High efficiency drives

From: Tom Tucker (Olympia) [mailto:tntucker@...]

Mike, what I was getting at is the duty cycle of a mass driver is probably
going to require lots of power for a few seconds, and then very little for a
few minutes while re-loading happens. This power spike can and should be
averaged using an energy storage device. On the otherhand, perhaps you
envision your mass driver working continuously like a machine gun?

Well, O'Neill certainly did. He spoke in terms of firing at a rate of
around one per second. He was envisioning the launch of small pellets of
ore. You might be visualizing a much larger mass driver launching finished
products.

Regards,

Mike Combs

From:
Tom Tucker (Olympia) [mailto:tntucker@...]
Mike, what I was getting at is the duty cycle of a mass driver is probably going to require lots of power for a few seconds, and then very little for a few minutes while re-loading happens. This power spike can and should be averaged using an energy storage device. On the otherhand, perhaps you envision your mass driver working continuously like a machine gun?

Well, O'Neill certainly did. He spoke in terms of firing at a rate of around one per second. He was envisioning the launch of small pellets of ore. You might be visualizing a much larger mass driver launching finished products.

Regards,
Mike Combs