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From the moon, the 'traditional' idea is a mass driver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver First time I heard

From the moon, the 'traditional' idea is a mass driver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver First time I heard about it was in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colon...

agent008t 5y ago
Anybody interested in this should play Policenauts. It is an amazing game by Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame. It features lots of details like that about life in space, very fleshed out, and is just altogether one of the best games ever made. There is also an amazing English translation, and a blog on how it was done: https://lparchive.org/Policenauts/Update%2042/ https://lparchive.org/Policenauts/Update%2042/
rbanffy 5y ago
The big advantage of the rotating launcher is that you can aim it towards other targets, not only the Earth. You can take your shuttle from LEO to the Moon and then board the big spaceliner in her maiden voyage (because that's the last time it'll be on a planetary surface) towards Mars.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  Where you aim the ground launcher (given you're aiming "over the horizon" at least) doesn't have a lot to do with where you wind up in orbit.
  - datameta 5y ago
    Would it not take more dV to cirularize if we fired it straight up?
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      The better aligned to the desired trajectory you launch, the less delta-V you need to get where you want to be. If we launch a payload and, in order to get to where you want it'll need to do a u-turn, our launcher isn't helping.
      - datameta 5y ago
        Precisely. Therefore a 45 or 30 degree launch angle gets more of the velocity in the orbital vector. Unless you are talking about launching it at lunar escape velocity directly at earth orbit.
        rbanffy 5y ago
        We were discussing the installation of these on the Moon as a way to launch spacecraft. A straight rail would be aimed at a fixed point, but a centrifugal launcher could release its payload at any point and send it in any direction (as most interesting destinations in the solar system are on a single plane).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

agent008t 5y ago

Anybody interested in this should play Policenauts. It is an amazing game by Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame. It features lots of details like that about life in space, very fleshed out, and is just altogether one of the best games ever made. There is also an amazing English translation, and a blog on how it was done: https://lparchive.org/Policenauts/Update%2042/ https://lparchive.org/Policenauts/Update%2042/

rbanffy 5y ago

The big advantage of the rotating launcher is that you can aim it towards other targets, not only the Earth. You can take your shuttle from LEO to the Moon and then board the big spaceliner in her maiden voyage (because that's the last time it'll be on a planetary surface) towards Mars.

h2odragon 5y ago
Where you aim the ground launcher (given you're aiming "over the horizon" at least) doesn't have a lot to do with where you wind up in orbit.
- datameta 5y ago
  Would it not take more dV to cirularize if we fired it straight up?
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    The better aligned to the desired trajectory you launch, the less delta-V you need to get where you want to be. If we launch a payload and, in order to get to where you want it'll need to do a u-turn, our launcher isn't helping.
    - datameta 5y ago
      Precisely. Therefore a 45 or 30 degree launch angle gets more of the velocity in the orbital vector. Unless you are talking about launching it at lunar escape velocity directly at earth orbit.
      - rbanffy 5y ago
        We were discussing the installation of these on the Moon as a way to launch spacecraft. A straight rail would be aimed at a fixed point, but a centrifugal launcher could release its payload at any point and send it in any direction (as most interesting destinations in the solar system are on a single plane).
deleted 5y ago
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