3 ms·

You got me curious, so I dug up their patent. This is as close as they come to addressing it. > Although not shown in the previous figures, the circular mass a

You got me curious, so I dug up their patent. This is as close as they come to addressing it. > Although not shown in the previous figures, the circular mass accelerator structure 150 may comprise a second exit port directly opposite the exit port 115 to capture the counterweight 135 that is released simultaneously with the launch vehicle 105 to minimize an imbalance on the motor at the time of release. The counterweight 135 may be a solid material, or a liquid such as water. The use of a liquid is a curious idea. Perhaps it could be dispersed in such a way as to spread the force of the counter weight being released across a wide surface area? Like a small explosive forces the liquid out in all directions? https://patents.google.com/patent/US10202210B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US10202210B2/en

dvdkhlng 5y ago
Whether liquid or not, running the formula for kinetic energy of the counterweight, I'm getting something around 1 GJ (gigajoule) for a weight of 1 ton at 1500 m/s [1]. According to this site [2] that's equivalent to around 200 kg of TNT. Even with the counterweight being mostly water, that's quite a lot of energy to disperse. How does one evenly spread out the water to a surface the size of a football field? Would that even be enough area to prevent a shock wave being reflected back at the launch equipment? [1] https://calculator.academy/joule-calculator/#f1p1|f2p0 https://calculator.academy/joule-calculator/#f1p1|f2p0 [2] https://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/energy/tntkg.html?u=tntkg&v=1 https://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/energy/tntkg.html?u=tn...
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Perhaps it would be possible to use liquid carbon dioxide. The change from liquid to gas inside the vacuum chamber might help disperse the energy.
- mgsouth 5y ago
  There's a slide in Manley's video that says gross vehicle weight is 11,000 kg. And 450 RPM @ 100 m diameter, so 2 km/s. Kinetic energy for vehicle is 22 GJ. Equivalents: * 5 metric tons TNT * 1/3000 Little Boy atomic bomb * 4 barrels of crude oil (!) * Boil 2,300 gallons of water * 0.25 mg of matter converted to energy * Enough energy to melt two 11,000 kg iron counterweights, with 2 GJ left over * A magnitude 3.7 earthquake [1] [1] https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/energy.html https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/energy.html

dvdkhlng 5y ago

Whether liquid or not, running the formula for kinetic energy of the counterweight, I'm getting something around 1 GJ (gigajoule) for a weight of 1 ton at 1500 m/s [1]. According to this site [2] that's equivalent to around 200 kg of TNT. Even with the counterweight being mostly water, that's quite a lot of energy to disperse. How does one evenly spread out the water to a surface the size of a football field? Would that even be enough area to prevent a shock wave being reflected back at the launch equipment? [1] https://calculator.academy/joule-calculator/#f1p1|f2p0 https://calculator.academy/joule-calculator/#f1p1|f2p0 [2] https://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/energy/tntkg.html?u=tntkg&v=1 https://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/energy/tntkg.html?u=tn...

aww_dang 5y ago
Perhaps it would be possible to use liquid carbon dioxide. The change from liquid to gas inside the vacuum chamber might help disperse the energy.
mgsouth 5y ago
There's a slide in Manley's video that says gross vehicle weight is 11,000 kg. And 450 RPM @ 100 m diameter, so 2 km/s. Kinetic energy for vehicle is 22 GJ. Equivalents: * 5 metric tons TNT * 1/3000 Little Boy atomic bomb * 4 barrels of crude oil (!) * Boil 2,300 gallons of water * 0.25 mg of matter converted to energy * Enough energy to melt two 11,000 kg iron counterweights, with 2 GJ left over * A magnitude 3.7 earthquake [1] [1] https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/energy.html https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/energy.html