It is often said that Julio Verne He was a great visionary. As much as to write 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea a decade before the first patent for one of these vehicles that navigate under the sea was published. He was also a pioneer in description of space travel. Logically, there was a lot of fantasy, he was still a fiction writer. But he showed that leaving Earth and reaching places as remote as the Moon was viable. Of course, the fact of using a cannonball to reach space yes it was exaggerated. Or maybe not so much, because now a team of Chinese scientists wants to use a similar mechanism to send astronauts beyond the confines of the Earth.
These researchers are aware of the immense fuel expense What does it mean to get to space? In fact, they are not the only ones. For years, alternatives have been investigated, such as a space elevator or an interstellar trip in a balloon. Options have also been explored in which a lot of fuel is saved, but the speeds are not safe to propel astronauts in the ships.
Chinese scientists, on the other hand, believe that thanks to a cannon propelled by a electromagnetic launch pad Astronauts could be catapulted to space with minimal fuel expenditure. It’s not exactly what Jules Verne described, but it’s close enough to make you admire his work even more.
A cannon to reach space
The plan of these Chinese scientists is to use a hypersonic spacecraft, accelerated at a giant electromagnetic track. Afterwards, he would leave her Mach 1.6. The Mach number is a relative measure of speed, which is used by measuring the actual speed of an object, in this case the spacecraft, between the speed of sound. Therefore, the ship would reach almost twice the speed of sound.
At this point, the ship is already would start their own engines and it would leave the Earth even faster, at a speed seven times the speed of sound. Obviously, this implies a waste of fuel, the thrust of the cannon is not enough to reach space. However, it would save all the fuel that is normally used with the conventional rockets.
There is still a lot to dream like Jules Verne
In reality, even proving that it is possible, there is still a long way to go to get there. For now, Chinese scientists have done some tests with a much smaller launch pad, about 2 kilometers longd. With it, it has been possible to throw objects at a speed of 1,000 kilometers per hour.
This is achieved thanks to a type of magnets configured to, instead of sticking together, as they would normally do when bringing their opposite poles closer, they push each other. The more magnets, the greater the thrust and therefore the more speed can be achieved.
With longer rails the ship could be launched at a speed sufficient to reach space. At the moment they only have theory and a little practice, but they need to practice a lot more.
If all goes well, there will come a day when humans can be catapulted into space with minimal fuel expenditure. Seen this way, the reality is that Jules Verne fell short.