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Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

arxiv.org

41–50 of 51 posts

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#41

Perhaps "slow" ascent would be a option, i.e. not reaching escape velocity but just steadily ascending until you are far enough away that gravity is lower. I know here on earth it is far more inefficient, which is why you always go for "ballistic" trajectories where you gain enough velocity that inertia carries you on. Maybe there is something you could "ratchet" against? Thrust a bit upward and have something preven…

I once had a fun week playing Kerbal Space Program building solar-powered quadcopter launch platforms... Basically a quadcopter which is mostly a big platform with a rocket payload in the middle. The quadcopter slowly ascends to the highest feasible altitude, bypassing all of the worst of the air resistance, and greatly reducing the delta v needed to get into orbit as a result. This was mainly helping with the atmosp…

Were you able to land the quadcopter part and recover the cost?

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#42

Perhaps "slow" ascent would be a option, i.e. not reaching escape velocity but just steadily ascending until you are far enough away that gravity is lower. I know here on earth it is far more inefficient, which is why you always go for "ballistic" trajectories where you gain enough velocity that inertia carries you on. Maybe there is something you could "ratchet" against? Thrust a bit upward and have something preven…

As gravity increases, buoyancy also increases. A high-g civilization with access to hydrogen would be able to float to the top of their atmosphere, and then proceed to launch into space.

This really wouldn't help as much as you'd think. For a high-gravity planet, the atmosphere is mostly a trivial problem compared to gravity, and the gravity at the top of the atmosphere would be barely lower than it is on the surface.

A much more realistic and useful option is to just go air-breathing nuclear, and use the atmosphere for reaction mass.

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#43
One option that doesn't seem to be mentioned is the used of beamed energy such as laser (visible or infra-red spectrum) which provide energy directly to a rocket.

This might be used in a secondary process (e.g., ion or plasma generators) or directly (heating atmosphere and/or fuel) to generate thrust.

The advantage is that the power source is on the ground, and need not be lofted, which removes part of the rocket-equation limit. It's still required to source or carry reaction mass, and I'd suggest that at least a fair portion of that be obtained within the atmosphere.

I don't know what a launch trajectory would look like, though I suspect something which went relatively slowly vertical (to minimise low-elevation drag), then began a hybrid lifting-ballistic flight at the highest possible levels of the atmosphere, powered by a planet-ringing set of laser stations, and acquiring reaction mass from the atmosphere itself, might be within the realm of reason?

It also strikes me that a world with sufficient mass would tend to retain hydrogen gas itself (though that would still likely react with oxygen to form water vapour), but at higher elevations there might be a significant differential fraction of H2 to other atmospheric components. Root mean squared velocity of H2 at 27 C (300 K) is about 7,000 kph (~4,300 mph).[1]

That's already less than Earth's escape velocity, so the problem is the molecules which have higher velocity that "boil off" into space.[2] I don't have the chops to compute this.

But a laser-pumped mesospheric hydrogen ramjet rocket might be able to take advantage of highly-energised (heated or ionised) hydrogen to gain escape velocity on even a significantly larger Super-Earth.

________________________________

Notes:

1. https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Ch...>

2. Earth has lost roughly 25% of its primordial hydrogen (and water) by this mechanism. https://sciencenordic.com/chemistry-climate-denmark/the-eart...>

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#44

Perhaps "slow" ascent would be a option, i.e. not reaching escape velocity but just steadily ascending until you are far enough away that gravity is lower. I know here on earth it is far more inefficient, which is why you always go for "ballistic" trajectories where you gain enough velocity that inertia carries you on. Maybe there is something you could "ratchet" against? Thrust a bit upward and have something preven…

The gravity from earth at the ISS is 9/10ths the gravity at the surface. The curve for decrease of force is not that curvaceous, to negate the gravity from earth requires significantly further distance than you think.

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#45
post #37

A super earth 2x the diameter of Earth but with the density of Mars would have the same surface gravity as Earth (according to my back of the envelope calculations).

The density of an object at hydrostatic equilibrium is a function of its gravity, which is a function of it's mass, assuming rocky and similar composition in aggregate. The likelihood that a planet would be 2x the diameter of earth and less dense is extremely low.

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#46

just think of the countless civilizations of blind space whales living in subsurface oceans for whom merely getting to the surface of their planet is as difficult as it is for us to get to space

We think it's hard launching a can full of air with some people inside is hard, try launching a can full of water.

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#47
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s clearly more difficult, but authors are a few individuals briefly thinking about a problem not entire civilization attacking the problem across generations. My first thought is balloons work based on relative densities so they can still reach very low density air on a high gravity world. That doesn’t help much with rockets, but firing a gun or using something like spin launch is much easier if you can start from…

Mostly it's moar stages. Each stage of a kerolox engine can get you about 5 km/s, and LEO is about 8 km/s, so two stages works pretty well. Velocity for LSEO (low super-earth orbit) might be 11 km/s, so you'd need a third stage, and each stage would be 3-5 times the size of whatever it's launching.

It’s not that simple a falcon 9 upper stage on a 5g super earth would collapse from its own weight during takeoff.

It’s a double hit as your lower stages are also losing ~5g’s of acceleration due to gravity. So if you want to add 3g the entire rocket needs to be able to withstand an effective 8g, and you need a rocket engine + fuel to provide 8g’s worth of force. On top of this the time between each stage becomes extremely costly.

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#48
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a fun week playing Kerbal Space Program building solar-powered quadcopter launch platforms... Basically a quadcopter which is mostly a big platform with a rocket payload in the middle. The quadcopter slowly ascends to the highest feasible altitude, bypassing all of the worst of the air resistance, and greatly reducing the delta v needed to get into orbit as a result. This was mainly helping with the atmosp…

Were you able to land the quadcopter part and recover the cost?

Sadly, once you lose focus on a craft in atmosphere it is lost. So shortly after you start piloting the launched probe, the quadcopter gets garbage collected by Kerbin's atmosphere.

Re: Super-Earths in Need for Extremly Big Rockets (2018)

#50
post #37

A super earth 2x the diameter of Earth but with the density of Mars would have the same surface gravity as Earth (according to my back of the envelope calculations).

The density of an object at hydrostatic equilibrium is a function of its gravity, which is a function of it's mass, assuming rocky and similar composition in aggregate. The likelihood that a planet would be 2x the diameter of earth and less dense is extremely low.

i completely disagree. Mercury is extremely dense and small, Venus is almost exactly the same size as Earth and is in fact ... less dense than Earth. There are many many things that leads to a planets density, and they call fall into a very wide range. A planet 2x the size of Earth with mars density seems very reasonable to happen - even if unlikely. Kepler-22b is very close for example
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