Yep, and that is my main concern with the Longshot Company. Instead of taking the SpinLaunch approach, they're using a multi-stage gun for the first propulsive boost. However, they both share the same issues of getting so much deltaV in a short period of time and atmospheric heating/losses.
And the atmosphere is a problem too. The projectile would be slown down and generate a lot of heat. At least, they should build it in high mountaints to reduce this issue.
Then again, on the moon you could just use a linear accelerator and do without the issues with the enormous centrifugal forces generated by this spinny thingy
There's certainly a place for a spinlaunch platform on the moon and Mars given low gravity and no or very thin atmosphere. Earth does have more atmosphere and more gravity to complicate getting an orbital accelerator up to near space, but I'm assuming they had the major hurdles worked out when they went looking for a location and this posed a major road block. Furthermore, less ideal launch locations away from the equator deliver less ideal low earth orbits fir many customers and add challenges to getting orbital velocity with less than equatorial rotational velocity. Add to that Spinlaunching from earth with its high G during acceleration might pose a challenge to getting enough customers with costly R&D into ruggedized satellites that they want put up in orbit. Despite these challenges, I think a spinlaunch platform and orbital accelerator in principle is doable even on earth. But I think who ever does it needs to rethink payload. The kinds of payloads to first target should not need expensive R&D into making satellite rugged enough to survive a spinlaunch. Maybe a case could be made to cheaply launch buckets of water to a low earth orbiting space station. The station would process that to hydrogen and oxygen with space based solar poeer and the rocket fuel. Then the oxidizer and fuel would be loaded into more traditional rockets launched from ground, and fuelled/refuelled in orbit. If a rocket could fuel or refuel it's upper stages, without carrying that off the launch pad, then maybe we could launch bigger payloads in existing rockets or use smaller rockets for a given payload. Maybe the orbital accelerators could be refueld and get a second life reused as boosters. Of cource, all this hinges on, is it actually cheaper and who wants to invest and try it. If the base technology turs out to work well then maybe R&D to ruggedize satellites at launch may grow a larger potential customer base.
" Now the moon or mars… That’s a different story." Sure, but for what purpose? First: Spinlaunch only carries 200kg of payload on earth and the payload and it cannot, ever, launch anything living. Just... not. Full stop. Not on earth, not on the moon, not on Mars. Second: launching from the moon or mars is easier for the sling, but also for regular rocket engines, and they have no limit on payload and they can launch humans. So all it can do is put satellites into orbit, and fling stuff back to earth, but then... what satellites? Those would have to be sent from earth to the moon and Mars and then people would have to recover them, put them in the sling and re-launch them? why not just launch them from earth directly into the proper orbit? it could send resources back to earth, but neither Mars nor the moon have any that we need on earth and even if it did, the payload of 200kg includes the rocketry to make the thing actually get to earth so each launch only delivers a few kg of material. Even if it was pure gold that would probably not even pay for the launch of empty rockets to Mars for the sling to shoot back to us. The sling is an interesting idea but it's a solution that's looking for a problem, just like SpaceX's Starship: it's not a solution to an existing problem, they are building it with the expectation that somebody else is going to find a very profitable application for it.
Exactly!!! They made a lot of money at the expense of investors!!! Now for the last two years no progress at all!!! Their website also seems to be down!!!!
Spinlaunch is a profoundly foolish way to put something into orbit. Designing a satellite or payload that can withstand 10,000g, which is what the mechanism would impart to a payload, not to mention designing and building a mechanism of sufficient strength to reach such centrifugal forces, is tremendously difficult and more cost prohibitive than building a payload that can withstand an acceleration of 3-5g. It is a silly idea. Totally impractical on Earth. That said, the idea has real potential for launching payloads from the Lunar Surface, so there may be some serendipity for a future Lunar centrifugal mass driver.
I doubt SpinLaunch could be viable in conditions of Earth. However if it would be viable, I would be interested in the price for the mass sent to LEO. If it would be at least comparable to rockets, It could be used for refueling on the orbit.
Mars it could work starting a civilization putting small satellite in orbit. Spacex starship will be way busy traveling between the planet's for supplies the first 10 years. You might be able to use it on mars as planetary asteroid defenses for both planets.
The project obviously did not succeed. But google and Airbus were among its early investors. They did not see it as an obviously silly idea. While it is *possible* that they lacked engineering expertise to evaluate the proposal, it is also possible that they actually did a much more careful analysis than an average person would, and saw things which may not be obvious at a first glance. Hence, they considered it worth a shot.
