Bifrost

Bifrost will carry us beyond the constraints of Earth's Gravity.

The problem of getting objects off the Earth and into orbit or beyond has always been a difficult and expensive one. We have built amazing machines which expend a huge amount of energy to get a tiny mass into orbit. Modern rockets have an average lift to mass ratio (ratio of payload to the total mass of the rocket) of from xx to xx. The difficulty here is that as the rocket goes up, it must lift its own weight as it accelerates. [[Sketch out the technologies and lift to mass of modern rockets including proposed DC-X and Delta Clipper, or make up a graphic]] There is another problem with rockets. Their primary operating principle is that of the controlled explosion. Sometimes this becomes an uncontrolled explosion. Really, considering how infrequently anyone launches a rocket, explosions happen all too frequently. If you wanted to launch 20 flights per day, the current loss/win statistics would be likely to produce leathal results within a few days. So, it's too expensive and it's too dangerous. Even if we're able to build the X-Rocket machines which are coming along, it will still cost millions of dollars per launch for fuel. Their only saving grace is the lift mass ratio. What if we could build a machine where most of the fuel is kept in the launcher, and any lift phase is done safely without dangerous chemical reactions or nuclear processes? This is what we propose with the Bifrost Bridge. This device is essentially a ground based gun which shoots the payload into space. The technology of the Bifrost Bridge is that of Electromagnetic Linear Induction. That is, a series of electromagnets are spaced in a tube where the payload travels, as the payload passes each electromagnet, the magnet is turned off, pulling the payload toward it, but then allowing the payload to pass to the next magnet. Each time this is done, the payload accelerates. Now, if we draw the atmosphere out of the tube where the payload travels, and we utilize modern superconductivity to permit the payload to be leviated on magnetic fields, we can accelerate our payload up to great speeds. In fact, it is limited only by the amount of energy we put into the electromagnets, and by the heat shielding of our payload which will heat up when it crosses the atmosphere. Now, if the tube were pointing straight up, we would have difficulty building a sufficiently long vertical tube to get the acceleration we want. So, the tube should be horizontal, and to minimize the environmental impact and to make it easier to keep the tube in vacuum, it should be underground. If we had no atmosphere, we could simply make one end come out and point at the horizon. If we had sufficient acceleration to reach escape velocity, the payload would miss the horizon, and go into orbit. Unfortunately we have a pretty thick atmosphere, which will heat up and slow down our payload before it gets out of the atmosphere. The best way to deal with this is to build the tube near a mountainside and then curve the tube into a near vertical angle as we get into the bulk of the mountain. The tube would then exit the side or top of the mountain. If we pick a sufficiently tall mountain, we would have already left most of the atmosphere below before the payload exits the tube. This system can produce tremendous accelerations. We can easily accelerate our payload past the point where anything organic will turn into jelly (which is clearly not very desirable). However , this kind of super-high acceleration works great for non-delicate payloads such as inorganic raw materials. Just crank the system up to high acceleration and punch it through the rest of the atmosphere. By calculating exact accelerations, and by using small manuevering jets on the payload we can place it almost anywhere (polar orbits would not be possible unless our tube was pointing in the correct direction -- but such a giant tube built into a mointain s not an easy thing to move). Now, how about those delicate payloads (hopefully myself included)? It doesn't do much good to send lots of junk up into orbit if we cannot go up there with it. Humans don't tolerate accelerations of much more than 10 gs; anything over about 6 gs causes great discomfort. So, to get near escape velocity, we need a tube long enough to accelerate at a comforable rate for a sufficient time. There is another option besides making a longer tube. To get to escape velocity and to compensate for losses getting through the rest of the atmosphere, we must continue accelerating. Now, we could just put a big ugly rocket in our payload, but we already talked about that. What if we could leave the fuel on the ground and transmit the energy to our payload to force it up? This is not as wierd as it sounds. We can use an array of high powered lasers to do this. We place specially constructed blocks of ice on our payload. The laser shines on the ice, boils it, and gives us our acceleration. (No, the ice is not a fuel, it is a reaction mass. It's not the same thing and we don't need nearly as much of it.) Now, of course, simple ice would disintegrate into bits if we hit with that much energy. We can make it in layers and freeze other things into the water like plastic rebar and other solids to give it strength (black ice would absorb a lot more efficiently than clear water). Using these techniques we can get our living cargoes and our electronic equipment where we want to be. Later, with G suits and even lower accelerations we can even take the frailest passengers.