The present cost of inserting a kilogram (2.2 lb) of cargo by rocket into low earth orbit (LEO) is about US$10,000. A manned launch to LEO costs about $100,000 per kilogram of passenger.
Instead, imagine sitting back in a comfortable magnetic levitation (maglev) train and taking a train ride into orbit.
Thats the concept for Startram, a superconducting maglev launch system.
The system would see a spacecraft magnetically levitated to avoid friction, while the same magnetic system is used to accelerate the spacecraft to orbital velocities just under 9 km/sec (5.6 miles/s).
Maglev passenger trains have carried passengers at nearly 600 kilometers per hour (373 mph) spacecraft have to be some 50 times faster, but the physics and much of the engineering is the same. Like a train, the Startram track can follow the surface of the Earth for most of this length.
Sandia National Laboratories has carried out an investigation of the Startram concept. They gave Startram a clean bill of health. Estimates suggest that building a passenger-capable Startram would require 20 years and a construction budget (ignoring inflation and overoptimism) of about $60 billion.
Why take on such an enormous project? Simple $50 per kilogram amortized launch costs, according to Startram designers. The total worldwide cost of developing and using rocket-based space travel is more than $500 billion. The Space Shuttle program cost about $170 billion. The International Space Station has cost about $150 billion to date.
As yet, we are making very little commercial use of near-Earth space beyond deployment of communication and imaging satellites. Reducing the LEO insertion costs a hundredfold should finally start our commercial exploitation of the special resources of space, according to Startram designers.
