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child of Orion
Mar. 6th, 2010 01:52 pmFrom Centauri Dreams, an article on a nuclear cannon- a possible method of getting payload into orbit:
"Wang envisions building what he calls a ‘nuclear cannon,’ capable of launching heavy payloads into Earth orbit. A 150 kiloton nuclear device is placed at the bottom of a two-mile shaft, packed with boron and other elements that will be converted to plasma. The 3500 ton launch projectile is placed on top. The explosion of the nuke launches it, with a chemical charge being used to quickly fill in the shaft as soon as the projectile clears it, the idea being to contain contamination. Figuring $10 million for the projectile and the propellant to launch it, plus another $20 million for construction of the shaft, Wang calculates launch costs in the neighborhood of $10 per pound, far cheaper than current launch options including the low-ball Russian Dnepr, a three-stage converted ICBM.
"We’re not talking human missions here (not at 5000 G’s!) but heavy lift of the basic supplies for industrialization, with our standard launch systems being reserved for more fragile supplies and astronauts."
(I remember talking to a physicist I’d met through my father about Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon: to get a payload from Earth to Moon via the cannon launching he describes would entail the astronauts’ pulling about ten thousand (his figure, as opposed to the five thousand cited here- although really, what’s a few thousand gs between friends?) gs. Next!)
"Wang envisions building what he calls a ‘nuclear cannon,’ capable of launching heavy payloads into Earth orbit. A 150 kiloton nuclear device is placed at the bottom of a two-mile shaft, packed with boron and other elements that will be converted to plasma. The 3500 ton launch projectile is placed on top. The explosion of the nuke launches it, with a chemical charge being used to quickly fill in the shaft as soon as the projectile clears it, the idea being to contain contamination. Figuring $10 million for the projectile and the propellant to launch it, plus another $20 million for construction of the shaft, Wang calculates launch costs in the neighborhood of $10 per pound, far cheaper than current launch options including the low-ball Russian Dnepr, a three-stage converted ICBM.
"We’re not talking human missions here (not at 5000 G’s!) but heavy lift of the basic supplies for industrialization, with our standard launch systems being reserved for more fragile supplies and astronauts."
(I remember talking to a physicist I’d met through my father about Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon: to get a payload from Earth to Moon via the cannon launching he describes would entail the astronauts’ pulling about ten thousand (his figure, as opposed to the five thousand cited here- although really, what’s a few thousand gs between friends?) gs. Next!)
