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@IllNess @Grass My X230 is now more than 10 years old. At some point in time I will need to replace it. Then a Framework device would be the best choice - but only when they improve the keyboard or there are third party keyboards that better match my needs.

@IllNess @schizoidman I’m looking forward to alternate keyboards. When I tested a Framework device, I had the impression that the keyboard had been a linear one. I made the experience, that I need a tactile keyboard.

@Hirom With “offsite” I mean either a different cloud provider or own hardware (if you hold your regular data at some cloud provider, like in this case).

@Moonrise2473 Regardless of one thinks about “cloud” solutions, this is a good example, why you always should have an offsite backup.

@yogthos Well, I’ve got the opinion, that infrastructure shouldn’t be operated for profit, so I’ve got no problem with investing a lot of money in advance. My points are meant from a technical standpoint. And when I refer to the costs, then I mean this in a way that I’ve got the opinion that the money should be invested in other stuff as well.

@yogthos I’m not living in the US, neither I’m a fan of most of their politics. So I definitely won’t defend them.

@yogthos Which people said that about high speed rail? The country I’m living in has got high speed rail since the 90s. See also Japan or France (and some other countries).

@yogthos I now had more time to look into the article. The whole article is focused solely on the electromagnet technology. From here it refers to some other technology that uses electromagnet acceleration like Musk’s fever dream “Hyperloop” and sea carrier catapults while in the end making a reference to orbital launch costs.

Thing is: It simply doesn’t make sense. Neither in point-to-point transportation nor in space launch activities this would work out, since you could reach only a single orbital plane or flight direction. To reach more than one point or orbit, you would need to have a lot of these systems, which then would result in really high operational costs.

However, this technology is fine for a highly improved land based transportation method, especially for China, which is the forth biggest country (behind Russia, Canada and the USA).

@yogthos The articles ends in “While SpaceX’s reusable rockets have slashed satellite launch costs to US$3,000/kg, some scientists have estimated that an electromagnetic space launch system could drive those costs down to a mere US$60/kg.”

This is a comparison to a launch into an orbit.

@yogthos I’m a space nerd, so I’m always happy to see advancements in this area. I’m no “the west is the best” guy. I’m also a fan of the Indian space program. They achieve great stuff with an astonishing low budget. And I really hope that they will launch people into space in a not so distant future.

Also I think that it is a real shame, that there is this aggressive competition in space. I would love to see all the nations cooperate in a common space program, like it had already been done, when the ISS had been built.

China is launching a lot of rockets into space. They only should stop their launches from Jiuquan, Xichang or Taiyuan, since from there they have to drop their first stages onto land in areas where people live.

@goatsarah BTW: This sounds like a super sized “Spinlaunch” in my ears - which also has got a lot of technical difficulties.

@yogthos Well, this whole article sounds like a lot of propaganda without any real facts to me.

@yogthos So the system just accelerates to Mach 1.6, then the system had to use its own fuel to speed up to just Mach 7. But Mach 7 is just a fraction of the needed velocity to get into orbit. Mach 7 is around 8,500 km/h. But you need 25,000 km/h to stay in orbit. So you need an additional stage to accelerate to that speed. And that stage would had to be expendable, otherwise you couldn’t carry enough payload.

Still you can only reach a single orbit. To reach another orbital plane, you then would had to use a lot of additional propellant to perform a dogleg maneuver to switch to a different plane.

BTW: This whole idea reminds me of SpinLaunch. Prototypes are already built by the U.S. based company with the same name. They want to accelerate small launchers in a vacuum chamber, so that in the end they can carry up to 300kg in a low earth orbit.

@yogthos I don’t need that video for that. I’m interested in that topic for many years, means that I know enough physics to understand the problems behind that. I’m able to use the appropriate formulas for stuff like acceleration. Also I know how to perform proper research. And with this I don’t mean “Youtube”.

@yogthos The link sadly doesn’t work.

@yogthos Physics is the same all over the world. Your goal is to reach orbital velocity, otherwise you don’t stay in the orbit. You cannot achieve this on the ground level, since the air resistance would melt your device. Also the drag would slow the system down massively. This means that you would had to carry fuel with you, to be able to accelerate, once you reached the upper atmospheres.

Also the article claims that people should be carried with that device as well. This limits the acceleration to around 4g.

I recommend to watch the following video, where someone calculated all the values: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQCTTvkh7gw

@yogthos @goatsarah You would had to enter hypersonic regime at ground level to even have got the possibility to reach the edge of space. Just imagine the sonic boom from that … Also think about the thermal protection that would be needed for your device to withstand the air friction.

@yogthos @goatsarah Thing is: This idea is not new. People have thought about it for a long time. And in the end they all came to the same conclusion: it isn’t worth it.

@yogthos Sadly the article is behind a paywall, so I have to make some educated guesses. This idea has got multiple problems. First thing is that especially when you want to transport people (like said in the article), the g-load is really limited. This means that your rail gun would had to be incredibly long to speed up the plane to a significant speed. Remember that you need to travel at 25,000 km/h to stay in orbit.

But even when you sped up to such a speed, you would experience a ton of drag because of the air resistance. It is only feasible to really speed up in higher regions (> 70-80km). So you would need some kind of first stage that had to carry some kind of a second stage to that region, so that it could accelerate from there. But this is exactly the concept that is used by rockets like the Falcon9/Falcon Heavy or Rocket Labs Electron, who all perform a stage separation in that region and perform a RTLS or controlled splash down to recover the first stage.

Also you would had only a single possible orbit here. But in reality there are a bunch of different interesting orbits out there.

Then just think about the costs. Just calculate how much launches with systems like the F9 or the upcoming Neutron you would have to perform, to even reach the break even point.

@Zerush @master5o1 Speed is not a problem. Acceleration is.