Talk:Mass Driver 1

helpme I was one of the people who worked on the MIT Mass Driver 1 project back in 1976 &amp; 1977. I have kept in touch with a number of the others, especially Kevin Fine, who was the student in charge under Henry Kolm's direction. My problem (aside from being a newbie in general) is how to beef up this article when what the folks I know have to offer is largely personal recollections, never published, and hence not legitimate for Wiki as I understand it. I am afraid this information is liable to go out of existence in another few years, as it is certainly getting stale already. In particular Henry Kolm, who is now 83, played a key role. He may have a lot of collected material about the design, etc, that would be of interest to fanatics like me.

There is a whiff of self-promotion and promotion of friends here, advice on how to tread that boundary would also be helpful.

Thanks. Wwheaton 01:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

What could be on this page
OK, Will [actually it's Bill], you have been up front with who you are, so a little self-promotion on THIS page is OK, so long as you and yours don't write the wiki page. Your fear seems a reasonable one to me and this information would be historically very important if the MD is ever used in future.


 * 1. Pictures- diagrams of mass drivers are more important on the MD page, though diagrams of whatever makes MD 1 special might be different.  Photo's of the machine itself are obviously important, again, especially anything which shows destinctive features of MD1.  At this stage photo's of people are less important, but if the page becomes a major one, then people and places can come into it.
 * The references on the original page have a few crummy pix, some of those might be obtainable if permissions can be obtained. The Henson's (Kieth & now Carolyn Meinel I think) might be able to help, as they edited the "L5 News", and were present. Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * 2. Details of its actions and performance- loads moved, distances, speeds.  Comparisons with other transport methods.
 * The demo at the Princeton conf reached about 80 mph I think, at 30 g's. The bucket was as light as possible, less than a pound, Al wire wrapped on a green epoxy glass cylinder, Henry's creation. Then dunked in LN2 to reduce the resistance.  Just from memory.  We had not good way to stop it, so we just piled up some lead bricks for a one-time sacrifice.  The Nova tapes should have it, if they can be found. Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * 3. Sources of conclusions and opinions of MD 1 are important, well referenced and preferably relatively independant opinions are best.
 * Don't know of a thing—it seems to have dropped out of sight after O'Neill left MIT. Might come back though. Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * 4. Decisions on what goes into this page need to be done in conjuntion with work and content of the Mass Drivers page.  It is important to distinguish between the needs of both.  If this page becomes a major size page, then a paragraph on what mass drivers are would be appropriate, with the proper wikilink to Mass Drivers as a Main Page.  Then, since this is the first, under history, a brief paragraph of info about MD 1 would have the proper style of link to this page as a Main Page in the Mass Drivers page.
 * Kolm's and O'Neill's papers would be the only hope. Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

- the main details of these would/shall be in the Mass Drivers page, or if they become important enough, in their own page. In due course, if MD's are made in numbers, only those which have key conections to MD1 would be referenced here.
 * 5. Have other Mass Drivers been made?  Brief references to these would go at the end of the article, including any indications of how studies of MD1 influenced or will influence MD design.
 * As far as I know, no, mainly just military rail guns etc. Others may know better. There was some discussion of the "next step", "Mass Driver 2", at the Princeton Conf, but I never heard of anything coming of it. Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * 6. MD's in literature.  I assume MDs have since been used in lots of SF etc.  It may be appropriate to consider any of these which have a special link to MD1, otherwise they may be mentioned in the MD page.
 * I don't know about this, not being that much of a fan. Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

IceDragon64 (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's a copy of your msg on my talk page, & my response: Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I have just read your help me mesage on Mass Driver 1 page. I am not an expert wikipedian and I do not really know how to help, but I want you to know that I sympathise with you and I have a few general suggestions:


 * 1. List the things that you think ought to be on the page, from your point of view.  That has to be reconciled with what ought to be on the page from the point of view of us users.  Our view should be paramount as wiki should be there to answer our questions, but then again, we do not neccesarily know what there is to be known, whereas you do.


 * 2. List some sources of information that others could use.  Even if they are obscure books, so long as you give proper references, it is up to us to look into them and decide what we want.


 * 3. You are absolutely right that you should not write the page yourself, but provided you make it clear who you are, you are reasonably OK putting a few notes down and I support this.


 * 4. I will jot down a list of things that I mgiht expect to see on this page too, to inspire others.
 * Thanks for being there anyway. IceDragon64 (talk) 21:19, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I was slightly involved (I designed the capacitive discharge circuits that powered the drive magnets), and have been hoping to get more info from some of the others, but without much luck.  Kevin Fine took lots of pictures (he's in SoCal somewhere now I think, I may have his e-mail), Eric Drexler was around, Gerry O'Neill's book mentioned it in some of the later editions, and there are probably lots of design notes and details in his personal papers at the Space Studies Institute, and Henry's papers would also be a good place to look. I also have some 1/4" audio reels of tapes of lectures Gerry gave, which we got typed up by a non-technical scy, and which I probably have somewhere, if I can find them.  The problem is human time: Gerry is dead, Henry is 85 or so, I am up to my neck in Spitzer Space Telescope stuff in Pasadena, etc, etc.  I would like to see some details about the design: a good line drawing of the overall layout, a diagram of the "bucket", information on the drive coils (number of turns, inductance L, wire size (it was large Cu stuff the Magnet Lab had around, maybe 2x3 mm or so in cross section), the theoretical vs obtained performance, etc.  This was practically the first thing I did for Wikipedia, and my memory is fading fast! I will put a copy of this on the article talk page, and maybe draw in some interest.  The archives of the Nova TV series might have something, with actual video footage of our test, if that still exists and can be found.  Rusty Schweickart was there, I remember that.  He might remember or have something.
 * This is all just to help give others some place to start; I can't do much more now, certainly not until I retire. Hope it helps, anyhow.  Wwheaton (talk) 23:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Nova video
Someone (IP User:208.114.139.228) has added a link to a YouTube video which must be from the Nova TV crew at the scene in May 1977 (this was before the days of home video players and recorders, though it may have been recorded after ~1980, from a rebroadcast of the Nova footage). I have added captions, based on my memory of the event. The initial scene appears to be at MIT a few days before the demo. I doubt this video is really a "reliable source", but I guess it is a unique historical record, so I've added my explanation of the scenes. Wwheaton (talk) 15:21, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Re 'Will Wheaton'
I am not him !! My real name is William Wheaton, and I am a retired physicist who worked as a post-doc at MIT for three years in 1977 thru 197, where I did work some on the Mass Driver 1 group. I retired from IPAC at CalTech in 2010, due to disability. The latter explains my absence from Wikipedia for the past 10 years. I apologize for leaving cold turkey, but my disability and sudden change in status made it necessary. I always hope to get back here, but based on the past decade, it I can't promise anything... Wwheaton (talk)