Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vocal bomb here. Since humans began putting satellites into
Speaker 1: orbit in the nineteen fifties, we've relied upon big, powerful
Speaker 1: rockets to escape Earth's gravity and get into space. But
Speaker 1: big rockets have a major downside in that they make
Speaker 1: space launches expensive. For example, NASA's Space Launch System Heavy
Speaker 1: Lift rocket, which is scheduled for its maiden flight in
Speaker 1: December of twenty nineteen, will cost an estimated one billion
Speaker 1: dollars per launch. Costs for space X is far more economical.
Speaker 1: Falcon Heavy, which took off successfully from Kennedy Space Center
Speaker 1: in February, still range from between ninety million and a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars per launch. For decades, however,
Speaker 1: visionaries have looked for ways to get into space without relying,
Speaker 1: at least not primarily upon rocket power. One such alternative
Speaker 1: approach is air to orbit launches, and it seems to
Speaker 1: be the verge of becoming a reality. Strato Launch, the
Speaker 1: private space launch company started by Microsoft co founder Paul
Speaker 1: Allen in eleven, has an ambitious plan to fly the
Speaker 1: world's biggest airplane with its three five foot that's a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen meter wingspan to an altitude of thirty
Speaker 1: five thousand feet or about eleven thousand meters. There it
Speaker 1: will serve as a high altitude launch platform for smaller
Speaker 1: rocket powered vehicles. Once released from the airplane, those vehicles
Speaker 1: won't have to overcome the drag caused by the thickness
Speaker 1: of the lower atmosphere as a ground launched rocket would,
Speaker 1: and they'll be able to get into orbit without having
Speaker 1: to burn as much fuel. In August eighteen, the company
Speaker 1: announced its lineup for four different types of launch vehicles,
Speaker 1: one vehicle that's still in the design study phase, a
Speaker 1: reusable space plane could transport either cargo or a human crew.
Speaker 1: Strato Launch plans to begin offering regular service in It's
Speaker 1: chief executive officer, Gene Floyd, said in a media release
Speaker 1: that the company as mission is to make access to
Speaker 1: space quote more convenient, affordable, and routine, and that scheduling
Speaker 1: a satellite launch eventually will be as easy as booking
Speaker 1: an airline flight. Meanwhile, another air to orbit outfit, Virgin Orbit,
Speaker 1: plans to use a modified Bowing seven hundred as a
Speaker 1: platform for its Launcher one rocket, which will propel satellites
Speaker 1: into orbit, but several other, even more exotic concepts still
Speaker 1: remain on the drawing board. James R. Powell, who co
Speaker 1: invented superconducting maglev propulsion for trains back in the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, has been advocating for years that the technology
Speaker 1: be used for launching spacecraft as well. Instead of a
Speaker 1: launching pad, this solution, called the Star Tram project, would
Speaker 1: use a massive elevated launch tube, Powell explained via email.
Speaker 1: Think of a magnetically levitated maglev train and a vacuum tunnel,
Speaker 1: with no air drags slowing the vehicle down, and with
Speaker 1: no need to carry large amounts of onboard propellant as
Speaker 1: is the case with rockets. It's relatively easy to reach
Speaker 1: orbital velocity of eighteen thousand miles per hour that's two
Speaker 1: thousand nine kilometers per hour or greater. When the vehicle
Speaker 1: exits the tunnel at high altitude, for example, at the
Speaker 1: summit of a high mountain, the vehicle would be going
Speaker 1: so fast that it basically coasts up to orbital altitude,
Speaker 1: where a small rocket is used to circularize the orbit.
Speaker 1: We've also designed several mechanisms to keep the vacuum in
Speaker 1: the tunnel intact when the vehicle exits the tunnel, so
Speaker 1: that the tunnel can be quickly reused to launch the
Speaker 1: next vehicle. All the major components of the star trans
Speaker 1: system exist already and are well understood. Powell first started
Speaker 1: contemplating the use of super conducting maglev for launching spacecraft
Speaker 1: at the suggestion of a colleague from NASA. Initially, he
Speaker 1: and his engineering partner, George Mazie developed a concept for
Speaker 1: a hundred billion dollar system suitable for manned space launches,
Speaker 1: in which a tube would be levitated with massive super
Speaker 1: conducting cables. They also designed a scaled down cargo only
Speaker 1: tube system that would stretch up the slope of a
Speaker 1: tall mouth town. They estimate that this cargo only system
Speaker 1: could be built for just twenty billion dollars, less than
Speaker 1: the cost of developing NASA's new heavy launch rocket. Once built,
Speaker 1: star Tram could transport one hundred thousand tons of cargo
Speaker 1: into space each year, many times what rocket launches currently carry,
Speaker 1: and would put equipment into low Earth orbit for a
Speaker 1: cost of about fifty dollars a pound. Powell says that
Speaker 1: once built, star Tram could transport one hundred thousand tons
Speaker 1: of cargo into space each year, many times what rocket
Speaker 1: launches currently carry and put equipment into low Earth orbit,
Speaker 1: for a cost of about fifty dollars a pound. That
Speaker 1: would be a fraction of the thousands of dollars per
Speaker 1: pound that it currently costs to get cargo into space.
Speaker 1: Another idea that's been around for decades is construction of
Speaker 1: a space elevator. A tall base tower near Earth's equator
Speaker 1: would be attached by a cable to a satellite in
Speaker 1: geosynchronous Earth orbit twenty two thousand miles that's thirty five
Speaker 1: kilometers above sea level, which would act as a counterbalance.
Speaker 1: Four to six elevator tracks would extend up the tower
Speaker 1: and cable structure, going to platforms at various levels. Electromagnetic
Speaker 1: powered vehicles would rise on the tracks, making the trip
Speaker 1: into orbital space in about five hours. The concept dates
Speaker 1: back to when Russian scientist Konstantine Silkovski suggested building a
Speaker 1: celestial castle that would be attached to a similar structure
Speaker 1: to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the concept was
Speaker 1: first popularized by science fiction author Arthur C. Clark in
Speaker 1: his nineteen seventy nine novel the Fountains of Paradise. Since then,
Speaker 1: space elevator adherents have continued to tout the concept, but
Speaker 1: the feasibility of a space elevator took a hit in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen when Chinese researchers published a paper detailing their
Speaker 1: findings that carbon nanotubes, the material earmarked for use in
Speaker 1: creating that enormously long cable, are vulnerable to a flaw
Speaker 1: that could reduce their strength significantly. Today's episode was written
Speaker 1: by Patrick J. Kaiger and produced by Tyler Klang. Visit
Speaker 1: our onlin in store it public dot com, slash brain
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Speaker 1: and of course, for more on this and other far
Speaker 1: reaching topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.