This was never a compelling technology for orbital launch. I wonder if they hyped up that element to attract funding, but ultimately hoped to sell it off to a big defence contractor as some weird in-between of traditional artillery and a ballistic missile. I guess the lack of a heat signature at launch is compelling, and being able to launch multiple warheads a day without needing to truck in full rocket stacks. Who knows, not my wheelhouse, but the whole thing had a whiff of BS from jump
Eh. It's not really mobile and it'd be launching ballistic so it wouldn't be near the front lines. The ballistic makes finding it easy once the booster lights, and you still need to truck the payloads out to it. If you look up some of the soviet style ballistic missiles you'll see that it isn't much harder to transport the launch than it is to transport the missiles. The only advantage I guess might be no early warning from the launch but first strike isn't typical American policy. Like I'm sure North Korea could bury some of these in the mountains near the border and lob unpowered payloads at South Korea, but that's maybe it.
For a 250km orbit, you'll need to be moving at 7800 m/s. Considering gravity and (underestimated) atmospheric losses, let's say they need to launch the vehicle at 9000 m/s (~20000 mph). If we know how many g's the projectile can withstand, we can estimate the diameter of the spin launch segment. 10000 g's = 1.65 km (1 mi) 30 g's (AIM-9L) = 550 km (342 mi) 3 g's (human) = 5500 km (3420 mi) If you assume the construction cost is similar to the HyperLoop ($60 million per mile), making a launcher for realistically robust payloads (30g limit) would cost ~$65 billion.
9000 meters per second. Assuming the circumference of the launcher is 100 meters, which is gigantic, then they would need to rotate this supremely heavy item at 90 revs per second. 5400 rpm. Can you imagine an item with several tons of weight spinning that fast then suddenly releasing a weight off of one side? Even if they had a counterweight going the opposite direction and released - that’s a load of energy. The thing will tear itself apart just from working properly. And that’s IF you can get something that large to spin that fast. The spinning arm would be a 15m radius. The only way to reduce the spin speed would be to increase that arm size. This whole idea is just plain dumb
And this isn’t even considering the issues with making a vacuum that big, nor transition from a vacuum into full atmosphere instantly. The launched satellite will explode into shrapnel as soon as it hits that wall of air. The equivalent of firing a toaster at the speed of sound into a swimming pool
@@Meatball2022 With a circumference of 100 meters and a tangential velocity of 9000 m/s, the payload would be experiencing ~520,000 g's. Nothing complex is surviving that. 304L stainless steel has a yield strength of 30500 psi. A 1" cube of it weighs 0.29 lbs. That cube would start permanently deforming at ~100,000 g's.
@ likely not surviving those G’s. Nope. But it’s not a sudden influx of g forces. It gradually increases as the spin does. I think the g force damage will be much worse when it leaves the vacuum and enters the atmosphere. And - when they release the payload and the door opens while the projectile is on the way, when those doors open it’ll be a flood of 700 mph air travelling in the opposite direction of the projectile. So - it won’t survive the spin. If it does, it won’t survive the exit. If it does, the launcher will destroy itself long before the payload reaches any decent height. it’s almost like this company’s product was designed by a 3rd grader.
@@Meatball2022 Another crazy thing. The speed of sound in steel is ~5,000 m/s. The only material I can think of that could handle 9,000 m/s stress waves is Beryllium, with a speed of sound of 12,900 m/s. Unfortunately, that would probably fill the surrounding environment with extremely carcinogenic dust.
Key tip offs it's a scam, the futuristic control room. They spent a lot of effort on the appearance of futuristic vibe. Even the launcher, why not put a shed structure around it? Instead of a complex outer shell to fight the elements. Also the CEO seems to favor black turtle necks. Run
This is like a fever dream I had when I was five. Even then, I understood that it’s not possible. What’s gonna be happening at 60,000 feet when the projectile starts slowing down? Do we have a material that can go all the way to 100 km at speed? It seems uncanny that someone would invest in such an idea.
Not surprised they're having trouble, they have just as high of a G load as a conventional gun like Project HARP, but with much higher cost and complexity.
Its even worse than that. The high G load during spin up is sideways, then there is forward G load from drag, then a backwards one once the rocket finally fires up. The space guns keep all the G loads on the same axis, and likely have lower peak loads since the run can be longer then the SpinLaunch cylinder.
