Yes it's been proposed for humans, the Star Tram - but involves at least a 1000 km long track with the far end raised high into the air, it is however more possible, and less sci. fi. than you might think at first.
They've got some nice artist's drawings on their site, so will add a few more:
This is how they envision the spaceport where you would start your journey to orbit:
It uses magnetically suspended superconducting cables.
Startram - maglev train to low earth orbit
Startram Technology - Startram
They estimate it would take 20 years to develop and cost $60 billion - but still - that's a third of the development cost of the Space Shuttle.
So given what you get as the end result, it is not so very expensive.
It's something also that we can do with present day technology. Somewhat like the space elevator idea but you just need cables able to hold up tens of kilometers for the stays, instead of the thousands of kilometers needed for a space elevator. We have materials already that can do that.
See also We already have the technology to send trains into space, at a fraction of the cost of rockets
You can also do much shorter systems if you are sending materials rather than humans into orbit.
For instance if the aim is to send water or fuel to LEO, then all you really need is for the capsule itself to be able to withstand the acceleration along with the rocket engine it uses to go into LEO. But there is plenty of experience in hardware able to withstand high accelerations for ICBMs so that should be no problem.
Startram have that in mind also - both of them start in evacuated tunnels - but the gen 1 one - just goes into a tunnel through a mountain, and accelerates through the mountain, and shoots out the other side fast enough to reach orbit. It leaves out the levitating superconducting cables section of the Gen 2 human transport.
That would be fine for supplies that can withstand high g.
Their FAQ is here:
StarTram FAQ
They've got some nice artist's drawings on their site, so will add a few more:
This is how they envision the spaceport where you would start your journey to orbit:
It uses magnetically suspended superconducting cables.
Startram Technology - Startram
They estimate it would take 20 years to develop and cost $60 billion - but still - that's a third of the development cost of the Space Shuttle.
So given what you get as the end result, it is not so very expensive.
It's something also that we can do with present day technology. Somewhat like the space elevator idea but you just need cables able to hold up tens of kilometers for the stays, instead of the thousands of kilometers needed for a space elevator. We have materials already that can do that.
See also We already have the technology to send trains into space, at a fraction of the cost of rockets
You can also do much shorter systems if you are sending materials rather than humans into orbit.
For instance if the aim is to send water or fuel to LEO, then all you really need is for the capsule itself to be able to withstand the acceleration along with the rocket engine it uses to go into LEO. But there is plenty of experience in hardware able to withstand high accelerations for ICBMs so that should be no problem.
Startram have that in mind also - both of them start in evacuated tunnels - but the gen 1 one - just goes into a tunnel through a mountain, and accelerates through the mountain, and shoots out the other side fast enough to reach orbit. It leaves out the levitating superconducting cables section of the Gen 2 human transport.
That would be fine for supplies that can withstand high g.
Their FAQ is here:
StarTram FAQ
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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