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[QUOTE="Bradley Morrison, post: 5741329, member: 621246"] I'm researching a topic for a sci-fi story. One of the elements is a "space glove", basically a network of nets that "catch" rods of ballistic projectiles launched from the peaks of mountains by railgun. Any comments or insights would be helpful. Here is a data dump of my scribblings on the topic. Space Glove Orbital system of nets that catches raw materials launched by railgun as ballistic projectiles. size of net to establish 95% confidence of catch Mass of net Mn using known materials (what would these materials need to be?) Challenge: Railgun exit velocity necessary for projectile to achieve low Earth orbit and have necessary tangential velocity to ensure catch without net breakage. Assume ground launch at 6,000 meters (i.e. Dinali or similar peak). What is the energy necessary and what is the marginal cost of each launch? My hypothesis is that marginal cost is a fraction of current launch technologies. Assuming catch successful, given mass Mp of projectile and Tangential Velocity of projectile Vx, how much fuel Mf is necessary to re-establish orbital velocity of net? Mass Mp of projectile needed to carry re-orbital velocity fuel Mf + 100kg of raw materials. We are assuming that projectiles will carry raw materials plus fuel to pay for momentum loss during catch. Surface area / shape / tangential velocity necessary of projectile at time of catch needed to ensure glove does not break I'm thinking that we are launching a ceramic tipped rod of (net materials) that will expand for "the catch". It would also need to contains fuel. First several years of launches would self assembling nets to increase the capacity of our Space Glove launch system. How many nets to accommodate a railgun launch every 60 seconds. At this launch capacity, space glove would enable low cost launching of 52,560,000 kg of raw materials per year. How long before we could have... - Orbiting solar cells to power entire countries via microwave relays - Planetary defenses from rogue asteroids - Orbital debris cleanup programs - Human habitats - Building of space factories - Launch platforms for exploratory programs & asteroid mining [/QUOTE]
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