I wouldn’t doubt it was a money laundering operation behind the scenes and the project wasn’t just there to make it look legit to keep prying eyes as far as possible away. A lot of these types of companies are more than likely money laundering operations hence their short lived nature aka once all the money that was needed to be launder the companies die… not saying all companies that are short lived long shot companies (conceptually speaking) are money laundering operations i just bet a good amount of them are given how big the black market is ie its almost as large as the regular economy possibly even bigger too so you need to launder all that money some way…
Or it was a space startup trying to innovate in a competitive market. Most startups fail, that doesn’t make them scams - just look at Nikola Tesla. Many called his dream project a scam, but he actually believed in it and just ended up failing. He’s also one of the greatest inventors in history.
Separate to the question of 'if', this has always seemed to me to be a literal flight of fancy system from the beginning. How many payloads are there small enough to send this way AND robust enough to stand the massive G forces? There can't be too many, surely... Not if you don't include rocks 🤔🤷
They were never able to get instantaneous release of the payload, so there was always SOME lateral translation, which screwed up their ballistics calculations. Bummer.
Most likely. Also Hawaiians, native and hippy immigrants, tend to be Luddites who will sabotage projects if they don't care about them or don't think they are getting paid off enough. That is probably what they ran into in their "community meetings".
I think the sound. But I'm not sure either. Seems like a neat idea. I do want to know more about the feedback from the potential neighbors tho. More interesting than the g forces calculations actually.
I do not mourn the loss. A satellite going to spin launch is a satellite that won't fly on Neutron, or MLV, New Glenn, etc. Those rockets succeeding means they can one day launch humans, space stations, high profile science missions, etc - things that spin launch will never fly. Thus, a win for spin launch would be a loss for others. It's for the best. Maybe someone will try this on the Moon or somewhere else far in the future, where it'll have a better use.
@meltdown6165 There's something called a rideshare mission. Also have you not heard of Escapade? The point is if someone is paying, the launch company doesn't particularly care how small the payload is, they just fly it anyway.
This replaces a common issue with a huge problem. In order so survive the G forces of the spinner the second stage would need to basically be a solid brick. And it would need to be bigger than a current falcon 9 second stage with more dV as this has lower velocities at lower altitude.
Wouldn't it be launching at it's highest velocity exactly where the air would be at it's most dense? Most returning spacecraft burn up in the upper atmosphere at sub-orbital speeds. This sounds like a meteor in reverse.
I never understood how this can even remotely work: The moment you release the rocket from the spinning arm, you create an enormous imbalance. Enough to break any bearings. Aside from the required tensile strength for the arm if you want to operate anywhere close to orbital velocities. And how this can fool investors is beyond me.
Strange how I can easily see the issues with this while the people building it choose to ignore the obvious limitations. The simple fact is this will never work and there’s no payload that could handle the forces exerted upon it during the spin cycle and the collision with the atmosphere after exiting the vacuum chamber. Maybe these guys and Arca Space could get together and make a fun spinning water rocket or something 🤷♂️
Ideally they need a high altitude location to minimize atmospheric drag and get a "headstart". Right on the coast isn't a good choice. On Hawaii or Alaska I imagine they would have put the spinny thing on top of a mountain. Also existing spaceport land is expensive.
You don't need to be an engineer to know this is 100% pure horse hockey. It's less dumb than a hyperloop, but a hyperloop was the dumbest idea of all time. Right up there with a Dyson Sphere - the dumbest idea in the universe.
I’d still be somewhat hopeful, if only because the COO took over instead of the CFO. When the accountants take over a startup you know they’re cutting their losses.
Spin launch might get something into space, but keeping it there is another matter - you'd need rockets on the thing you sling into space. Liquid fuel rockets would be a challenge, because the fuel would spin and once launched, that spin would be passed to the launch article over time - it'd need active stabilization. Solid fuel would do better - ish. Solid fuel normally produces solid exhaust - including 'lumps' - drops of molten material. Releasing such exhaust in atmosphere is a non-issue. Doing so in space is ... basically spraying debris behind your rocket - not my first choice to clutter space with clouds of sub-inch size debris with every launch - hard to track yet still big enough to disable satellites.
I feel like if they put this launcher on a rotating base it could fire GPS guided artillery shells an impressive distance. Someone get this over to the military and make sure I get my cut when the company sells.
isn't the problem with spin-launch that you don't want to go straight up, you need to go up, then sideways to get to orbit. Leaving earths orbit in one shot would require > mach 10 at ground level, and air resistance is too brutal at that speed..
up is easy, a thousand dollar sounding rocket can escape the atmosphere going straight up. Its the sideways that kills you. Like, ~2kms puts your apogee around 200km, well outside of the atmosphere (ignoring drag), but you still gotta provide another 7.8km/s to stay in that oribt
It just another grift these guys get to live like billionaire techbros while dwindling down the investment money until their is nothing left then they will claim insolvency. Anybody can see this will never deliver anything to orbital velocity.
