payload mass fraction of about 1.2%

A Delta II can get about 12,800 lbs to LEO - liftoff weight is 511,190 lbs: payload mass fraction of 2.5%

Your system might shave this a bit, but you still have to plan on several hundred thousand lbs on the truck.

Originally posted by: Armitage

I don't quite know where the NASA shuttle port is currently located (sorry bad in US geofraphy. Not from US I am)

East coast of Florida

Thanks

Originally posted by: Armitage

But a structure I mentioned may even be cheaper to be built as a tunnel underground then a hole to have a track come out the groud as the vertical termination point.

TBM Tunnel boring machines should do the job pretty quick. By having the structure underground, not only does it save space; The tunnels can be sucked out of air to minimise air friction. Also the supports to the tracks and all that don't have to be built as they would have to be above ground. Less structual checks and may potentially be cheaper.

Interesting idea - It likely wouldn't be wide enough for anything intended to glide back. The chunnel diameter is about 9 meters IIRC.

Well heheh of couse I don't mean the shuttle has to crash land into a hole and land on a runway inside the tunnel. They can build a runway on the surface

Lol - no I didn't mean for the shuttle to land in the tunnel I meant that the shuttle wingspan of about 25 meters won't fit in the tunnel - or at least not in a chunnel size tunnel. So you couldn't launch a shuttle type vehicle from it. Not entirely relavent, but the shuttle wingspan is likely a good guess at the wingspan of other glide-back vehicles.

Originally posted by: Armitage

And since it's underground it even can be built just under the shuttle port NASA has. Eliminating the near equator, heading east problems

I doubt that Floride is a good candidate geologically, but other sites might be. I still think cost would be prohibiti ve though - didn't the chunnel cost 10's of billions? Even a fraction of that will take forever to pay back considering that, at best, you will only save a fraction of your launch cost, and have to design a completely new type of launch vehicle to work with the system.

The launch vehicle should not be expensive. It's just the track with the powering system that is expensive.
Tunnel boring machines makes digging tunnel very cost effective nowadays.

Originally posted by: Armitage

One disadvantage of underground is that the tunnel has to be wide to launch something of large dimension. But shuttles currently are small enough. It might be great though after having one of these structures to serve as a support to deliever heavy payloads to help creating massive structures in space

As I mentioned the advantage it has is it should be capable of accelerating very heavy stuff through escape velocity, compared to chemical rocket.

You're not going to come close to orbital velocity, let alone escape velocity (~ 25,000 MPH) with this thing.

oh yeah good point. If the tunnel is made to have low air pressure inside; 600 MPH might be possible. Not very much isn't it?
I knew we'd still need rocket. How much fuel would be saved given a headstart?

Maybe I'll look at mass fractions later. Remeber that your structure weight is going to go up relative to conventional launch vehicles as well, because it has to handle traditional launch loads, as well as laying on it's side on the track, etc.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

What about a mag-lev powered space elevator? Seriously.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Well Space Elevator doesn't have to be mag-leved
Traditional wires can do.

The main problem is we still need a full capacity carbon nano-fibre fabricating facility and necessary technology to build a strong enough tower

 

[CrispyFried]

The main advantage of mass drivers is you dont need to lift the fuel needed to reach escape velocity, which is a substantial amount of the lift off weight. Less pollution, cheaper and safer too. But the initial cost is super high, and thats why I think its not being considered. A few technical hurdles may be around but they are minor.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: CrispyFried
The main advantage of mass drivers is you dont need to lift the fuel needed to reach escape velocity, which is a substantial amount of the lift off weight. Less pollution, cheaper and safer too. But the initial cost is super high, and thats why I think its not being considered. A few technical hurdles may be around but they are minor.

No... I found out that the cost is not the major concern.

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
I got the answer now~ phew

http://www.permanent.com/t-massdr.htm

Unfortunately, the mass driver is feasible to operate only on the Moon, because it needs vacuum. A mass driver operating on Earth would cause meteoric friction heat to such hypervelocity payloads and great physical stresses, at the dense bottom of Earth's atmosphere (ocean of air) as they left the catapult tunnel. Secondly, the air would aerodynamically deflect such objects in unpredictable ways which would disperse their trajectories. Thirdly, an operable mass driver on Earth would require a long vacuum tunnel (much longer than on the Moon, since the escape velocity is higher). Fourth, the air would create hypersonic sonic boom shockwaves that would be loud for a long distance. Fifth, individual payloads would have to be massive enough to punch through the atmosphere in an acceptable way. Such massive payloads demand alot of the catapulter as well as the orbital based catcher/collector.

