wacho! ranting again!

Hi astrobear,

I know the feeling.

I've been doing some research for a class project
(graduate Astronautics at USC) and have found two
references that might make such a plan possible. The
first is called Mass Driver III, by H. Kolm and W.
Snow (2 of Gerald O'Neil's students who went on to
become the mass driver experts). Anyway, Mass Driver
III is a Superconducting Quenchgun that was designed
to launch LOX tanks off the moon. I'm certain you
will find it with a google search.

From the second, Electromagnetic Guns (by: H Kolm, K
Fine, F Williams and P Mongeau), also found on Google,
I took the following excerpt:

"Space Vehicle Launcher

....

A telephone-pole shaped vehicle 8 inches in diameter
and 20 feet in length, weighing 1.5 tonnes,
accelerated to 20 km/s at sea level would traverse the
8 km atmosphere in half a second, emerging at 16 km/s,
which is enough velocity to escape the solar system.
It would lose 3 to 6 percent of its mass by ablation
of a carbon shield. Initial projectile energy would be
300 x 10^9 joule, one third of which would be lost in
traversing the atmosphere.

The launch energy may seem formidable, but it amounts
to only 83 MW-hrs, which represents several minutes of
output by a large metropolitan utility plant. The
required launcher would be 20 km long at 1,000 g
acceleration; it would be only 2 km long, less than a
small airport runway, at 10,000 g, which should be
easily attainable. Such a launcher could be installed
on a hillside, or in a vertical hole made by an
oversize rotary well drilling rig.

...."

So expanding the Mass Driver III (from 1.7 km/sec to
13.5 km/sec) requires about 5 MW electric, for 1
launch (of 1.5 ton metric) every 8 hours. The cost of
the diesel fuel (at $3/gal) for each launch is about
$2,700. The cost of the diesel-electric generators
might be around $2M, of course you could lease them or
buy used. The cost of the expanded Superconducting
Quenchgun is difficult to estimate, but I'd guess
$15M. Now for the facilities, small crew, and land
(better yet a boat launcher), say $1M. You could
double or quadruple your launch capacity (and your
generating capacity) for and additional $2M or $6M
respectively.

(You may note a discrepancy between the
"Electromagnetic Guns" 83 MW-hr per launch and my 40
MW-hr, but I am only looking to launch to the moon or
HEO, not to escape the solar system or crash into the
sun.)

So for around $24M plus about $32K per day you could
launch 12 times a day 1.4 tons to outer space, that's
over 6,000 tons per year for about $12M fuel and
another $1M overhead.

If you borrowed the whole $24M at 15% over 7 years
fixed, your monthly payments would be $463,122,
monthly fuel to launch $960,000, monthly overhead
$83,333, totaling $1.5M/mo (out). If you can get a
contract or find customers to use your 500 ton per
month launch capability, the cost to outer space would
be $3.00 per kilogram! Kick it up to $10./kg to pay
for stuff like insurance, taxes, replacement of
equipment, expansion and new projects, R&D, profit
sharing & retirement plans, etc.

Heck, if you can get it going, I'd buy at least 2
dozen launches (probably a more), to see my class
project a reality on the moon. In fact if you can
raise the money, I would love to work with you on such
a project.

DaveH

P.S. I have a few other ideas that I consider pretty
cool.