In my opinion, it is impossible for such a device to be able to accelerate the projectile to a speed sufficient to reach a logical altitude. Even at huge speeds. I don't understand, no one has done any simulation before? A kilometer-long electromagnetic gun makes more sense. The "rocket" just swinging from side to side right after launch loses (I suspect) 20% of energy by flying sideways due to air resistance. I won't mention the payload overload, I wonder whether it will be more expensive to adapt the satellites to this rocket or to launch the satellite with a conventional rocket. Maybe they should also rotate the bullet itself during acceleration so that it swings less sideways :).. Just like in a gun barrel. To avoid overloading the satellite, they could just as well accelerate the empty missile and quickly throw the satellite into it during the launch (illogical joke, I know)
The Tech is fine, but it's just not worthy for Earth Surface. It's too risky and expensive. SpinLaunch belongs to a next age where can be permanent installed in lonely asteroids or moons.
Yes. But you don't need to spin it. Just build a few kms of mag rail track and and off you go. The only advantage spin launch would be have is you can change the launch trajectory by the turning the contraption. You know, if you need to shoot at aliuns or sumethin'.
Waste of time on high gravity planets, like Earth and Mars, but it would be very effective on planetoids, like Pluto, and our moons in the solar system.
Spin launch was never going to be viable on earth. It was a scam. But a kilometer long linear accelerator? That might work. And it might work well enough to compete against SpaceX Starship.
you can't launch raw materials from the ground - the problem is unless you thrust any orbit path goes through the point you last accelerated. anything you spin launch saves the first 15% of the speed, but then needs the next 85% of speed sideways to actually go to orbit.
I (now) agree but your gun's chamber isn't operating in near vacuum with a couple of dozen engineers scrutinizing it. The science looked questionable but people will invest where they want, that's how we work out what works best, what works and what doesn't.
you ever been around an angle grinder, seen all those little bits of metal flying off? Those spin at around 10,000 rpm, and they sometimes launch chunks with enough speed to hurt people. The full-size, full-power spin launch was meant to be 100m across, and spinning at 2.1km/s. This gives an RPM of 200,000: 20 times higher.
@@kahlzun Small correction: 100 meters across means circumference of 314 meters. To get to 2100 meters per second, it would require 2100/314=6.69 rotations per second, or approximately 401 rpm.
They may use this tech on the moon, but here on earth the delta v is brutal.
Well stated, Antman
Yep, and that is my main concern with the Longshot Company. Instead of taking the SpinLaunch approach, they're using a multi-stage gun for the first propulsive boost. However, they both share the same issues of getting so much deltaV in a short period of time and atmospheric heating/losses.
And the atmosphere is a problem too. The projectile would be slown down and generate a lot of heat. At least, they should build it in high mountaints to reduce this issue.
100% where it will shine
Then again, on the moon you could just use a linear accelerator and do without the issues with the enormous centrifugal forces generated by this spinny thingy
I’m amazed that they made it as far as they did. There’s no way this can make sense on the earth. Now the moon or mars… That’s a different story.
There's certainly a place for a spinlaunch platform on the moon and Mars given low gravity and no or very thin atmosphere.
Earth does have more atmosphere and more gravity to complicate getting an orbital accelerator up to near space, but I'm assuming they had the major hurdles worked out when they went looking for a location and this posed a major road block. Furthermore, less ideal launch locations away from the equator deliver less ideal low earth orbits fir many customers and add challenges to getting orbital velocity with less than equatorial rotational velocity. Add to that Spinlaunching from earth with its high G during acceleration might pose a challenge to getting enough customers with costly R&D into ruggedized satellites that they want put up in orbit.
Despite these challenges, I think a spinlaunch platform and orbital accelerator in principle is doable even on earth. But I think who ever does it needs to rethink payload. The kinds of payloads to first target should not need expensive R&D into making satellite rugged enough to survive a spinlaunch.
Maybe a case could be made to cheaply launch buckets of water to a low earth orbiting space station. The station would process that to hydrogen and oxygen with space based solar poeer and the rocket fuel. Then the oxidizer and fuel would be loaded into more traditional rockets launched from ground, and fuelled/refuelled in orbit. If a rocket could fuel or refuel it's upper stages, without carrying that off the launch pad, then maybe we could launch bigger payloads in existing rockets or use smaller rockets for a given payload.
Maybe the orbital accelerators could be refueld and get a second life reused as boosters. Of cource, all this hinges on, is it actually cheaper and who wants to invest and try it.
