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NASA will test SpinLaunch's ability to fling satellites into orbit
- duxup 5y agoI don’t know how viable this is but there is something both visceral, simple, and super futuristic about this whole idea. I don’t know why but I’m excited about this idea.
- gameswithgo 5y agoTo temper your enthusiasm some: They cannot fling things to orbit, they can fling things very fast but a (smaller) rocket is still needed to finish getting to orbit. and G Forces are extreme so this is only suitable for payloads that don't mind extreme G forces.
- sschueller 5y agoG force isn't even the issue. It's friction from the air as soon as the vehicle leaves the launch contraption.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- colechristensen 5y agoMach 6 or 7 at launch? No big deal to mitigate that. On reentry from orbit vehicles are going mach ~25.
- sidewndr46 5y agoThose kind of speeds are common at altitude, in the upper atmosphere. The drag and resulting heat production at sea level would not be as easy to deal with if you were zipping along at Mach 25 right after launch. Even supersonic aircraft don't run full speed (for a whole host of reasons) at sea level.
- robonerd 5y agoThe Sprint missile could hit mach 10 from sea level in 5 seconds. But I think by the time it got that fast it would already have considerable altitude.
- pdoege 5y agoYeah, Spinlaunch is going to dump a lot of energy into the lower atmosphere, shed its glowing white hot shell, and then need get enough deltaV to put up a payload. Anyway, the earliest patent I could find was a steam centripetal launcher in 1918. It never went anywhere and it has been followed by a number of improbable reinventions that all faded away. NASA and the US Army tried again in 1982 and thought they could put a 60g projectile down range at 3 km/s. Mach 8. Guns and rockets could perform as well or better with simpler systems and the idea was shelved. https://patents.google.com/patent/US1332992 https://patents.google.com/patent/US1332992 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982ITM....18..209F/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982ITM....18..209F/abstra...
- sidewndr46 5y agoI hadn't read much about that missile before now, but apparently it got so hot it required an ablative coating just to survive it's very short intercept mission.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago10,000 g is certainly going to be an issue for anything squishy!
- MongooseMan 5y agoSorry to put a dampener on things, but Thunderf00t has already done two debunking videos on SpinLaunch. He's rarely wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE
- LeifCarrotson 5y agoScott Manley also put out a video on Spinlaunch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAczd3mt3X0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAczd3mt3X0 He...encourages caution. It's one thing to call a technology "debunked", another to say it's very difficult or that it has a low probability of success.
- MongooseMan 5y agoIt's not impossible, but there's no reason to believe that the company is able to build it. The founder has little demonstrable understanding of physics, and their demonstration video was misleading. If SpinLaunch's idea was practical, it would've been in use for decades already. The company seems unaware of this... for now. I look forward to watching SpinLaunch's progress.
- tekno45 5y agoLooks like one comfy armchair.
- MongooseMan 5y agoI do have a degree in physics, if that helps.
- dntrkv 5y ago> He's rarely wrong About what? Most of his recent content is clickbait debunking videos about stupid ideas that no serious person has ever taken seriously. "Solar Roadways Debunked" Yeah no fucking shit.
- aidenn0 5y agoI was so badly hoping they were building a launch loop. Still giant centrifuges are always fun.
