China develops magnetic catapult for launching cargo from Moon

Chinese scientists have proposed building a magnetic launcher on the moon to provide a cost-effective way of sending resources extracted from the lunar surface back to Earth, Report informs referring to the South China Morning Post.

The magnetic levitation facility would work on the same principle as the hammer throw in athletics but rotating at increasing speeds before throwing the launch capsule towards Earth.

The advantages of the lunar surface, such as a high vacuum and low gravity, will allow the installation to launch up to two capsules with cargo daily. At the same time, the cost of each launch will be only 10% of existing delivery methods.

As the developers of the installation claim in their article in the scientific journal Aerospace Shanghai, the proposed system will use a 50-meter lever and a high-temperature superconducting engine. After 10 minutes of rotation, the lever will reach the second cosmic velocity for the Moon, which is 2.4 km/s. The system will use solar and nuclear energy, in addition, 70% of its costs will be compensated by using the kinetic energy of the lever during its braking.

The service life of one installation will be about 20 years, but with its weight of 80 tons, the implementation of this project and the assembly of the installation on the surface of the Moon will only be possible after China develops a super-heavy launch vehicle.

The cost of building such a facility is about 130 billion yuan (about $18.2 billion). At the same time, mining 3 to 5 tons of helium-3 on the Moon per year and delivering it in capsules to Earth will allow making a profit of up to 100 billion yuan.

This isotope is considered one of the most promising energy sources, but if its reserves on Earth are about 0.5 tons, then on the Moon they can reach about 1 million tons. For this reason, delivering only 20 tons of this fuel to Earth will completely cover China's needs for electricity generation.