Talk:Mass Drivers

I have no idea what Jarogers means by "TOC".

Dust from L2

That the three body problem in celestial mechanics in not solvable in general is well known, but I can get a specific reference. I have seen articles that present interesting results for the Earth moon system, but have not located them when looking for them recently. Simply, particles left to drift near the L2 point with a small relative velocity are each in an individual trajectory but not in any of the special cases in which there is a repeating path. There are classes of trajectories for which the fate is to intersect the surface of Luna in less than a month. There are similar classes intersecting Earth's surface. Some trajectories are ejected from the system into independant solar orbit. Some trajectories hang aroung the Earth moon system for years before finding one of these eventual fates. It would be expected that dust and grit particles released from breaking fiberglass bags of sifted fraction of regolith would enter all such trajectories unless precautions are taken to prevent that.

Flashbulb Rocket

If I remember correctly, the circularizing velocity for the mass driver described in "FIRST MASS DRIVER" is about seven meters per second, less than one thousandth of the mission delta v for Earth to low Earth orbit. This should be well within the range of oxygen aluminum rockets that people should one day be able to produce on Luna. As for the flashbulb rocket in particular it is essentially a solid fuel pressure feed oxidizer rocket in which the exhaust gas is the excess oxygen. Igniting this rocket should be no more difficult than igniting a flash bulb. The particular fuel/oxidizer mixture that melts open the valve to the oxygen tank need not be exactly thermite. The Aluminum oxide threads coated with aluminum and or magnesium would need coatings of silicon oxide and or silicon to control burn rate, allow pressure build up in the combustion chamber and allow transfer of heat to the excess oxidizer. This would be a single use rocket for which the electronic timer and battery or capacitive storage device would be salvaged. Another sort of rocket might do as well.

--FARTHERRED8:10 Central daylight time