- rep_movsd 5y agoIts a collosally impractical idea for many reasons, but I'll give the simplest one Whatever rotating mechanism (call it flywheel) they have needs to be charged up with rotational energy to launch. The amount of energy remaining in it after the projectile gets launched is the fraction M/(M+m) where M is the flywheel mass and m is the mass of the projectile. Now you see the problem (if you have any physics instinct) If you dont want a sudden shift in the center of rotation (going off balance) then you need the flywheel mass to be high. But the higher the flywheel mass, the more amount of energy left "wasted" as it spins to a halt in the de-evacuated atmosphere. Bearings can handle some amount of jerking and some amount of imbalance in most applications. But here there is massive centrifugal pull of the imbalanced flywheel, the instantaneous jerk as the rotational center shifts after launch, shock wave of the instantaneous rushing in of air into the vacuum (speed of sound), the massive heating up of the whole structure, the precession that may be induced by turbulence etc. This will most likely destroy the whole shebang in seconds, if not make it completely unusable a second time. Slingshots work only because the sling has negligible mass compared to the stones that are launched. This comic book idea dreamed by by some non-engineer is just going to eat up investor money and lots of precision machined equipment
- hilbert42 5y agoOne wonders how practical this would be given the huge G forces involved, especially so for large complex satellites. However, electronics have been subjected to such high G forces as far back as WWII but on a much smaller scale when the proximity fuze was introduced towards the end of the War (one of its first uses was at the Battle of the Bulge, Patton waxed lyrically about its high effectiveness): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze When I first heard about VT Fuzes years ago I didn't really believe it because it didn't use solid state devices, transistors etc. but rather a 'ruggedized' vacuum tube (this was several years before the transistor was invented in 1947). At the time I couldn't see how glass vacuum tubes could withstand ≈20,000Gs when fired out of a gun barrel but somehow they did. Therefore, I'd imagine that upgrading to solid state devices would allow an even higher scaling in the G department (i.e.: relative to the VT Fuze), so it seems highly possible (perhaps the SpinLaunch idea actually originated from VT type Fuzes, I'd not be surprised).
- hprotagonist 5y agoit's very practical, if you want to hoik weapons systems. people, less so.
- causi 5y agoHuman bodies are a tiny fraction of the mass footprint of a space mission, and especially a deep space mission. Imagine the cost savings of spinlaunching the pieces of a vessel and supplies into orbit and then being able to launch an astronaut on a rocket the size of a telephone pole.
- culopatin 5y agoCould we use this to launch radioactive waste into space at higher speeds than what’s needed to remain in orbit?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- SapporoChris 5y agoNo. Escape Velocity (https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Escape-Velocity https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Escape-Velocity) is: 11.2 km/s. From the article, they've only achieved 8,047 km/h or 2.23 km/s. Also, flinging waste from your home into the air and hoping it won't come back down sounds like a really bad idea.
- jdmichal 5y agoJust for giggles, that works out to ~17.42 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of mass, just for the pure kinetic energy. Then you have inefficiencies like electricty-to-kinetic-energy conversion losses and atmospheric drag to contend with. It's honestly a smaller number than I expected it to be. So I suspect that those inefficiencies add up pretty fast.
- throwmeariver1 5y agoWith the extremely limited resources of earth we can't just throw something into space without knowing if there could be any future use. Where did we put the energy dense radioactive stuff again? We could use it... Sorry boss we yeeted it into space.
- panick21_ 5y agoCalling some of the most rare and sometimes useful materials on earth 'waste' is just dumb beyond believe.
- dotnet00 5y agoIt would still need a rocket to prevent the waste from coming back around and striking the launch site. To not have it come back, it'd need to be shot out at Earth escape velocity (there's also the option of shooting it out fast enough for the Moon to offer an assist to put things into orbit). Although of course that fast of a throw from within the atmosphere is probably not practical.
- aurizon 5y agoWell, a low orbit is 18,000 miles per hour. This system wants to use 5000 miles per hour in their test of tech. That still leaves 13,000 miles per hour delta V, plus atmospheric drag will slow it until the rocket fires. Might be good to build this in Bhutan or another place with flat land over 12,000 feet high = far lower drag to launch. This is a test at 5000 = next 10,000 - how far can the strength of materials go when spinning at these rates? And if they can do both, spin at 10,000 mph+ as well as launch from Bhutan/Hawaii/Chile - it is worth exploring.
- gchadwick 5y agoLike many others I was very skeptical of SpinLaunch's claims. Even with their successful demo launch you wondered if you'd be able to build a viable payload (especially one with a rocket motor, not just solid state electronics). Though if NASA have chosen to enter into a contract them that gives a big credibility boost. It'll be very interesting to see how it goes.
- belter 5y agoHopefully NASA watched this video, before making the contacts public instead of first examining the claims privately. "Spinlaunch: BUSTED!": https://youtu.be/9ziGI0i9VbE https://youtu.be/9ziGI0i9VbE
- panick21_ 5y agoNever ever recommend Thunderfoot for anything. He is an embaracing.
- belter 5y agoYour argument would be stronger if you would address the technical challenges he commented on.
