Henry Cate over at Why Homeschool has started a Carnival of the Space Geeks (aka the Carnival of Space) which highlights interesting space related posts submitted by individual authors.
It is a great way of not only exposing ones writings to new audiences, but finding interesting (and new) space geeks chatting about the cosmos around us.
Space Geek Highlight: One post that I personally found to be very interesting was by Brian Wang on Advanced Nanotechnology who proposes combining the maglev launch systems with space tethers and some form of magbeam.
(Advanced Nanotechnology) The $10,000/kg cost of getting things into space has been crippling what is possible in space. Any low cost system will also need to have a high volume purpose. I discuss the best system that would still involve chemical propulsion and laser and magnetic launch systems. The focus is on laser launch array systems (and mirror reflecting enhancement). [...]
Chemical rockets and incremental developments will take a long time to radically alter the cost equation for space as well as the volume of material that can be delivered into space. The best systems involving chemical propulsion would swap out the bottom stage with a magnetic boost and the top with either tethers (skyhooks) or magbeam.
Although the magbeam technology is very theoretical (and very expensive) although the maglev combination with space tethers could help dent the cost of space below a $1,000/lb (which would be significant).
For those interested in joining the next Carnival of the Space Geeks, visit Why Homeschooling for details on how to enter.
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Thanks for the notice of my article.
ReplyDeleteI had a link in that article to more of the specifics of reducing the delta V from chemical propulsion of the hypersonic or regular rocket
Crowlspace also had an update on using solar power for the magbeam.