Say you had a perfect space launch system.

Derek Lyons wrote:
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote:
Derek Lyons wrote:
Indeed. Airways don't require installation or maintenance. Train
tracks do. If one aircraft is downchecked, another can fill it's
place. If the track is broken, the entire pipeline is brought to a
halt.

I believe you are incorrect. Modern air transport relies on
a substantial degree on not inexpensive infrastructure, such
as VOR, radar, runways, weather stations, control towers,
ILS, traffic control centers, and now GPS (though that is a
shared system).

The you haven't paid attention. Those things are a web, and the
failure of one item in a single location does not mean total, or often
even significant stoppage over an entire route.

Breakage of a track OTOH brings the entire track to a halt.

Uhhh, Derek, there was a rather significant event
a few years ago where the air travel system was
demonstrated to be insecure. The result was a
national "ground stop" of all air travel in and
through the United States for a period of several
days. That's not even to begin to tally up all the
disruptions to air travel from individual failures
and "breakages", such as airports rendered inutile
due to weather. Such breakages are just as damaging
to air transport as broken track or broken roadways
are to trains or automobiles. For what it's worth
there are often significant redundancies and
alternate routes even in train transport (and, of
course, in the highway systems).

Due to seasonality, the peak to average ratio of passengers on airplane
flights is already more than 2:1. That is sort of beside the point,
though. It is just as easy to double throughput of aircraft as it is
to double throughput of trains. But getting back on topic, the same is
not true of a space elevator. The space elevator has a set throughput
(in my opinion far too low), and the only way to double throughput, as
you put it, is to build another space elevator - with it's associated
ground facilities, orbital facilities, etc.

Normal rockets (or most abnormal rockets) can double throughput by
flying more often, or once that is maxed out more rockets can be built.
The advantage is that these additional rockets can then be flown out
of the existing earth infrastructure to the existing orbital
infrastructure. That will save a lot of resources!

The same problems could happen to any infrastructure. Indeed, soon
after 9/11 the trains were halted as well do to security concerns.
Busses have many security problems, but they are basically ignored
(probably because high profile people don't take the bus). Even basic
roads can cause problems - the island of Oahu constantly has problems
like this. If a utility pole goes down on the north shore, half the
island becomes unreachable! (Scary, but true - it happens all the
time!)

"David Summers" wrote in message
ups.com...
The same problems could happen to any infrastructure. Indeed, soon
after 9/11 the trains were halted as well do to security concerns.

Which trains were those David? AFAIK no Amtrak trains were stopped anytime
after 9/11 due to security reasons.

I don't think any commuter railroads where halted either.


Busses have many security problems, but they are basically ignored
(probably because high profile people don't take the bus). Even basic
roads can cause problems - the island of Oahu constantly has problems
like this. If a utility pole goes down on the north shore, half the
island becomes unreachable! (Scary, but true - it happens all the
time!)


Bah, stop complaining you guys have the only Interstate highways that don't
go inter-state. :-)

I'm not some novice who thinks that we should just wait for cheap
nanotube rope/that the power switching for electric launch systems is
trivial/even that tether capture is trivial.


Did somebody say electromagnetic gun launch to space?

Pulsed-power switching might be a problem for electromagnetic launch, but
EML is already tested for at least launching rockets at high velocity
which then ignite and boost to orbit.

The high-voltage nanosecond pulsed-power switching doesn't get near enough
capital to consider the research potential tapped. If it did, then it
would.

Comparing electromagnetic gun launch to space, EGLTS, to the Space
Elevator is definitely Apples and Oranges, or rather bionic apples versus
imaginary oranges.

Indeed, where some have the biggest problem with EGLTS being pulsed-power
and other megaindustrial capacity electrical components, following mostly
well-known and practiced fundamental principles, many people with
knowledge say the space elevator is technically impossible.

That's not a slight against the space elevator, that many people think it
is not worthwhile, it's just a fact of their current opinion.

The space elevator, with the concept of a thread longer than the Earth's
equator three times over, is just a little bit too far past the "flying
car" for realistic expectations. The ETOMD, or ETSMD, Earth-to-Orbit or
Earth-to-Space Mass Driver, could take a car and send it flying.

Hell, even Saddam Hussein figured he could build a cannon to launch things
into space. Then again, look where that got him.

We were talking some about it, the hundred metric tonne pod hits some 30
G's in deceleration when it goes from the vacuum of the launch track to
the open air, without any modifications to the air just outside the launch
snout. So, to launch people in that they'd need to be in a crash module
inside the pod. In a hundred metric tonne pod, 100000 kilograms or around
260000 pounds, 130 tons, there would be room for that.

One reason to consider the investment into the EGLTS is because exactly of
these pulsed-power and other issues we discuss. Most of the research
being done in the area is government, and therefore there is easy
technology transfer, and that does somewhat weaken the intellectual
property incentive of research, because the government could override your
patent at any time, for reasons of national security or public safety, or
even eminent domain.

While that is so they'd probably be very amenable to licensing the
pulsed-power systems and other technologies arising from a class of space
launch vehicles that do not use rocketry as their primary onboard system.
The primary launch system sits on the ground in the open air.

The EGLTS system could form a business, because people with payloads that
they wanted in space could pony up cash to buy a modular pod and outfit it
however they wanted, enabling a line of suppliers up and down the aisle,
with the launch franchise taking a cut.

Hey, David, you're reticent with specifics about your plan. What is your
plan? Basically recent law means you can fly all the commercial rocket
shots you want.

EGLTS is a paradigm shift and like the railroad in the Old West. The
Transcontinental Railroad was financed with a land grant. Space is more
like an ocean.

Warm regards,

Ross Finlayson

It was Amtrak through Utah and Nevada - a train derailed just days
after 9/11 and they thought it might be terrorists. Turned out to be
innocent, but the trains were halted for a few days (as I remember).

Read up.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...hl=en&safe=off
If you want a mega-space launch project that's public to dream about,
try the Launch Loop of the very same Lofstrom.

Read up.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...hl=en&safe=off
If you want a mega-space launch project that's public to dream about,
try the Launch Loop of the very same Lofstrom.