- panick21_ 5y agoI have years ago stopped watching his videos. He has long ago discredited himself and should not be promoted. He should improve his video making skill beyond 2003 and stop making insulting people a core part of his message. I have no interested in addressing his arguments, whatever they are on SpinLaunch. And I don't want to defend SpinLaunch anyway as it is terrible idea.
- belter 5y agoI think you are taking him too seriously and being maybe being a bit harsh. He is a mix of John Oliver and Johnathan Colbert with a bit of more precise shades of Veritasium. He is primarily producing entertainment, and there is no harm in that. But he does it with a correct scientific background and some humorist tones not everybody appreciates. It's not a purely scientific channel, sometimes he get's some things wrongs, mostly on his opinions about the economics of projects. The only thing I found too many, easily dismissing in this thread, is that when he makes one these busted videos he is also daring to make a statement and they are not random ramblings. For example his first video of SpinLaunch, if you ignore the tone is a much better analysis than the one from Scott Manley, even if Scott Manley is a much better source for anything else related to Space. Can you point me one of those egregious errors he made? Because I looked at this whole thread out of curiosity, and every single commentator criticizing him, did not provide a single concrete example. It's a new genre...Scientific Entertainment ( bit still scientific) Not sure everything in this short life of ours, needs to be taken so seriously:-)
- AlexDragusin 5y ago> But the company says it'll be appropriate for smaller launch vehicles weighing up to about 440 lb (200 kg) In this particular configuration, the rotational kinetic energy for a 200kg load would be massive and the current materials would not be able to withstand it and another issue would be the release timing through the opening, as seen on the video the margin of error would be so narrow that is likely not possible with the current technology. I hope I am proven wrong in my armchair assessment though.
- throwawayboise 5y agoI agree the entire thing sounds completely impractical and even if it can be made to work reliably, the number of suitable payloads would seem to be tiny. Maybe you could launch a 200kg billet of solid aluminum or titanium or other raw materials that could be used in space for manufacturing of components for a space station or Mars transport vehicle?
- na85 5y ago>In this particular configuration, the rotational kinetic energy for a 200kg load would be massive and the current materials would not be able to withstand it Got any numbers or facts to back this assertion up? I haven't investigated the mechanics behind spin launch, so I'm eager to see something concrete.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gorgoiler 5y agoAs Kerbal Space Program has taught me, it’s all very well reaching ballistic apogee but you need to apply thrust again at apogee to circularize orbit (raise your perigee to the same altitude as you are right now.) Otherwise you’ll just come straight back down again. How can this device fling a functioning rocket motor into space?
- dmead 5y agostaged rockets also fling rocket motors into space. /shrug
- boardwaalk 5y ago…at maybe 10g, not 10,000g.
- jeffwass 5y agoI think launch angle can be adjusted, it's just straight up for the photo. Eg, see the rendering further down the page on the grassy hill which shoots at an oblique angle.
- gorgoiler 5y agoYour periapsis — the lowest part of your orbit — is always the place you return to. Throwing harder or at a different angle just determines how high you get when at your highest point, before coming all the way back down again. http://www.scielo.org.mx/img/revistas/rmaa/v52n2/0185-1101-rmaa-52-02-283-gf5.jpg http://www.scielo.org.mx/img/revistas/rmaa/v52n2/0185-1101-r... If you apply thrust at A then you have the solid line: an elliptical orbit. If you just throw something hard all you have is the dashed line: go up then come back down again. (In this diagram, substitute “initial circular orbit” for “surface of Earth” :)
- Symmetry 5y agoThat's why spinlaunch is flinging a whole rocket high into the air rather than just the payload.
- craz8 5y agoIf NASA had plans for a moon base, and also had plans to send things back from there, this might become an interesting launch capability - no atmosphere and lower escape velocity provides more flexibility. Run it with stored solar power and it’s self contained and needs no expendable supplies
- politician 5y agoThat’s right. This is far more compact than the equivalent mass driver.
- FpUser 5y agoI can only imagine what a spectacular show would it be if the load unclips at the wrong moment.
- h2odragon 5y agoEvery time i see their thing i wanna build another centrifugal BB cannon.
- obblekk 5y ago10,000Gs is probably too much for electronics, but fine for raw steel. Probably useful to have a low cost way of shooting a lot of working material into space.
