The Space Pier is a new space launch concept, consisting of a 100km high and 300km long structure that uses an electromagnetic mass driver to launch payloads into space. It is a compromise between other post-rocket space technology propositions, such as an orbital space elevator/skyhook and an earth-based mass driver. The Space Pier would be less expensive and more effective than both. It could be made of diamond, which can be mass-produced, and would be out of reach of most space junk. The cost of lifting a 10-ton payload in an elevator 100 km and then accelerating it to 8.2 km/s would be about half a dollar per kilogram.
The Space Pier is a new space launch concept, conceived by nanotechnologist and computer scientist Dr. Josh Hall. Dr. Hall occasionally presents the Space Pier concept at conferences, often in conjunction with molecular manufacturing, which would likely be required to make the concept cost-effective and realistic to implement.
A Space Pier is a structure 100 km (62 miles) high and 300 km (186 miles) long. A payload ascends one of the towers 100km in an elevator, then is launched along a horizontal track for 300km using an electromagnetic mass driver. At just 10 Gs for 80 seconds, which is a tolerable level for humans with padded seats, a projectile can be ejected from the atmosphere. Three hundred kilometers is enough to bring a projectile from zero to about 8.2 km/s (5.1 miles/s) using contemporary electromagnetic technology. If sensible loading is not taken into account, even higher accelerations of magnitude required to achieve escape velocity (11.2 km/s or 7.0 miles/s) can be used.
The Space Pier is a compromise that was concocted in an attempt to get around several problems of other common post-rocket space technology propositions: an orbital space elevator/skyhook and an earth-based mass driver, also known as an electromagnetic accelerator or gun rail. The other two proposals get more attention and press, but a Space Pier would be less expensive and more effective than both. On his web page introducing the idea, Dr. Hall makes the observation that the density of the air at 100km altitude is only one-millionth the density at sea level, making it significantly easier to accelerate a high-speed payload. speed. A space elevator would hamper satellites, which inevitably collide with it unless they embark on a geosynchronous orbit. It would also need to be much higher than 100km, more on the order of 10,000km or more.
Because it’s 100 km high rather than 10,000 km, a Space Pier could be made of a material that can theoretically be mass-produced: diamond. This is in contrast to a space elevator, which would have to be built from atomically precise buckytubes, or carbon nanotubes, to support its own weight. Diamonds can already be synthesized in relatively large quantities at moderate cost, but entirely new manufacturing processes would be required to create the quantities needed to build a Space Pier megastructure. Not surprisingly, Dr. Hall proposes molecular manufacturing. The structure’s height of 100km would also put the Space Pier out of reach of most space junk, which is rapidly swept up in free fall at that altitude.
According to Dr. Hall’s calculations, lifting a 10-ton payload in an elevator 100 km and then accelerating it to 8.2 km/s would consume only about 5,000 US dollars (USD) of electricity, coming to about half a dollar per kilogram. This is significantly better than the current launch cost of USD 10,000 per kilogram. The projectile would not have sufficient velocity to escape earth at this level of acceleration, but it would circle the planet and stabilize at an altitude of approximately 340km (211m). The payload would have to do some small maneuvers on its own to make sure its orbit becomes a regular circle. To escape earth and reach interplanetary orbits, mass drivers could be placed in space as waypoints, or conventional rockets could be used to pull the payload out of Earth’s gravity.
One hundred kilometers sounds like an extremely tall height for a range of towers, but note that towers approaching one kilometer (0.62m) tall are already under construction and the materials we use for skyscrapers are relatively conventional. Advances in the 21st century will allow us to bulk produce things that were previously expensive, including diamond. The Space Pier is an example of a visionary future application of this technology.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