If the base technology turs out to work well then maybe R&D to ruggedize satellites at launch may grow a larger potential customer base.
" Now the moon or mars… That’s a different story."
Sure, but for what purpose?
First: Spinlaunch only carries 200kg of payload on earth and the payload and it cannot, ever, launch anything living. Just... not. Full stop. Not on earth, not on the moon, not on Mars.
Second: launching from the moon or mars is easier for the sling, but also for regular rocket engines, and they have no limit on payload and they can launch humans.
So all it can do is put satellites into orbit, and fling stuff back to earth, but then... what satellites? Those would have to be sent from earth to the moon and Mars and then people would have to recover them, put them in the sling and re-launch them? why not just launch them from earth directly into the proper orbit?
it could send resources back to earth, but neither Mars nor the moon have any that we need on earth and even if it did, the payload of 200kg includes the rocketry to make the thing actually get to earth so each launch only delivers a few kg of material. Even if it was pure gold that would probably not even pay for the launch of empty rockets to Mars for the sling to shoot back to us.
The sling is an interesting idea but it's a solution that's looking for a problem, just like SpaceX's Starship: it's not a solution to an existing problem, they are building it with the expectation that somebody else is going to find a very profitable application for it.
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Magic the Noah?
Bummer, this was never going to work of course, but I was hoping we'd get some amazing and hilarious test shots before they ran out of money
Orbit is not a distance, its a velocity
You do need to get out of the earth's atmosphere though.
Just another investor scam. Nothing new.
Exactly!!! They made a lot of money at the expense of investors!!! Now for the last two years no progress at all!!! Their website also seems to be down!!!!
Spinlaunch is a profoundly foolish way to put something into orbit. Designing a satellite or payload that can withstand 10,000g, which is what the mechanism would impart to a payload, not to mention designing and building a mechanism of sufficient strength to reach such centrifugal forces, is tremendously difficult and more cost prohibitive than building a payload that can withstand an acceleration of 3-5g. It is a silly idea. Totally impractical on Earth. That said, the idea has real potential for launching payloads from the Lunar Surface, so there may be some serendipity for a future Lunar centrifugal mass driver.
I doubt SpinLaunch could be viable in conditions of Earth. However if it would be viable, I would be interested in the price for the mass sent to LEO. If it would be at least comparable to rockets, It could be used for refueling on the orbit.
Mars it could work starting a civilization putting small satellite in orbit. Spacex starship will be way busy traveling between the planet's for supplies the first 10 years. You might be able to use it on mars as planetary asteroid defenses for both planets.
The project obviously did not succeed. But google and Airbus were among its early investors. They did not see it as an obviously silly idea. While it is *possible* that they lacked engineering expertise to evaluate the proposal, it is also possible that they actually did a much more careful analysis than an average person would, and saw things which may not be obvious at a first glance. Hence, they considered it worth a shot.
if you're building it on the moon, why not just have a linear accelerator?
@@kahlzun You need a lot more mass to do a linear accelerator, since the acceleration happens over a long distance.
This was never a compelling technology for orbital launch. I wonder if they hyped up that element to attract funding, but ultimately hoped to sell it off to a big defence contractor as some weird in-between of traditional artillery and a ballistic missile. I guess the lack of a heat signature at launch is compelling, and being able to launch multiple warheads a day without needing to truck in full rocket stacks. Who knows, not my wheelhouse, but the whole thing had a whiff of BS from jump
Eh. It's not really mobile and it'd be launching ballistic so it wouldn't be near the front lines. The ballistic makes finding it easy once the booster lights, and you still need to truck the payloads out to it. If you look up some of the soviet style ballistic missiles you'll see that it isn't much harder to transport the launch than it is to transport the missiles. The only advantage I guess might be no early warning from the launch but first strike isn't typical American policy. Like I'm sure North Korea could bury some of these in the mountains near the border and lob unpowered payloads at South Korea, but that's maybe it.
Like most of these "Tech" Companies ~
It's a Ponzy Scheme, to milk $$$ from "Investors" , & ensure
"Life Teniour" for the PHD Doctoral Candedates !
This is a terrible idea for artillery
If this is a viable launch method someone would have used it as a weapon
For a 250km orbit, you'll need to be moving at 7800 m/s. Considering gravity and (underestimated) atmospheric losses, let's say they need to launch the vehicle at 9000 m/s (~20000 mph). If we know how many g's the projectile can withstand, we can estimate the diameter of the spin launch segment.
