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China is building a railgun that can hurl crewed spacecraft into orbit (newatlas.com)

submitted 1 year ago by inkican@kbin.social to c/scifi@kbin.social

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Rockets being passé, China is working on using an electromagnetic railgun to launch crewed spacecraft the size of a Boeing 737, weighing 50 tonnes, into orbit. This remarkably ambitious project is even more ambitious than it seems at first glance.

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

And not get crushed by the G forces how exactly?

[–] thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

humans can still function when insane G forces have turned them into jelly right?

[–] atocci@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

While railguns are known for rapidly accelerating projectiles to hypersonic speeds over the short length of a gun barrel, there's no limit on how slowly they can accelerate something or how long the "rail" part of the railgun can be. Accelerating "slowly" over a long distance is totally possible!

[–] Repelle@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure, but it’s gonna require one hell of a long rail…

[–] MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Make it a circular rail with an off-ramp; like a particle accelerator. Still very ambitious.

[–] sushibowl@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

That would put the g-forces back in play: the faster you go around the rail the stronger the centripetal force that keeps you going in a circle. If the rail is straight the force only depends on acceleration not speed.

[–] Bizarroland@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

你们中有些人可能会死，但这是我愿意冒的风险

[–] Bizarroland@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Just to save you guys a click, this is a Google translate of, "some of you may die but that is a risk I'm willing to take"

[–] smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

I hereby dub any crew member sent to space in this manner a Cannonaut.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you want to reach LEO velocity and stay under 5g, you'd need a 860km long railgun...

This was posted in the correct community, because it's about as real as the hyperloop

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yeet

[–] lettruthout@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe even megayeet.

But I sure hope they can pull this off.

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That initial acceleration is gonna be a bit shitty.