Guess a space lift is the best feasible alternative then

 

[imported_Hamzter]

I've read an article on using mass drivers to launch space vehicles, one of the things it pointed out was that any horizontal velocity that the vehicle has when it leaves the tracks is essentially wasted, it can't make use of it like a plane can. For this reason it should be launched as near to verticle as possible. One option is to start with the vehicle vertical, and accelarate up a tower (which will be limited to probably 500m max), but since most people and spacecraft cant handle more than about 3 or 4gs, that limits you to about 700km/h. While that might sound like alot, it's only a small fraction of escape velocity, and I doubt you'd get anywhere near that kind of velocity in real life. Building something like that would be very difficult task, lifting a vehicle up the side of the tower would require huge ammounts of energy, it'd be quite a task just trying to make one that could push the thing off the top! You've also got the huge engineering problem of building a tower that can handle the forces involved...

Another option is to use a MAGLEV type horizontal track, accelerate to high speed (max 400km/h due to air resistance), then make the track curve up to 90 degrees. Once again, since you don't want to kill your passengers or squash your space plane, you have to limit youself to an accelaration of 3 or 4gs. That means the radius of the track curve has to be a minimum of 400m, by the time you've left the track though the plane's only travelling at 240kmh! Hardly seems worth it, billions of dollars of money to save a bit of fuel?

It's basically pretty much impossible to get a space vehicle into orbit without engines, there's simply too much air resistance, and you're not gonna save more than about 30% of the fuel using a mass driver. Good idea, pity it won't work on earth...

 

[grant2]

Depends how much fuel you save. Reducing the weight is recursive...
Exactly how much extra fuel is required to obtain that first 100 or 200 mph of velocity?

 

[CrispyFried]

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX

Originally posted by: CrispyFried
The main advantage of mass drivers is you dont need to lift the fuel needed to reach escape velocity, which is a substantial amount of the lift off weight. Less pollution, cheaper and safer too. But the initial cost is super high, and thats why I think its not being considered. A few technical hurdles may be around but they are minor.

No... I found out that the cost is not the major concern.

Ah gotcha, I kinda speed read through the thread and missed that.

 

[CrispyFried]

Originally posted by: grant2
Depends how much fuel you save. Reducing the weight is recursive...
Exactly how much extra fuel is required to obtain that first 100 or 200 mph of velocity?

On earth, lots. On the moon, not so much. Depends on the gravity well and how fast you accelerate.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

You can't exceed more than about 2 G's for manned vehicles. The Space Shuttle continues to accelerate after leaving the atmosphere, because greater acceleration would cripple, if not kill, the crew. Fighter pilots, F1 drivers, etc. can function up to 4 or 5 G's, for a moment. Pilots can keep conscious up to 9ish for a few seconds, but can't do anything.

The lower acceleration means a larger launch device. This combined with an atmosphere means a non-destructive mag-lev launcher would be orbital or lunar based. That's OK, sign me up.

 

[Armitage]

They limit acceleration on the shuttle to 3G

 

[imported_whatever]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
You can't exceed more than about 2 G's for manned vehicles. The Space Shuttle continues to accelerate after leaving the atmosphere, because greater acceleration would cripple, if not kill, the crew. Fighter pilots, F1 drivers, etc. can function up to 4 or 5 G's, for a moment. Pilots can keep conscious up to 9ish for a few seconds, but can't do anything.

The lower acceleration means a larger launch device. This combined with an atmosphere means a non-destructive mag-lev launcher would be orbital or lunar based. That's OK, sign me up.

Well, if they decided to design the craft to take >2Gs, then it would be perfectly acceptable for the people inside too. I doubt that 4G would do any damage to healthy people.

 

[Gibsons]

Here's a space plane scheme for using a rail. But it's a ramp, not vertical.

Text

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: Gibsons
Here's a space plane scheme for using a rail. But it's a ramp, not vertical.

Text

wow that's cool enough

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: Stratago
This has been my idea for curing the trash problem on the Earth. Put everything we don't want in a capsule an launch it out of one of those things at the sun. I think i figuered that it would have to be about 100km long to get the capsule to 15km/s, escape velocity is 11200m/s, at 1.125 km/s/s acceleration. Not safe for humans but it would get any toxic waste away from us.

That doesn't solve the problem at all - the REAL problem is that we PRODUCE trash - with our advanced technology we should be capable of reclaiming and reusing EVERY bit of "waste" material and eliminate the concept of waste altogether. The other thing to consider is that space trashing is expensive AND dangerous - and who knows what we may do to our sun if we dump hazardous/radioactive materials...

 

[Shalmanese]

What about for unmanned crafts?