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Originally posted by Sp1ke@Jun 15 2005, 04:51 PM
I haven't done any calculations but it sounds like you'd need an awful lot of power to lift the fuel pipes. You'd need enough thrust from each of the platforms to keep the pipes in position and they'd have to be heavy to make them safe. A fuel leak or failure in any section would have serious consequences.
Is the thrust needed to lift a very heavy object at 1.5 km/s going to be less than that needed to lift a much lighter rocket at 7.7km/s?
I think a more permanent structure like the space elevator would work out cheaper because you only need to erect it once, not every time you do a new launch.
An interesting idea but it will only be proven by the calculations that you need to back it up with.
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a friend calculated how much fuel we need to launch payload horizontal at 185km high.
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The main problem for a rocket are the 7.7 km/s needed to accelerate a payload into low earth orbit. Overcoming gravity usually takes about 1.5 km/s. In your design you are only overcoming the 1.5 km/s - you still need a rocket to accelerate the payload to 7.7 km/s. Using hydrogen and oxygen (exhaust velocity of 4500 m/s) you get a mass ratio of 0.183 => The empty mass of your rocket plus payload would have to be lighter than 18.3% of the launch mass).
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we can not build space elevator today (no enough carbon nanotube)
we can build my idea today (if it is possible by physics laws and economic at long term), nasa can build my idea in 1 year probably.
space elevator cost 5-15 billion$
i think my idea cost between 400 million$ - 1 billion$.
i think like you,
to proof that idea works, many calculations must be done (that i can't do)
but to proof that idea will not work, many calculations must be done too.