an interesting long-range spacelaunch system...

In My Humble Opinion
1

over here something interesting from “Mother of Storms” by John Barnes just popped back into my head.

well, actually, the idea has been bouncing around in my head for a long time, but over there i just remebered where it first seeded my brain; i wanted to cite it out of safety.

this system would be an excellent way of moving over interstellar distances, and it’s a major elaboration on what was actually in the book. now, here it is…

the system:
the ship itself would be a factory. zero-gee manufacturing on route would pay for it.
as it was going out, it would releace rings with magnetics in the center behind it. the earth would send raw material out to it in the form of packages with magnetics on the outside. the magnetics would force against each other, accellerating the rings in one direction and the packages in the other, like a giant mass-driver.
the ship would occasionally send a package on past instead of catching it for it’s velocity. these would pass through rings sent ahead, accellerating those rings while it slowed. when the lead package reached the leading edge of the ring stack, it would change into a ring, extending the stack.
when the ship reached the halfway point, the launchings and recievings would’ve stopped it.
at this point, a ship carrying passengers could start up the ring stack, accellerate slowly along the entire chain, pass through the station at relatavistic speed, and slow down going along the trailing leg.
rapid, safe, long-distance transport. just as many years as you need to go there at some large fraction of the speed of light, minus relatavistic time distortions.

however in this, all the rings would move away from the station, and no package would stop at the station itself.
so, another stack would be started to the station. packages going through it it would pass the other direction, and the rings would flow inward to the station.

the package-craft would move very fast, but a ring-trip to either a planet or a station would be slower, because it would have to go through a hard decelleration phase- it’s moving at reltavistic speeds at the ENDS of it’s trip rather than the middle, so they would pass through a long decelleration spiral of secondary rings starting out at the kuiper belt. these rings would be maintained by conventional technology, whatever that is at the time.

so, what do you all think? i know that there MUST be some glaring error there that i can’t see, but it just seems to be such an elegant system that i can’t help but to like it…

2

Yes, I spot a glaring error. Otherwise, this is a good system.

The error is: the rings are just hanging there in space.

The inertia of the spaceship being moved will be transferred to the rings, sending them all moving in the opposite direction of the travel of the ship. Even worse, the inertias would be different (the faster the ship tries to travel, the more inertia it must overcome, or some permutation thereof), and this would send the rings off at different velocities, therefore, causing the rings to hit each other rather spectacularly.

However, a system of struts anchored to a massive asteroid, or even a planet connecting all of the rings would take care of this problem, but would be prohibitively expensive (I’m thinking of distances of thousands of kilometres between the rings; maybe you’re thinking on a slightly closer spacing than I.).

Short answer: Yeah, it would work, but to make it work, it would cost beaucoup bucks. Better off finding a nice fusion engine.

3

actually, i pointed that out. in fact, that’s how the ship pays for itself- it sends product from shipboard factories back in the rings it uses to accellerate packages it catches to accellerate itself.

to keep things from colliding, the packages and rings would have to releace with extreme precision, but there should be some rockets on there to keep things aligned.

anything else? i know there’s a problem with it somewhere, even if i cant really see it…

4

Jeez, whatever happened to the good ol’ days of hyperspace?

5

accidentally threw 'em out with the phasers. you want to go digging through the trash for em, be my guest.

but i warn you…

i threw out some two month old uncovered pasta right after the warpgate. uk.

6

This system is quite intriguing to me, IMHO. Could you possibly draw up a simplified diagram or VRML simulation? I’d like to see this in action.

(Don’t worry, I plan on reading the book, too. I just read some reviews. It actually reminds me of something I’m writing right now - which is kind of spooky, too…)

7

cant draw for sh*t on “paint”, no scanner, and most of all, no website. don’t know what the second thing is.

sorry.

i’ll see what i can do, and maybe E-mail it to you. i need to think how i would draw it first.

it’s getting late, so i will do it when i have time, though that might not be until friday. i’ll try and keep this discussion updated, though.
i really, really know that there has to be a glaring error in the way i described it, but i really can’t see it… i just feel it… i want to correct whatever that might be before i work out numbers…

8

[slight hijack]VRML is the virtually reality matrix language. It’s actually more a like a 3D version of Java. Since most of the files are so blazingly huge the only people that would be able to enjoy them for entertainment uses would be college students with a T1, or businessmen. Many companies have found applications for it. In fact, I think the Nasdaq has a 3D model of itself running in real time, in VRML.[/hijack]

Yeah, if you can, it’s daleem@alleg.edu. I’ll try and get around to reading the book, too.

9

[sub]DAMN! i just accidentally deleted all this. oh well, here we go again![/sub]

i found my mistake. the second direction stack wouldn’t flow in to the station.
now, however, it accounts for stellar drift, another sticking point.

  • *revised system **:
    the sequence would work as before, except the rings would not be sent in front of the ship.

at about the halfway point, the packages would stop containing useful material and the ship would stop catching them. the packages would keep going out to accellerate the rings back home and maximally efficient rings sent out to keep things aligned. one of the last packages to be recieved would be a pack containing magnetic tubes, perhaps filled with some dense material. these tubes would be loaded into gaussguns to provide inertial thrust for decellerating the ship. occasionally the ship would “catch” a package, to restock their ship with supplies for the people on the ship, with more ammo, and with some resources for the leader rings.

when they arrived, a decellerating system will have to be installed to make the system workable.

  • *Decellerator **:

the decellerator would be a long spiral of stations, staring at the kuiper belt, to recieved packages down form their relatavistic speeds. at one end they will be designed for the rings, and at the other for packages.

the stations will maitain their positions with some form of highly efficient propulsion tech, perhaps Ion-Dive tech, or argon-plate thrusters (two things i saw in SciAm.).

the spiral would be set at a slight angle, so that relatavistic packages reduce their chance of hitting an asteroid below the infentesimal chances they already are. pays to be safe!

i’m thinking of calling the system “Continuous Inter-Stellar Magnetic Transit,” or C.I.S.M.T., pronounced “kismet”.

so, thats it. questions? comments? better name? I want to know!

<PS, to mister spider-goat> uhhmm… no. my poor little 56K would shit itself at that. and, the magna-ring system is only a tiny part of the book. if that’s the only reason you are reading, dont. it’s a good book otherwise, though.
[sub]OOH, its late. and i need to get up at Five tomarrow… buh-bye…[/sub]

10

i feel somehow insulted that my idea would die a falling death before 24 hours had passed.

oh well, i guess i was the only one who thought it was interesting…