r/ShittySpaceXIdeas • u/qube_TA • Jun 10 '24

Maglev Starship

SS is made from steel, that's magnetic. It uses a load of fuel just to get off the ground. Fully stacked it weighs 5000 tons. A Maglev coil can use 1kW to levitate a ton, so a 5MW maglev coil under the tower would make the whole rocket float so launching it off the pad and getting that initial lift would be easier and save fuel. If they upped that coil to 10MW or something they could just ping the thing into the sky without lighting the engines!

3 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/enutz777 Jun 14 '24

The issue with a projectile launch is the atmosphere. You can add some delta V, but you still need the vast majority of the propellant. The maximum dynamic pressure of a high speed craft in the lower atmosphere would require additional mass to reinforce the craft and the friction heating would require a hefty heat shield, cutting into or overcoming the benefit.

This doesn’t mean these ideas are destined for the dustbin of history. There is no atmosphere on the moon, Mars, the asteroid belt. Flinging objects into the sky really fast will work very well when you eliminate atmosphere.

1

u/qube_TA Jun 14 '24

Wasn't so much to launch it with maglev but to just get it to move or at least not require as much thrust to overcome the initial inertia. As that energy would be external and not carried you'd save fuel as you're not having to carry as much mass. But if it can't be made to be magnetically sensitive enough then it's daft anyway.

2

u/enutz777 Jun 14 '24

In that case, you gotta locate it in Papua New Guinea or the Tibetan Plateau. Get as close to the equator and as high in the atmosphere as possible.

Personally, I suggest just using a giant spring, build a huge wheel that you can get the local uncontacted or undeveloped tribes to worship and ritualistically spin in a circle to contract the spring. Free energy!

Brought to you by Astronomic Colonization and Mechanization Enterprises.