- modeless 5y agoThe problem with this is if you toss a chunk of raw steel, no matter how fast or at what angle, it will always simply fall back down [1]. The minimum payload for this system absolutely requires a (extremely robust) rocket engine and propellant and avionics to circularize the orbit at apogee. That's the only way to achieve orbit. That puts a disappointingly high floor on the cost per launch and launch rate. [1] Technically, escape velocity is also a possibility. But it's not a useful one, as the payload is still lost.
- nottim 5y agoThat only holds true assuming a 2-body (earth and rocket) system - add in forces from the sun or from the moon and you can actually achieve orbit with only a single surface level impulse, although it does require some pretty precise aim.
- modeless 5y agoIt would be super cool to use the moon to circularize the orbit. But the orbit you'd get wouldn't be super useful, probably. I wonder about stability as well. And the practicality of achieving the velocity to reach that high, and aiming that precisely. It would be really cool to see some analysis of that. Another out-there idea would be to shoot things at a space station that had a giant catcher's mitt or something. Would it be possible to design a decelerator that would work? And to hit it precisely with a dumb projectile from the ground? A third possibility would be to recover and reuse the rocket engines en masse. Not sure how it could be done in a way that was cost effective though.
- __init 5y agoThey made _vacuum tubes_ survive 20,000g during WWII [1]. Modern military applications have guidance computers packed into individual bullets [2]! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze#Improvement_in_the_US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze#Improvement_in_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_bullet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_bullet
- paparush 5y agoNeal Stephenson nods in approval.
- andbberger 5y agothe orbit infrastructure in seveneves was so much more elegant and viable than a giant centrifuge
- endisneigh 5y agoWith these sorts of technologies I wonder if it just makes more sense to lay whatever needs to be paid to build a space elevator or equivalent and be done with it.
- pstuart 5y agoIsn't there still the small problem of actually having the technology exist to do it?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Arainach 5y agoWhat makes you think the problem is money and not materials science? We have no substance suitable for the cable. The closest we've come is various nanofilaments that we can perhaps produce in centimeters, not kilometers.
- endisneigh 5y agoI agree that the problem is materials science. My point is how much money is actually being allocated towards that vs sending stuff in space, to what end? I don’t follow material science stuff super closely but as far as I’m aware the investment is orders of magnitude less than propulsion and other tech. Then again these things just take time unfortunately
- zardo 5y agoI recall excitement that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_carbon_tube https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_carbon_tube were just the ticket. But since there has been zilch published on them in the last 14 years, I'm guessing the original work couldn't be reproduced.
- bluescrn 5y agoBecause every fictional space elevator seems to end in disaster?
- hitovst 5y agoHow many Starship launches does it take to get SpinLaunch to the moon, belt, etc.?
- thedrbrian 5y agoYou’d just put a mass driver down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver That way you can also launch people without having to subject them to thousands of G.
- zardo 5y agoSpinlaunch is one of the examples of mass drivers on that page.
- green-eclipse 5y agoHere's video of a test launch from their website, if you're curious: https://www.spinlaunch.com/suborbital https://www.spinlaunch.com/suborbital
- DrBoring 5y agoReminds me of the centrifuges that people would build for Pumpkin Chunkin, a competitive pumpkin throwing contest from Delaware, USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2GeuWqNXWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2GeuWqNXWU
- MisterBiggs 5y agoIf they can get this working reliably on Earth then I would imagine it would work incredibly well in space. Could do (cargo) launches from the Moon to Earth with just energy from solar panels without any propellant. Probably would be the optimal way to put a ton of satellites in orbit of the Sun too for something like a Dyson Sphere.
- aw1621107 5y agoConservation of (angular) momentum would mean that you'll need at least some amount of propellant to compensate. The rotational inertia that's present during/after spinup can pose challenges for aiming as well.
- ada1981 5y agoCoolest part of this company is the founder is a (i think high school) drop out who read some physics books and thought "this should work." Have spent some time with Jonathan on MajikBus.co and I appreciate the way his mind works.
- ur-whale 5y agoThere is a lot of skepticism around spinlaunch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE
- mlindner 5y agoYes but thunderf00t is not a good place to hear it from.
