🚀 go-pugleaf

<COILGUN/ELECTROMAGNETIC LAUNCHER(EML) >
<COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH/DATABASE PROJECT>
<VOL. 1 NO. 1 NOVEMBER, 1995           >

I am posting in the hope that other interested readers are as driven
to live and work in space as I am. 

<MISSION STATEMENT>

1)To get cargo to orbit by Coilgun by the year 2005.

2)To have a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Cargo Depot that will fuel and supply 
Single Stage To Orbit(SSTO) vehicles for longer durations in Space, 
Trips to the Moon, Near Earth Asteroids(NEAs), and perhaps Mars.


<COILGUN DESCRIPTION>

A CoilGun is a tube surrounded by Superconducting electromagnetic coils.
Used to launch (SHOCK HARDENED CARGO) to LEO at extremely high accelerations.
Coilguns with barrel lengths of less than 1,000 miles are impractical for 
live or fragile cargo due to accelerations of extream magnitude 
(100s-1,000s of times the force of earth normal gravity).

The Launch Tube should be evacuated to reduce the drag caused by air 
friction.  This makes it necessary to have airlocks at both ends of 
the Coilgun launch tube (loading and launching).  The airlock at the 
launching end needs to operate at camera shutter type speeds due to the 
extremely high exit speed of the projectile (7MPS APPROX.).  This also makes 
short launch tubes more practical because a smaller volume is easier to pump 
the air out of.  The launching end also needs to be at high altitude to 
reduce atmospheric air pressure to as low as possible (low humidity would 
help also) to reduce drag caused by air friction.

A small boost in launch speed (a few thousand Miles Per hour 1,400?) can be
gained by launching  west to east with the Earths' rotation.  Most rockets 
are launched this way also.  A small rocket engine is needed to put the 
projectile into a circular orbit(otherwise it will crash into earth...).
So the projectile may end up looking like the DC-X but with a smaller fuel 
tank and larger cargo space.  The craft must be reusable to hold down launch 
costs.  Also as any trucker will tell you; the projectile(for lack of a 
better name) would never travel empty.  On the return trip to earth it should 
carry goods or people from space.

A "COILGUN " could launch tractor trailer size payloads to orbit every 
few minutes (at about 1000Gs) perfect for launching things like fuel for 
the Earth Moon run...

The cost of launching cargo in this manner would be, 
<THE LOWEST POSSIBLE UNTIL NANOTECHNOLGY MAKES SPACE ELEVATORS FEASIBLE!!!>


<GOAL STATEMENT>

1) get as much information about COILGUNS as possible distributed to as 
many people as possible

2) get people to understand the major differences between coilguns and 
railguns

3) get as much hard data as possible in FREE online form accessible by WWW,
FTP, And a Newsgroup posted newsletter.
(WITH PERMISSION FROM PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS)

4) AVOID REDUNDANT POSTINGS!  
Please read the sources section at the end of this document...

Interested parties please send what you find to these newsgroups: 
sci.space.tech, sci.space.science.

And to me personally: 
geoffk@sover.net

<WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP THIS PROJECT>

Look into the present status of "COILGUNs/EMLs" 
in the IEEE, AIAA, SSI, Congressional, (proceedings, journals)
"THE READER'S GUIDE TO PERIODICAL LITERATURE", or other guides...

please send what you find to these newsgroups: 
sci.space.tech, sci.space.science.

And to me personally: 
geoffk@sover.net

I have not gotten any permission to post fulltext documents yet... If you 
know how to obtain permission or are in a position to grant permission to put 
full text documents in a /pub directory on open acces server, I would be very 
greatfull for your help.

<"COILGUN/EML" SOURCES>

<MAGAZINES, BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, DISSERTATIONS>

(see "BATTLE OF THE BIG SHOTS" AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE vol. 8, no. 3,
Aug.-Sept. 1993, p. 55-61.)

(see also "THE GUNS OF BROOKLYN" DISCOVER MAGAZINE, Aug. 1992, p. 14)

(see also "WORKING ON THE RAILGUN" BY DAN SCOTT ADD ASTRA MAGAZINE,
 June 1990, p. 10-14)

(see also "LAB SAYS ELECTROMAGNETISM COULD LAUNCH SATELLITES" 
New York Times Science section Jan. 30, 1990 p. c1, c12)


IEEE Transactions on Magnetics:

Vol. MAG-18, No. 1, January 1982
     1980 Conference on Electromagnetic Guns and Launchers 
     
Vol. MAG-20, No. 2, March 1984
     2nd Symposium on Electromagnetic Launch Technology
     
Vol. MAG-22, No. 6, November 1986
     3rd Symposium on Electromagnetic Launch Technology
     
Vol. 25, No. 1, January 1989
     4th Symposium on Electromagnetic Launch Technology
         
Vol. 27, No. 1, January 1991
     5th Symposium on Electromagnetic Launch Technology
     
Vol. 29, No. 1, January 1993
     6th Symposium on Electromagnetic Launch Technology
     
Vol. 31, No. 1, January 1995
     7th Symposium on Electromagnetic Launch Technology


(see also 1987 SSI and AIAA,
(INTERNATIONAL SPACE DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE(ISDC6) PROCEEDINGS?) pg. 302-309 
"UPDATE ON EARTH TO SPACE ELECTROMAGNETIC LAUNCHERS (EML))

Three  magazine articles I have are not dated (between 1988-1990). 

1)Omni "RAILWAY TO HEAVEN" in the Space section
2)Popular Science 1990 Coilguns something?,
3)Scientific American "GREAT GUNS" Science and the Citizen section.


<RESEARCHERS> (for those who can search by researcher's works)

ERIC DREXLER, HENERY KOLM AND GERARD O'NEILL
(MIT, SSI, L5/NSS)

MR. BILL COWAN
Electromagnetic Launcher Project Sandia National Labs
Albuquerque, NM 87107.

W. F. WELDON
Center for Electronics, The University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, TX 78758-4497

ZIVAN ZABAR, Y. NAOT, L. BIRENBAUM, E. LEVI AND P. N. JOSHI 
Polytechnic University, Weber Research Institute, 333 Jay Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11201

HENERY KOLM, PETER MONGEAU, RICHARD FRENCH, CHRISTINA MILLAS
Electromagnetic Launch Research Inc., A KAMAN company,
2 Fox Road, Hudson, MA 01749

MILES R. PALMER and ALI E. DABIRI
Science Applications International Corporation
Shalimar, FL 32579

BRUCE ROTH
Orbital Transport Services Inc. Phoenix, AZ ??????

D. GIORGI, H. HELAVA, K. LINDNER, J. LONG, O. ZUCHKER
Energy Compression Research Corporation, 910 Camino Del Mar,
Del Mar, CA 92014


<INTERNET>

NASA Technological Reports:
http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/NTRS
Using the "RECON" database ONLY gave me the most hits under the search terms
'COILGUN','RAILGUN','ELECTROMAGNETIC LAUNCHER', IEEE TRANSACTIONS MAGNETICS.'

I hope that this posting will be well received and acted upon...

Sincerely,

Geoff Krampetz...;-)