10000 g's = 1.65 km (1 mi)
30 g's (AIM-9L) = 550 km (342 mi)
3 g's (human) = 5500 km (3420 mi)
If you assume the construction cost is similar to the HyperLoop ($60 million per mile), making a launcher for realistically robust payloads (30g limit) would cost ~$65 billion.
9000 meters per second. Assuming the circumference of the launcher is 100 meters, which is gigantic, then they would need to rotate this supremely heavy item at 90 revs per second. 5400 rpm. Can you imagine an item with several tons of weight spinning that fast then suddenly releasing a weight off of one side? Even if they had a counterweight going the opposite direction and released - that’s a load of energy. The thing will tear itself apart just from working properly. And that’s IF you can get something that large to spin that fast. The spinning arm would be a 15m radius. The only way to reduce the spin speed would be to increase that arm size.
This whole idea is just plain dumb
And this isn’t even considering the issues with making a vacuum that big, nor transition from a vacuum into full atmosphere instantly. The launched satellite will explode into shrapnel as soon as it hits that wall of air. The equivalent of firing a toaster at the speed of sound into a swimming pool
@@Meatball2022 With a circumference of 100 meters and a tangential velocity of 9000 m/s, the payload would be experiencing ~520,000 g's. Nothing complex is surviving that. 304L stainless steel has a yield strength of 30500 psi. A 1" cube of it weighs 0.29 lbs. That cube would start permanently deforming at ~100,000 g's.
@ likely not surviving those G’s. Nope. But it’s not a sudden influx of g forces. It gradually increases as the spin does. I think the g force damage will be much worse when it leaves the vacuum and enters the atmosphere. And - when they release the payload and the door opens while the projectile is on the way, when those doors open it’ll be a flood of 700 mph air travelling in the opposite direction of the projectile.
So - it won’t survive the spin. If it does, it won’t survive the exit. If it does, the launcher will destroy itself long before the payload reaches any decent height.
it’s almost like this company’s product was designed by a 3rd grader.
@@Meatball2022 Another crazy thing. The speed of sound in steel is ~5,000 m/s. The only material I can think of that could handle 9,000 m/s stress waves is Beryllium, with a speed of sound of 12,900 m/s. Unfortunately, that would probably fill the surrounding environment with extremely carcinogenic dust.
One thing they can probably do is spin launch "Rods from God". Long range intercontinental artillery.
Key tip offs it's a scam, the futuristic control room. They spent a lot of effort on the appearance of futuristic vibe. Even the launcher, why not put a shed structure around it? Instead of a complex outer shell to fight the elements. Also the CEO seems to favor black turtle necks. Run
This is like a fever dream I had when I was five. Even then, I understood that it’s not possible. What’s gonna be happening at 60,000 feet when the projectile starts slowing down? Do we have a material that can go all the way to 100 km at speed? It seems uncanny that someone would invest in such an idea.
It was obvious that his was a hopeless endeavour - no rocket science needed to see that.
Not surprised they're having trouble, they have just as high of a G load as a conventional gun like Project HARP, but with much higher cost and complexity.
Its even worse than that. The high G load during spin up is sideways, then there is forward G load from drag, then a backwards one once the rocket finally fires up. The space guns keep all the G loads on the same axis, and likely have lower peak loads since the run can be longer then the SpinLaunch cylinder.
This started as a scam, and it’s ending as scams do.
Probably absorbed a ton of our tax-funded R&D government grants. Made us poorer while making a few people rich.
I wouldn’t doubt it was a money laundering operation behind the scenes and the project wasn’t just there to make it look legit to keep prying eyes as far as possible away. A lot of these types of companies are more than likely money laundering operations hence their short lived nature aka once all the money that was needed to be launder the companies die… not saying all companies that are short lived long shot companies (conceptually speaking) are money laundering operations i just bet a good amount of them are given how big the black market is ie its almost as large as the regular economy possibly even bigger too so you need to launder all that money some way…
Or it was a space startup trying to innovate in a competitive market. Most startups fail, that doesn’t make them scams - just look at Nikola Tesla. Many called his dream project a scam, but he actually believed in it and just ended up failing. He’s also one of the greatest inventors in history.
Separate to the question of 'if', this has always seemed to me to be a literal flight of fancy system from the beginning.
How many payloads are there small enough to send this way AND robust enough to stand the massive G forces?
There can't be too many, surely...
Not if you don't include rocks 🤔🤷
They were never able to get instantaneous release of the payload, so there was always SOME lateral translation, which screwed up their ballistics calculations. Bummer.
Why the NIMBY with SpinLaunch? Sonic booms (once operational...if ever)?
