Talk:Mass driver

message: Do you need a paramagnetic material in order to induce eddy currents in it.? I have not heard of this one before!--Light current 21:59, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed this, because it's wrong. Conventional rocket engines; presumably chemical rocket engines have an exhaust velocity that is limited by the energy in the propellant. Mass drivers are externally powered, and hence have no theoretical limit. Atleast one experimental magnetic propulsion system in a storage ring on earth has given speeds as high as 20km/s (2000 seconds).WolfKeeper 21:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Considering that the escape velocity of the sun is 617.5 km/s, I think this statement warrants a citation. I marked it as citation needed and added the actual solar escape velocity so the reader can judge whether that's really a possibility or not.
213.41.244.122 (talk) 01:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

text: LOL. That's the escape velocity at the surface of the Sun to Solar escape. The escape velocity at Earth's orbit to solar escape is only 42km/s. I don't think that mass drivers would work all that well at the surface of the Sun, and you would have much bigger problems than working out what happened to your exhaust!- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 11:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

message: "All existing and contemplated mass drivers use coils of wire energized by electricity to make electromagnets"
This is not true.  Mass drivers could be railguns, gauss cannon, or coilguns.  The three types use fundamentally different principles to operate - only gauss cannon use electromagnets.  Railguns use an electric current to provide a repulsive force, and a magnetic field is generated merely as a byproduct.  Any electrically conductive payload will work, it does not need to be ferromagnetic.  Coilguns are different yet, using an attractive force to draw a magnetic projectile or magnetic sabot down the barrel.
A good summary can be found at http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Electrical%20weapon
Acehunter 19:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need more differentiation 

message: Didn't they use one of those in Final Fantasy VIII to transport the protagonists to the space station, I think this was on disc 3.
I found it odd that this was not mentioned in the "Mass driver in science fiction" section, so I thought I may of misread the article, can someone confirm that there are similarities.
They both sound like shoving someone in a tube and shooting them out of a cannon into space to me.
--Wafflemou 07:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final Fantasy 8 

message: The article says "A mass driver is essentially a coil gun" and Railgun says "It [a railgun] is not to be confused with a coilgun (Gauss gun)." Yet in "Mass drivers in science fiction" some of the references are of railguns!
--70.179.72.172 (talk) 22:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mass Driver is not a railgun!! 

message: Is this perhaps an english localization issue?  In science fiction the word mass driver has always been used to generically imply anything which throws mass no matter what manner it choses to do so.  The only real distinction between a mass driver and a rocket is that a majority of the kinetic energy is imparted by an outside mechanism on the mass.
Looking at dictionaries though it seems some of them are also using the word to mean magnetic catapults.  I'm certain plenty of references can be found to show that even modern day weapons are mass drivers though.  Anyways I felt the issue should be brought up at least.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.126.82.205 (talk) 06:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it would, or at least, I've never seen it defined that way. If nothing else, a railgun's rails are subject to ablation, whereas a coilgun-type design has no wear. If some magical new technology appeared that obviated that restriction then I could see the definition changing, but right now, the coilgun type design is the only game in town. Or at leasts, that's what I believe is the NPOV position, but I'll certainly accept a good reference to the contrary, and then we can add it to the article, I'm not sure that science fiction counts though.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 01:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mass drivers are any driver that throws mass. 

message: "A spacecraft could carry a mass driver as its primary engine. With a suitable source of electrical power (probably a nuclear reactor) the spaceship could then use the mass driver to accelerate pieces of matter of almost any sort, boosting itself in the opposite direction."
Is this theory truly important enough to be relevant to science? I know there is science behind it, but this sort of factual presentation seems undeserved as of yet.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.177.5 (talk) 04:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a hypothetical rocket engine a spacecraft could carry, and sounds like pretty much at the same state as Nuclear Thermal Rocket, Ion propulsion and etc.  Still in testing state with model built, yet still long from being used in practical. MythSearchertalk 05:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Not sci fi at all, this is the principle behind Ad Astra Rocket Company's VASIMR propulsion. It can accelerate any ionized particles. Successful vacuum chamber tests were performed this year, and a version of the engine is scheduled for installation on the ISS. -- 99.233.186.4 (talk) 17:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Science fiction? 

message: Articles are supposed to be on a single topic. The article scope is clearly real mass drivers, so the fiction is offtopic. So I've moved it out and linked the other article.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 00:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Moved science fiction to specific article

message: The two references this article cites are pretty questionable (a blog and a news site). Additionally they do not provide a great deal of detail which is included in the article. Tagging refimprove. 86.133.229.194 (talk) 11:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lacking decent references 

message: Hello, I'm new to wikapedia editing, but I have some 3D experience, and this article is listed as needing a diagram.  I would like to make that diagram and I just thought I'd ask for suggestions for the best and most useful way to depict a mass driver.
What I had in mind was a simple luner maglev track, a circular loop followed by a ramp, launching a spherical payload.
Advice for level of detail, technical accuracy, final resolution, format(GIF?), animation length, filesize etc. is greatly appreciated, as this would be my first submission to wikapedia.
Here is a sample of my work:
Perpetual Motion Machine
Dashrendaer (talk) 23:32, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Diagram 

message: given large costs of lifting to orbit in the first place, why dispose of any mass, ever? 100% of payload mass should be re-used. worst case: it could be broken down and re-used as reaction mass for propulsion. -- 99.233.186.4 (talk) 17:52, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: disposable buckets

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've replaced the text "several hundreds of kilometers" with "almost 1000 kilometres"
Accelerating at 30m/s^2 (more than 3g) for 250 seconds would accelerate the spacecraft to 7,500 m/s in a distance of 937,500m or nearly 1000km.
There was NO reference given for the claim of "several hundreds" other than the equations of motion and any fool can do their own calculation to show that "several hundreds" of Km just isn't long enough.
It looks like whomsoever added "several hundreds" added his (wrong) original research and by correcting that mistake, I've arguably added my own "original research" which of course violates policy too. So what is to be done? Start a discussion.
Peter Dow (talk) 12:46, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:   With humans on board, a mass driver's track would need to be how long?