Posted on 01/30/2020 6:09:21 PM PST by aimhigh
(snip) a cryptic startup called SpinLaunch starts suborbital test flights of a rocket that is launched using an enormous centrifuge.
Here's the gist: A centrifuge the size of a football field will spin a rocket around in circles for about an hour until its speed eventually exceeds 5,000 miles per hour. At that point, the rocket and its payload will feel forces 10,000 times stronger than gravity. When the centrifuge finally releases the rocket at launch speed, it should, practically speaking, fly through the stratosphere until it fires its engines at the periphery of our atmosphere. (snip)
SpinLaunch hopes its new system will replace rocket boosters, which currently augment a rocket's own thrust power to escape the gravitational pull of Earth, and happen to be one of the most expensive components of a rocket launch. Even reusable boosters, like the ones powering the SpaceX Falcon 9, still require costly fuel and ongoing maintenance.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
“Wasnt the video game mass effect based off something similar to this?”
You might be thinking of a scene in Mass Effect 2 where the NPCs talk about the inertia of a projectile (see Newton’s First Law) and one of them says “That makes Sir Isaac Newton the deadliest Son of a B***** in Space.”
There is something called an electromagnetic rail gun. The idea is to use magnets to accelerate a projectile to a high rate of speed so that it exceeds the orbital velocity. Some suggested that it could be used to put a rocket into space. But they calculated that it you could get it going that fast, it would burn up in the atmosphere. The problem is that all of the stimulus is applied at the beginning, unlike the case of a rocket. So it starts out fast and the longer it flies the slower it gets. A rocket is the reverse. So in the case of a rocket its not going fast until the atmosphere is very thin. But in the case of the rail gun it means its got to be going very fast at first and will get very hot. On the moon though there isnt an atmosphere.
Seems like a gigantic electromagnetic rail that ends at the top of a small mountain might be better and have much lower G forces...plus, what a rush!
Some people have too much time on their hands...
Agreed. Build a 2 mile high assist. Rubber bands, rail gun .... it would help but the solution is very expensive so get it right.
lets use it on Democrat and Swamp creatures
Wernher Von Braun and his Linear Accelerator!!, by the way it would be a truly deadly weapon also if you figure out ow to control the projectile.
or want a bunch of liquid and/or mash to reach orbit.
I want to know where theyre going to do this.
Ive got a clothes pin and a playing card.
I think itll make a noise like a motorcycle.
Or itll create a black hole.
Im ok with either one.
Thats how brad pit got back to his ship in Ad Astra. Boring ass movie.
The astronauts would need relief valves on their sphincter muscles.
Holy crap!
My son is a astronautical engineer. I’d ask him about it but I’m afraid he’d laugh too hard and hurt himself
I suppose it wouldn't have to bend if it was supported along its length inside a cradle, it would just be crushed against the cradle. If the rocket was strong enough, that could work.
I see they plan to spin inside a huge vacuum chamber. That almost eliminates the bird problem, but the release must be timed with incredible precision.
They open the exit port just before releasing the rocket. Air floods in, the spin slows down slightly, then release. All they need is a slight elevation of the spinning mechanism on the release port side. Fins on the rocket can handle the rest.
Hmm.
If its not a Duncan,its not a YoYo !
“His older brother was Irving Szathmary, composer of the Get Smart theme”
William Szathmary aka Bill Dana aka Jose Jimenez
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