Most likely. Also Hawaiians, native and hippy immigrants, tend to be Luddites who will sabotage projects if they don't care about them or don't think they are getting paid off enough. That is probably what they ran into in their "community meetings".
This place will go in. Tear up the landscape. Then go bankrupt and leave all their crap there…
I think the sound. But I'm not sure either. Seems like a neat idea. I do want to know more about the feedback from the potential neighbors tho. More interesting than the g forces calculations actually.
Shouldn't get sonic booms if the object is moving away from you.
the same reason we don't allow aircraft to break the sound barrier over populated areas
They should mount it on an AWACS airplane. If you're going to dream, you might as well deam big.
So any engineering student could do the calculations required to show that this wouldn't work. Some how they didn't hire a single engineer?
I do not mourn the loss. A satellite going to spin launch is a satellite that won't fly on Neutron, or MLV, New Glenn, etc.
Those rockets succeeding means they can one day launch humans, space stations, high profile science missions, etc - things that spin launch will never fly.
Thus, a win for spin launch would be a loss for others. It's for the best. Maybe someone will try this on the Moon or somewhere else far in the future, where it'll have a better use.
You would use a New Glenn to launch a cubesat? Seems like overkill ...
@meltdown6165 There's something called a rideshare mission. Also have you not heard of Escapade?
The point is if someone is paying, the launch company doesn't particularly care how small the payload is, they just fly it anyway.
And Rocket Lab make their money if you can't take a ride share because you need a very specific orbit. Spin Launch wanted a piece of that cake.
Can't help but think of the Worms games after seeing this :D
This replaces a common issue with a huge problem. In order so survive the G forces of the spinner the second stage would need to basically be a solid brick. And it would need to be bigger than a current falcon 9 second stage with more dV as this has lower velocities at lower altitude.
Wouldn't it be launching at it's highest velocity exactly where the air would be at it's most dense? Most returning spacecraft burn up in the upper atmosphere at sub-orbital speeds. This sounds like a meteor in reverse.
This is a pipe dream.
It doesn't work. Not hard to understand.
Video title: Is SpinLaunch Still Trying To Make An Orbital Accelerator?
Video contents: we dunno.
So glad I came here for that invaluble information.
I can "spin" a lot of things, but my friends would always tell me I'm full of sh't 😛
I never understood how this can even remotely work: The moment you release the rocket from the spinning arm, you create an enormous imbalance. Enough to break any bearings. Aside from the required tensile strength for the arm if you want to operate anywhere close to orbital velocities. And how this can fool investors is beyond me.
Watched Thunderfoot's video on this?
Max-Q at sea level. Instantaneously. Yeah totally feasible.
Strange how I can easily see the issues with this while the people building it choose to ignore the obvious limitations. The simple fact is this will never work and there’s no payload that could handle the forces exerted upon it during the spin cycle and the collision with the atmosphere after exiting the vacuum chamber. Maybe these guys and Arca Space could get together and make a fun spinning water rocket or something 🤷♂️
hey dumb dumb GPS guided artillery shells already exist
Why didn't they consider a typical spaceport location, like Wallops?
Ideally they need a high altitude location to minimize atmospheric drag and get a "headstart". Right on the coast isn't a good choice. On Hawaii or Alaska I imagine they would have put the spinny thing on top of a mountain. Also existing spaceport land is expensive.
There's a problem with the audio towards the end of the video.
What about a catapult?
Oh man, good timing! My coworker and i were just wondering about this yesterday!
You don't need to be an engineer to know this is 100% pure horse hockey.
It's less dumb than a hyperloop, but a hyperloop was the dumbest idea of all time.
Right up there with a Dyson Sphere - the dumbest idea in the universe.
8:17 Thank you very much for showing 🙏
I’d still be somewhat hopeful, if only because the COO took over instead of the CFO. When the accountants take over a startup you know they’re cutting their losses.
Spin launch might get something into space, but keeping it there is another matter - you'd need rockets on the thing you sling into space. Liquid fuel rockets would be a challenge, because the fuel would spin and once launched, that spin would be passed to the launch article over time - it'd need active stabilization. Solid fuel would do better - ish. Solid fuel normally produces solid exhaust - including 'lumps' - drops of molten material. Releasing such exhaust in atmosphere is a non-issue. Doing so in space is ... basically spraying debris behind your rocket - not my first choice to clutter space with clouds of sub-inch size debris with every launch - hard to track yet still big enough to disable satellites.
Aw dang it, I was looking forward to jumping on a Hyperloop to watch the 2 hourly launches….
Yeah, great idea, putting a reaction wheel on the moon.
