51–60 of 152 posts
How does this prevent the satellite from being damaged when it transitions from 5000mph in vacuum centrifuge to less-than-5000mph-in-troposphere 1 meter later just out of the door? That's gotta be one hell of a fairing.
I think they're going to make it pointy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To get a rough idea of the numbers if this was a rail gun and accelerating linearly: 1G is 32 feet/second 32 feet /second is ~22 mph They're accelerating to 5000mph so they need to crush things at 1G for ~230 second or just under 4 minutes. If I understand correctly, this would hold for angular acceleration too, since they'd just release at some point. Can someone correct me if I'm wrong?
Having read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" a looong time ago, I have sometimes wondered why no one has ever tried to use rail guns as launch mechanisms. I vaguely remember from not so long ago that one of the criticisms was that the acceleration forces would crush any fragile parts like electronics, but is it still true that electronics can't be hardened to survive the acceleration forces? Are there other problems th…
Put this on the moon and we are talking. I'm not sure I see this being too useful otherwise, considering how much extra fairing mass those gforces are going to require
A smooth bore gun (like the one in tanks) with a very long barrel will work for moon projectiles as well.
I hope it works because it'd be rad, but at $500K per 200-lb payload, they'll cost $2500/lb. That's only half as much as SpaceX Rideshare for the same size payload, today. If Starship works out, then SpaceX costs will drop enormously. Fuel is a minor portion of launch cost. SpinLaunch is saving fuel but throwing away rockets; it's going to be hard to compete with someone who throws away more fuel but saves the rocket…
If they do pull it off, the logical next step would be to use SpaceX-style reusable rockets as well, in which case you'd save both fuel and rocket costs.
The Wired article that this SyFy blurb is based on has more details (and more criticism) - https://www.wired.com/story/inside-spinlaunch-the-space-indu... > One former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to their nondisparagement and nondisclosure contracts, acknowledged the gulf between theory and reality. They described SpinLaunch’s prototype centrifuge as a relatively unsophisticated machine that “an…
I hope it works because it'd be rad, but at $500K per 200-lb payload, they'll cost $2500/lb. That's only half as much as SpaceX Rideshare for the same size payload, today. If Starship works out, then SpaceX costs will drop enormously. Fuel is a minor portion of launch cost. SpinLaunch is saving fuel but throwing away rockets; it's going to be hard to compete with someone who throws away more fuel but saves the rocket…
How is Starship going? Are they still trying to “sweat” the fuel out of the skin, to give it an active cooling layer?
I believe the sweating skin idea has been dropped. See this one hour video for a detailed breakdown of the current state of the design:
1. Build a large superconducting flywheel energy storage system like they have in Japan, right under the launch centrifuge. 2. Use it continually to arbitrage energy prices. Buy low sell high. 3. At launch time divert the rotational energy to the centrifuge. (I'd like to see that clutch.) 4. Profit
Couldn't you simply do it with a battery?
> At this point the spacecraft will be subjected to a peak force 10,000 times greater than Earth's gravity, something opponents believe will seriously affect its structural integrity and the safety of its complex electronics. These kind of forces are pretty insane compared to even the high G boost you get on a normal rocket launch. I wonder if that is going to put a crimp on their potential client list.
Raw metal powder for 3D printing laser sintering. Or plastic pellets. Water. Fuel. Clothes. Maybe this is what can kick start the 3D printing in space revolution. Maybe it can also launch radioactive waste into space? One bucket at a time. Then a space towtruck can be launched to hurl it into the sun. But it’ll likely just part a naive investor from their money.
The total amount of radioactive waste on the earth is about the size of a swimming pool (or was that the total amount of gold? I forgot, either way in terms of quantity it's not that much), burying it deep and forgetting about it for the next 100.000 years is the way to go I think.
1. Build a large superconducting flywheel energy storage system like they have in Japan, right under the launch centrifuge. 2. Use it continually to arbitrage energy prices. Buy low sell high. 3. At launch time divert the rotational energy to the centrifuge. (I'd like to see that clutch.) 4. Profit
Couldn't you simply do it with a battery?