- honkycat 5y agoEveryone called me crazy when I said eventually we will start shipping things by dropping them from orbit. This is the next step in my genius idea with 0 flaws or potential disasters
- Havoc 5y agoKinetic bombardment has been a thing (conceptually) for a while. >potential disasters unless that's the intention
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- tomxor 5y ago5000 mph = 134112 meters/m = 3557 rpm at 12m diameter I guess that's not too bad, but still wonder how difficult it is to reliably achieve a precise launch angle? Or are sensors so fast these days that this is easy? Maybe this is just a misplaced instinct from my subconscious fear of stuff hitting me in the head when kids inevitably start playing with centripetal motion using heavy objects.
- kragen 5y agoAt 12 m diameter it would be 82000 gees, eight times the acceleration they're targeting; their render is of a roughly 100-meter-diameter chamber. At 82000 gees rotor integrity becomes probably unmanageable with existing materials. At 100 meters we're talking 420 rpm, 22 radians per second. I don't think the launch angle needs to be precise; if it's off by 10 degrees (175 milliradians) they lose 1.6% of their altitude to cosine error. That would be an error of plus or minus 8 milliseconds, which seems about two orders of magnitude on the easy side of achievable.
- rep_movsd 5y agoTrying to make a 100 meter structure of this kind is madness There are no materials that are stiff enough at that size - not even carbon fiber. The biggest ships engine shafts are literally like pasta and only work because they are mounted on dozens of bearings at regularly spaced intervals.
- kragen 5y agoNot even wrong. Water isn't vacuum. cf. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31036411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31036411
- freemint 5y agomilliseconds precision triggering of mechanism is trivial. It just means you need a processor which clocks megahertz not kilohertz.
- 5y ago
- bandyaboot 5y agoPerhaps NASA is backing this because they think there’s a good chance that at some point the launch facility will experience a RUD and they really want to be there to watch.
- taf2 5y agoThese definitely seem like they would be really good as like a return system from mars to earth… like factories ok mars could use this to probably launch materials back to earth
- kragen 5y agoI've thought this through and I think the Gerald Bull supergun HARP/Project Babylon approach is more cost-effective. 8000km/hour is 2200m/s. Reaching 2200m/s at only 10000 gees takes 23 milliseconds, which is only 25 meters if you're traveling in a straight line. So you might be able to do this with, say, a 2-meter-diameter by 25-meter-long supergun, with a total volume of 79 cubic meters, which you might want to dig into the ground to reduce the risk of explosion. Accelerating a 200 kg launch vehicle at 10000 gees takes 20 meganewtons; over a 2-meter-diameter area that's about 6 megapascals of gas pressure, which is only 900 psi, eminently achievable with a light gas like hydrogen (the SHARP gun reached 3km/s). Then it's just a matter of timing the gas release through different ports as the launch vehicle moves through the barrel, a problem that's enormously easier now than in the 01960s with HARP or in 01918 when the Germans solved it for the Paris Gun. The vehicle itself doesn't have to be 2 meters in diameter, and shouldn't be; an APDS-like approach with a lightweight sabot that fragments upon exit from the barrel gives your launch vehicle better power to penetrate the atmosphere. Contrast that with a centrifugal launcher like the SpinLaunch design. For the centripetal acceleration to be only 10000 gees at 2200 m/s, the radius of the spinning arm needs to be 49 meters, which means its diameter is 98 meters, four times the length of the supergun. It's a building the size of a city block! But turned up on its side, vertically, so it's 40 stories tall. Its total cross-sectional area is 7700 square meters. You probably have to evacuate the interior so air resistance doesn't melt your rotor, since its outer edge is spinning at Mach 6.7. (This is the "300-foot diameter steel vacuum chamber" mentioned in the article). Even if you can make it only 100 mm thick over most of its area, it's 770 cubic meters, about an order of magnitude more volume than the supergun, and that entire huge area has to be leakproof, which makes it expensive (though admittedly it only has to withstand one atmosphere of pressure, not 60 like the supergun barrel). From appearances their test launch facility is only about 7 stories tall, so only about 20 m, and they say they're only doing launches at about 450 m/s, which would work out to about 2000 gees by the same math. But it also looks like it's about 3 m thick, 30 times more volume (per unit area) than I described above: 20000 cubic meters at full scale. The usual problem with centrifugal weapon systems doesn't apply here, though: you don't need to aim your launch vehicle precisely at a target to milliradian