So thunderf00t was correct.
As always.
Nor always. Have you seen his Starship streams? I've never seen anyone huff so much copium in one stream
I don't think there was anyone not questioning this.
@@arandomperson4718 Huh? What did he get wrong ??
Absolutely!!!
I feel like if they put this launcher on a rotating base it could fire GPS guided artillery shells an impressive distance. Someone get this over to the military and make sure I get my cut when the company sells.
Ive seen this thing s few times now and its still a dumb idea and a waste of time 😞
This is what im waiting for
I thought they had gone bust a long time ago.
For so Many Reasons ... Spin Launch is a totally Stewpid Idea ! .... :-[
It was a cool innovative idea but not really practical.
Dude, why did you ask them directly?
isn't the problem with spin-launch that you don't want to go straight up, you need to go up, then sideways to get to orbit. Leaving earths orbit in one shot would require > mach 10 at ground level, and air resistance is too brutal at that speed..
up is easy, a thousand dollar sounding rocket can escape the atmosphere going straight up. Its the sideways that kills you. Like, ~2kms puts your apogee around 200km, well outside of the atmosphere (ignoring drag), but you still gotta provide another 7.8km/s to stay in that oribt
It just another grift these guys get to live like billionaire techbros while dwindling down the investment money until their is nothing left then they will claim insolvency. Anybody can see this will never deliver anything to orbital velocity.
In my opinion, it is impossible for such a device to be able to accelerate the projectile to a speed sufficient to reach a logical altitude. Even at huge speeds. I don't understand, no one has done any simulation before? A kilometer-long electromagnetic gun makes more sense. The "rocket" just swinging from side to side right after launch loses (I suspect) 20% of energy by flying sideways due to air resistance. I won't mention the payload overload, I wonder whether it will be more expensive to adapt the satellites to this rocket or to launch the satellite with a conventional rocket. Maybe they should also rotate the bullet itself during acceleration so that it swings less sideways :).. Just like in a gun barrel. To avoid overloading the satellite, they could just as well accelerate the empty missile and quickly throw the satellite into it during the launch (illogical joke, I know)
The Tech is fine, but it's just not worthy for Earth Surface. It's too risky and expensive. SpinLaunch belongs to a next age where can be permanent installed in lonely asteroids or moons.
This would work great if they built it on the moon.
Would make a cool amusement ride !
Not at all!!!! Spinning at that speed, no humans will survive... because of enormous centrifugal forces!!!!
You can't get to space when all your dV comes from the ground.
the fraud must be making money
It's like the kids have taken over in the US.
They should rather use their resources to look for intelligent life on earth, because with this hair brain idea I doubt there is.
Will this thing work on the moon?
Yes. But you don't need to spin it. Just build a few kms of mag rail track and and off you go. The only advantage spin launch would be have is you can change the launch trajectory by the turning the contraption. You know, if you need to shoot at aliuns or sumethin'.
Waste of time on high gravity planets, like Earth and Mars, but it would be very effective on planetoids, like Pluto, and our moons in the solar system.
nimby
The Moon ! would this not be a great , cheap -super effective way to "Onsend Stuff "to Mars ??!!
the science just doesnt work for this
Spin launch was never going to be viable on earth. It was a scam. But a kilometer long linear accelerator? That might work. And it might work well enough to compete against SpaceX Starship.
im getting ksp 2 vibes
They need to use this to launch raw materials into LEO for 3D printers !!!
you can't launch raw materials from the ground - the problem is unless you thrust any orbit path goes through the point you last accelerated.
anything you spin launch saves the first 15% of the speed, but then needs the next 85% of speed sideways to actually go to orbit.
Boondoggle
IS this for the LULZ? I still think this is a horrivle idea. Ever see what happens when a gun gets jammed?
I (now) agree but your gun's chamber isn't operating in near vacuum with a couple of dozen engineers scrutinizing it. The science looked questionable but people will invest where they want, that's how we work out what works best, what works and what doesn't.
What a investment scam.
it's a scam
Dead method!
Scam launch😂
I'm confused as to why safety would be a concern, the rocket is relatively small, what's the issue?
you ever been around an angle grinder, seen all those little bits of metal flying off? Those spin at around 10,000 rpm, and they sometimes launch chunks with enough speed to hurt people. The full-size, full-power spin launch was meant to be 100m across, and spinning at 2.1km/s. This gives an RPM of 200,000: 20 times higher.
@@kahlzun Small correction: 100 meters across means circumference of 314 meters. To get to 2100 meters per second, it would require 2100/314=6.69 rotations per second, or approximately 401 rpm.