precision, you just need to hit the exit port instead of the solid launch-chamber wall. (The enormously larger radius also means you're spinning at many fewer radians per second.) And the free breaking length of carbon fiber is 400 km at one gee, and thus 40 m at 10,000 gees, and the outer part of the rotor can be thinner than the inner part, which is also under proportionally lower acceleration, and there are another half dozen materials with free breaking lengths over 150 km, so a 49 m rotor that spins at this speed is straightforwardly achievable. So I think the SpinLaunch approach will work if they spend enough money on it. I'm not a SneerClubber, I'm not here to sneer. (Realistically the most likely way for centrifugal space launch to happen is that NASA will cut their funding before they can do their first launch, and ten years later China will build a working centrifugal launcher, because building new things is not really a thing people do in the US anymore.) But if you're willing to evacuate 20000 cubic meters to launch your vehicle at 2200 m/s, you could drill your supergun barrel down through 6 km of rock, dropping the necessary acceleration to only 42 gees. That would enormously simplify the design of the launch vehicle, though it still wouldn't allow crewed spaceflight.
- mlindner 5y agoTo clarify for people, this isn't NASA endorsing the idea in as much as NASA just hands out small amounts of money to different ideas in many different science or engineering related spaces. The fact of the matter is that this concept, if it works, will only launch as much payload into orbit as an Electron rocket (a very small launch vehicle), and would require payloads specially designed for the g-forces which would make them heavier. This launch concept has exchanged fuel mass for heat shield mass to allow it to survive after it leaves the spin system. Now, one actual use case for this type of technology is if they were to build it on the moon, especially for launching things like mined resources off the surface. The launch forces would be lower as the speed requirements are lower and it would allow launching material with little to no fuel consumption as long as there is electrical power (of which there is near infinite amounts of because of the semi-constant sunlight).
- smolder 5y agoThis made me wonder if it's possible to create a terrestrial spaceport which walls out the atmosphere to provide an area for low friction launches and landings. That's probably even more materially impossible than a space elevator would be, though.
- chr1 5y agoA structure to "wall out" the atmosphere would be pretty heavy, and if it existed putting launcher on top would be easier. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain of around 20km of height, is rather close to this idea.
- smolder 5y agoMakes perfect sense, thanks!
- joko42 5y agoThat sounds great. Would this work on Mars too?
- 5y ago
- account-5 5y agoI have to admit I know nothing of launching stuff into space. Whilst that's interesting my first thought on watching their video was comparing it to a railgun. No payload just a solid projectile at high speed. I don't know the viability of that but it seems like a logic other usecase.
- basicplus2 5y agoRather than a spin system with all that g force, i would have thought it more useful if an electric rail gun was used along a very long track in a helium filled tube that swept up a at a modest rate at the end to get the angle.
- frederikvs 5y agoThe interesting thing about this technology, is that it's a way to bypass the rocket equation - in theory at least. There are a lot of practical objections, not the least of which is the fact that they've had to add so much heat shielding that it cancels out the gains of not needing to take so much propellant. But maybe they can work around that at some point. The practical problems make me skeptical, but the potential advantages make me hopeful. To all the skeptics out there : remember that people were also skeptical when SpaceX said they wanted to land their rockets, yet here we are. “People who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt those who are doing it.” - George Bernard Shaw
- panick21_ 5y agoThe difference is that even the best case of SpinLaunch does not match the best case for SpaceX. You still end up with a non-reusable small launcher that cant put most payloads into orbit. And making it much bigger is not that practical.
- ge96 5y agoPossible to bore a hole through the atmosphere briefly via powerful concentric lasers before it leaves the barrel?
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoIt doesn't bypass the rocket equation. Any fuel you want to use on a spin launched craft still needs to be accelerated with the craft if you intend on using it to power that craft.
- saagarjha 5y agoIt "bypasses" it by reducing the amount of fuel needed at the start, which (via the rocket equation) means substantially less fuel that needs to be carried.
- nix23 5y agoIt's a scam! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE