They need high altitude so they can cut through most of the air. They also need to be near the equator. I would recommend Pichincha Mountain in Quito, Equacor. Only 0° 15' from the equator. It has road access to take you to 12,500 ft elevation and cable car access to the summit at 16,000 ft. It is an extinct volcano, which means you won't have any of that inconvenient lava hassle some of the other volcanoes in the region would offer. It is only six miles from Quito city center and is very easily accessible by road. You could mount the launcher itself on the summit and have your control station at the 12,500 ft level so your people can breathe.
I spent a week on Mt Lemmon outside Tucson, Arizona at 9000 feet. I had a nonstop headache and could barely think. I don't know if a control station at 12,500 feet is a good idea.
Altitude would be far more beneficial than proximity to the equator. But the cost of building and maintaining the system must also be considered. Everything about altitude and proximity to the equator is just as true for rockets and they are not launching them from mountain tops.
@@bradleyrex2968 What makes you say that? Have you done the calculations? From the equator, you can launch into ANY orbit without needing to do a plane-change maneuver. Plane change maneuvers are very costly in terms of delta v.
The reason it can't work is in the name. There is no force to stop the projectile spinning around it's own axis after release. It's like throwing a Frisbee that is going to spin through the air.
@@zachary3777 Release the front latch first. The trailing latch pivots and releases when the connection angle is correct. There will be no spin except within the spherical liquid propellant tanks. Deploy tail fins for stability.
This has never seemed to be feasible given the laws of physics. If the accelerator arm is roughly ten meters long and the exit velocity is Mach 5, my back-of-the-envelope calculation of a = v^2/r gives a centrifugal acceleration of 200g. I'm confident that the contents of an artillery shell could survive that, but not any commercial electronics that I have ever heard of. Orbital velocity is Mach 23, so an exit velocity to reach orbit would produce a centrifugal force of about 20,000g. That's a SERIOUS amount of stress on the vehicle. I don't know any kind of material that could be used to make a strong-enough rotor arm, if the missile to be thrown weighs very many kg. However, it gets worse. There's a vacuum inside the accelerator, but once the missile exits it hits air at approximately sea level. Even at Mach 5, a lot of that energy is going to be bled off by moving through the atmosphere. A lot of this energy will be transferred to a sonic boom. This wouldn't be like the sonic boom from a jet flying at Mach 1.5. Even at Mach 5 it would be BIG. I don't even want to think about what it would be at Mach 23. The new plan seems to be to fling a full rocket an undetermined amount into the air, then have the rocket ignite and carry the rocket into space. Like launching from an airplane, this gives the rocket a small head start, so it could perhaps be lighter. However, it still must resist hundreds of g's of acceleration, which would mean that it would have to be built much stronger than, say, a ground-launched rocket. Disclaimer: I have degrees in physics, but I am certainly not a qualified rocket scientist. My calculations are only rough approximations and have not been thoroughly checked and tested. I sense that something is very wrong about the "science" behind this project.
Your points have been discussion topics for a while now, for the exact reasons you have stated. Unfortunately it seems everyone is super keen to go along with the hype without actually looking at the details.
Yes, I've had the exact same reservations about this launch method since the day I heard about it. Simple physics says the engineering challenges are extreme and thus seriously limits the chances of success. And the maintenance and checkup schedule for such a launch installation would have to be extreme too. Any flaw in manufacturing of the high strength structures that have to withstand the high G forces will result in a catastrophe sooner or later.
I agree it seems like a staggering problem. If they launch a regular second stage vehicle it’ll require sensitive flight computers. If they are using liquid propellant for the second stage then the pressure from the G force on any tanks or valve hardware would result in serious over engineering, reducing payload mass. By the time they solve this problem (if at all) SpaceX will most likely have their next gen launch vehicle Starship in operation and beat them at cost per kilo.
I'd love to see the plasma produced at the moment of leaving the vacuum at that speed.. I think they will make more money selling the material built to survive launch both in the vehicle and the launcher. Like a submarine imploding. But apparently they have a door fast enough.🤔😏
The video did show the launched capsule to contain a rocket engine to bring the payload up to orbital speed. While this helps making the requirements less extreme, it is indeed still seriously strong g forces during rotation before release. And that rocket engine and fuel tanks would also have to be able to "survive" the rotation.
There are many issues with this system, as many have covered here. Per Spin Launch, they propose a 5,000mph release velocity. This is Mach 6.5. The forces upon the projectile when exiting the system will be massive. Lets look at some of them: 1. Rotational Yaw. You can see the projectile exiting the spin device with a significant rotational moment around the center of mass. This is due to the fact that while released in vacuum the rotational moment of the projectile is not attenuated by aerodynamic forces, and this causes the projectile leave the port still rotating. As you increase the rpm for higher velocities this moment will increase to the point at your window will need to be larger to accommodate for this rotation, and the forces applied when encountering the air will be significant. You can see this instability in their videos. 2. The ram pressure in the atmosphere at 6.5M is significant, and will cause excessive force upon the forward leading edges, and well as negative acceleration turning kinetic energy into heat at a rapid rate. You will also have this force being very abrupt upon rupturing the vacuum membrane. Something akin to hitting a brick wall. It will not do the electronics and sensitive systems any favors. 3. The impact of the seal for the vacuum within the spinning system will place at 7,333ft per second will significantly increase the forces applied to the body of the projectile. Any large cover able to withstand the atmospheric pressure across a large area, will have sufficient mass to cause damage. Look what foam from the fuel tank on the space shuttle did to the leading edge of the spacecraft, at much lower speeds. This is nothing but a snake oil scheme to get funding for next years vacation or house. As long as it is gullible people investing their own money on this I am fine, keep public funds and my retirement from this type of money pit.
The trouble is that a lot of the money sunk into this sort of thing does come from taxpayers in the form of things like tax breaks. If I invest a million into a company like this, that's a million I don't have to pay tax on.
@Chriscooper312 Is that so simple as not paying any tax equivalent to amount invested? Far from having experience with business practices and investment law of US, in EU you don't have 100% taxback as far as i know, never mind private investments in high-tech start-ups. We have 60% tax-rebate you apply for and get refunded if everything checks out for donations to official charities.Never seen funding paid by your own taxes, just for projects which pass for grants from specifically designated EU funds.
What I don't understand is how the team behind this just seems to keep working on this project. They're somehow capable of designing the thing, but not capable of understanding these massive issues. What's going on with that? I mean, is it like Elizabeth Holmes and they know very well that it's impossible? Or are they so far up Mt. Stupid that they're unaware of the scam they are running?
All 3 of those are solvable issues. Yes, they are real issues, but I can show ways to solve all 3. The are issues with the sub-orbital launch design, not necessarily with the design of the future orbital launch facility.
Landing a rocket booster on a barge floating in the ocean was also a crazy idea. The physical force involved in the spin launch process or immense. I would stay away from investing in the scheme. I think,however, that this may have an underlying use for the military. The United States, being the largest arms dealer in the world may be interested in this concept for drone launches. It would be like a machine gun launching guided drone armaments. Big Money, yea baby.
What's the basis for your comment? Are you an expert in rocketry? A physicist who crunched the numbers and found a flaw? Highly informed and experienced experts doubted we could affordably reuse rockets. SpaceX showed it's possible. Same with propulsive landing. Or simple flight for that matter (days before the Wright Brother's took off, the world renowned engineer hired by the US Gov. to do just that threw in the towel). Every leap forward is impossible. Until it isn't.
@@fissavids8767 only an engineer with a good understanding of the conceptual material. I also don't spout doubts without going into why it will never work. Neither do I claim it to be the future of space travel. I just can't stand narrow-mindedness.
@@trolojolo6178 The engineering is tricky, sure, but the basic physics? Simple physics says it's eminently possible. I'd like to know what makes you so assertive that it isn't.
This thing will never happen. It's absolutely insane on so many levels. It's mind boggling to me that anyone has given them money to get as far as they have.
I don’t know, it’s worth looking into at least. It’s not theoretically impossible like plenty of other bunk promises, but it needs a couple breakthroughs in material sciences first
The main issue with this is: the payload has max velocity at the same time as max air pressure. That is extremely inefficient. A conventional rocket accelerates as it lowers air pressure, which is ideal. So that idea could work on e.g. the Moon
It's ideal only because we've studied very little at this velocity. Study more, and you'll learn more about how to beat the problems. Besides, hypersonic is a thing now, you'll need to do this anyway.
But, it’s not like efficiency matters in this case, if your infrastructure can handle it. In rocketry, inefficiency means millions of dollars wasted, and hundreds of tons of extra fuel. Here, it just means you need to spin faster. I agree it won’t work with our current engineering, but if it ever does in the future it will be orders of magnitude cheaper, no matter how “inefficient” it is
there is no such thing like a "max" velocity. Its possible to accelerate thing within atmospheres like our own up to the speed of light - *but* you will need exponential amounts of energy for that. If you want to come close to the speed of light ... well ... better be packing the entire energy of several stars, per second, that is.
You don't know the rocket equation. The spin launcher is extremely efficient, because it accelerates the payload without being subject to the rocket equation. The rocket equation means that the fuel grows exponentially to the payload and velocity, because you need to haul the fuel you need to haul the fuel. Inside that vacuum chamber, spinning on the ground, you don't need any of that. Then you release the payload, and even though the speed decreases from the first second, it will reach an altitude that would require immensely more energy if it were to be reached with a rocket engine. Then the second stage ignites.
They got a 200 kg projectile to 30,000 feet, with no remaining vertical speed. You could attach one to each external hardpoint of an F-18F and get 11 at a time to 40,000 feet, with mach 1 vertical speed, which would net an additional 17,000 feet or so.
@Name-nw9uj it is done, rockcoons and air lifted 500 lb rockets to orbit are not unheard-of. The Pegasus is probably a superior effort to this abomination.
@@testpilotmafia862 right but all of those are rare. if a small jets can be used to launch small payloads like this spin launch thing why arent they being used?
I think this is a great idea.... but for off world launches. This would work very well on the moon, go cheaply get payloads back to earth. Or on Mars for a similar reason. If you wanted to port raw materials frequently and reliably back into earths gravity well with minimal oversight and cost, this is it. And the vacuum, noise and reusability issues wouldn't be as applicable on those worlds.
Yeah definitely ok for an environment that is already under vacuum. Might even work on Mars and still not need any extra vacuum, Build it on the top of Olympus mons.
The issues would be the propellant to fire gun and the very large barrel. Magnetic accelerator and rail gun components are lighter and only require electricity.
But it does work here too. It's a question of willingness to get over the noise. Right now we burn all kinds of fuel and make much longer sustained noise with traditional rockets.
Dear readers. Many comments here about 'It won't work.. etc", but not many actual descriptions on why it won't work. Obviously there are mechanical problem previously mentioned, release timing, high g resisting components etc. but the biggest problem almost never mentioned is ground atmospheric air pressure. At a (proposed) exit velocity of 2200m.sec^-1 (5000 mph) atmoshperic air resistance would drastically reduce the missile's velocity and cause it to heat up. It would mechanically unfeasible to to reduce the missiles coefficient of friction to a low enough level where the missile would reach atmospheric altitude where air pressure becomes lossless. The section of physics where this can be studied and modelled is called Ballistics and even simple spreadsheet calculations are sufficient to show that Spinlaunch is not a viable method of space launch. The biggest question is why NASA etc.are putting money into it.
Seems like this team is moving forward without addressing the real physics issues, kind of like an unproven submersible design we've all recently heard about.
I think it needs a longer barrel with several ultra high speed air lock doors, varying the pressures along the barrel. The projectile would pass through progressively denser air until it departs the barrel, thus preventing “the wall of air”...
Ultimately the same amount of air resistance will be exerted on the launch vehicle, you'd only be drastically increasing the complexity and cost with this design but for no gain.
My biggest concern with spin launch is the 10,000 Gs the satellite and booster engine are expected to survive while spinning. Edit. I am concerned about the plumbing for an upper stage rocket, and an antenna large enough to aim back the 100 miles to earth, and unfoldable solar panels. Edit: With at 100 meter diameter spinner, would need 10,000 Gs ( not 50 Gs ).
Not to mention the vacuum that will fill with air the moment the rocket exits going mach 30+. We've all seen space ships as they enter the super thin outer atmosphere, imagine hitting a wall of full atmosphere both in terms of heat and aerodynamic stability. The idea is garbage, it'll never happen. We'll have fusion powered apace elevators before this vaporware ever solidifies.
Then there's impacting the atmosphere as you leave the vacuum chamber and then the heat from air friction as it travels at much greater than orbital speed through the thickest part of the atmosphere as the whole point is to still have orbital velocity once it leaves the atmosphere so the speed must be much greater at launch and remember how much re-entry heat we currently have to deal with when a spacecraft slows below orbital velocity and encounter the thinnest portion of our atmosphere. If they want to go with this launch strategy then they need to focus on suborbital and firing a rocket once it leaves the atmosphere to finish accelerating to orbital velocity without the hindrance of the atmosphere. Not quite completely rocket less launch but something that is probably achievable. There's a big difference in velocity required to be orbital from suborbital. The Canadian space gun was focused on firing a rocket once out of the atmosphere though they never got past testing a few models for aerodynamics and launching suborbital dumb ballistic loads that would be unaffected by the extreme g-forces.
@@johnwang9914 I agree with the concerns you raised regarding the air friction after leaving the pressure chamber. But the payload will need a rocket in any case (if they want to reach a stable orbit around earth). Orbital mechanics dictate, that the projectile will hit the earth after revolving around it. So you always need to fire up a rocket and increase the speed after launch (when the projectile ist at the peak of it's trajectory) to "pull up" the orbit on the other side of the earth.
I did the math a while ago and was surprised to realize that payload spinning in their planned 100 m diameter spinner chamber needs to withstand more extreme forces than if it was launched out of 50 m long cannon at the same initial launch speed. The only advantage seems to be that they can build the speed up gradually using the spinner but we all know that it comes with all sorts of technical difficulties mainly related to vacuum in the chamber and rotational moment of inertia of the payload and at the same time we all know railguns exist and have way higher barrel exit velocity than their planned 2 km per second.
Make the payload water. Once in orbit it is recovered by a space tug and taken to a processing depot. From this you could get drinking water, oxygen for breathing, and hydrogen for rocket fuel. I think they could make use of those resources in space.
If we can imagine it, I firmly believe all ideas can be realized given enough time. I think a better comparison for proof of concept that sophisticated electronics can survive, would be hypersonic missiles.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. Not today but recently. This is a useless comment that could be expressed with an upvote, but I already did that and wanted more engagement points.
At this stage, I think it's an interesting idea for small-scale testing, that's it. Safety-wise, this monstrosity scares the #### out of me. If a rocket or big gun type launch goes wrong, the worst case scenario is blowing up / burning down the immediate launch area. If this thing goes wrong, the worst case scenario is random chunks of wreckage being flung in random directions at EXTREME velocity.
"Random chunks of wreckage flung in a random direction at extreme velocity". Sounds to me like you're describing a "conventional" mid-air rocket explosion. Yet, rocket launches are more frequent than ever these days. In spinlaunch's case, if the payload detaches before its time, it will first have to go through a nigh parallel thick metal wall that can be engineered to stand this eventuality
@@7thsealord888 The whole spinning contraption is enclosed in a big metal cylinder so I really don't see how that's a problem. Plus, should the spinning arm rupture in any way, the geometry of the things makes it so the fastest moving parts (the extremities) will hit that wall with the most parallel trajectory to the wall, allowing it to have less of an impact on the surface. Again, if you are okay with rockets at the rate they are being launched today, you have no reason to be scared of this thing. It has many flaws but security really is the least of them
@@anthonyjaccard3694 Rockets are a well-established technology, and we are pretty much alongside all the things that can go wrong with them. This contraption ...... MAYBE, as you seem to think, it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I am unconvinced at this stage. It is going to need A LOT more testing under varied conditions before I share anywhere near your certainty on the matter.
@@7thsealord888 my point is : rockets too were once a very much untested technology were the worst case scenario was a big explosion and a huge hunk of metal being flung in a somewhat random direction. However, with enough time and security measures, we are now in a world where a rocket is launched every week without everyone in the world fearing that at any given moment they could receive a rocket on their face. It certainly wasn't without some catastrophic accidents but it hasn't stopped it from happening so maybe we shouldn't discredit a potential great technology because it "seems" dangerous without first testing it
Forget all the difficulties and concentrate on one. The instant the projectile is released, the spinning arm is instantly out of balance and if you watched the video of the wind generator destroy itself you can see just how much energy a spinning object has. If you get that far then you got over the problem of releasing the payload with incredible precision or the projectile will destroy itself and whatever happens to be within a fairly large area.
They’ve solved that issue with a temporary counterweight that they just smash , the actual launcher will release a reusable counterweight half a rotation after the initial release which shouldn’t cause any major off balance seeing as it is occurring half a revolution later.
If you thought Saturn IV failure were spectacular. Wait till you see a payload leave the side of the launcher at Mach 6 on a horizontal trajectory towards a populated area.
SpinLaunch should add Nuclear Fusion, Carbon Capture with storage, nuclear waste disposal, green hydrogen cars and Unicorns to its product line as these are just as likely to work.
Something I've wondered about SpinLaunch: how do they maintain balance in their centrifuge? They spin up a payload, then release it. If their centrifuge arm is balanced with the payload, it becomes badly unbalanced at the moment of release. Do they somehow accommodate this imbalance? Do they somehow very quickly rebalance? (e.g. a counterweight which is released downwards at the same moment the payload is released upwards.)
The only viable solution to that physics problem I can think of would be to have the counterweight pulled on magnetically and at the instant of the launch vehicle release the magnetic field would be shut off.
They covered this already. They plan to drop a dummy payload from the short end that is much heavier but traveling much slower. Catch it and reattach for the next launch. As crazy as the ideal sounds they have put a lot of thought and engineering into the project.
@@edwardson6825 I didn't know about the counterweight payload idea. Thanks! I wonder how they plan to "catch" it? If the weight is magnetized, dropping it through a coil would allow for regenerative braking. That might be a cost-saving upgrade for the long-term.
What happens to the arm and bearings etc when the spinning mass suddenly changes when the launch vehicle is released? I'd imagine there would be some heavy shaking and stress. Usually things that spin that fast have to be extremely well balanced.
In one video, they said that there is counterweight on the other side of the arm which is released too. Of course it is quite inefficient and problematic at high speed. I am just reproducing what they claimed.
Currently the counter mass is fired down into a very solid wall they also mentioned working on the ability to have two payloads, one on each side, the second payload will be unbalanced for half a rotation but they don't think that will be all that bad but haven't shown that yet.
"At its full-scale size and with a desired exit speed of 5,000 mph (8,100 kph), [the payload experiences] acceleration, just before the payload is launched, of somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 gs. Building a payload that can take that much acceleration is more expensive than the fuel it takes to send the payload to orbit. I think this idea is completely impractical for this reason and will never be economically viable on Earth. For launching raw materials from the Lunar surface for usage in space, however, the idea may have some legs.
satelites are generally built to be lightweight, and relatively fragile, they are not designed to be put through hundreds if not thousands of Gs. I’m all for new tech but this is somewhat ridicolous. The market they are trying to open is extremely niche, the small sat market has been filled with companies such as Rocketlab and even SpaceX on rideshare mission. This method of launching payloads into orbit, to me anyways seem impractical and really unecessary.
It's far more practical than you think. Satellites already have to account for vibrational loading caused by rockets so they are already built to be resilient. Also, cost of launch would be orders of magnitude lower than even RocketLab for smallsats due to simplicity, limited need for fuel, and smaller rocket components. Yes you have to test and adapt slightly for G-loading, but you can ignore other aspects of space launch that have plagued satellites since the dawn of the space age by eliminating the need for vibe tests. It's more of a paradigm shift than anything. That being said, larger satellites will still need dedicated rockets, but anything up to ESPA-class could easily fly on SpinLaunch.
What about R&D costs? What about construction and maintenance costs? Then you still need energy to drive the centrifuge (even if you use a system to recover energy from the centrifuge after launch it won't be anything like 100% efficient and you're still losing the energy in the projectile). All of this adds up.
Don't get me wrong: i really want this to become true. This is cool af. But as long there is no proof, that this can actually work, i am *very* sceptical.
Even without doing the math, this project seems to be rather ridiculous. I can only imagine the HUGE g forces a sattelite should be able to withstand continously to not break something in the spinning process. I read, that it´s over 10.000 g's and what kind of fine electronic equipment can take that kind of force? And what would happen to the facility in case of an accident during the spin? I would not like to be in the area!!
You'd be surprised. I've worked with companies needing motors, gears and electric parts to withstand 10,000 gs. Smart munitions, timed fuses, electrical contactors small computer chips. I recall one that was a sabot fired missile that needed to deploy stabilization fins after being fired from a tank or naval gun. So they needed a gearbox that could withstand 10k gs. I'm more worried about how you arrest the 1300 rpm backspin you put on your rocket after launching it.
This ular high speed airlock should keep the vacuum inside. But how is the payload for the next shot is attached in a vacuum? And how should it be attached while that rotor is still spinning?
You also forget to mention the elephant in the room. The forces affecting the payload. What kind of satellite or rocket engine can withstand such forces. Also, what happens when the centripetal force disappears instantly, at the moment of release? Everything that was compressed due to immense rotational force will uncompress. Also, the payload/rocket must go from being in a vacuum, to instantly being in the atmosphere and then back into vacuum.
It’s just a phallic shaped giant smoking device. I feel like only a child would think it would work. Let me spin something so fast it flies into space!
The northern part of Western Australia is reasonably close to the equator, so should be a good place to launch. Also I'd believe the locals, though concerned, would be more willing to listen than those on Hawaii. 😎
I was just going to suggest the same. Either that or parts of the Northern Territory. As well as less inhabited there is also copious amounts of sunshine for solar energy.
Only problem would be launching payloads for the DoD, DARPA, or any U.S entity really. Rocket Lab skirts this slightly through some complicated supply chain management, but SpinLaunch would need a solution to ensure only U.S entities have access to U.S assets.
At 75% speed it almost sounds normal. Try breathing every once in a while, and talk clearly, instead of this. Leave a pause here and there, for people to reflect on what you say. Kind regards
I would like to see a demonstration of the hatch opening and shutting in a 'blink of an eye' which maintained such a large vacuum on one side of it. The only video I have seen was the projectile breaking through a membrane that was not covering a vacuum.
They've probably not yet eliminated the horizontal translation as it launches. One can see the nose moving sideways in the clip. The centrifuge release mechanism does not release quickly enough. Remember early long oval launch tubes? They've gotten quicker but not there yet.
Even if they get close to the equator, the size is still limited to micro satellites and it’s unclear how they will acquire attitude and orbit correction. Also, if the tether or vacuum chamber fail it would be catastrophic for the entire system and surrounding area. There’s a reason why HARP was canceled and they also looked into a centrifugal force, cannon, and the radical Orion nuclear launch systems.
Anything leaving a spin-launcher like that will have a lot of angular momentum, unless corrected for during "precision release" (which is non-viable at the angular velocities required). My guess is they plan to use the aerodynamics of the vehicles to correct this, given how much the vehicles shown in the test flights are visibly wobbling around, but at the huge speeds needed to launch an object into orbit it's hard not to envision them self-destructing on contact with air.
I think the way its done is releasing it slightly out of the position - so the angular momentum is essentially "straight" But this idea is so stupid on so many levels.
I question the engineers at the top on this one. They have to know this can't work. There is simply no way they can fling something into orbit. Let's be very generous and say they did build such a machine, the moment the projectile leaves the vacuum chamber, it's going to vaporize. Basically a reverse meteorite. But I would love to watch the attempts! I can't even imagine what it would sound like. I bet it would be spectacular at night.
Just like a bullet or an artillery shell. Don't those silly gunners know their shell just vaporise as soon as they leave the barrel. Explosions down-range are just convenient coincidences. :D
Your payload will have to survive acceleration going from stupid-crazy-insane high to zero in milliseconds (microseconds?). What could possibly go wrong?
Ha! I was just thinking yesterday about that whole Spin Launch thing and wondering what are they doing these days (or if they still do anything at all) :)
One obvious engineering issue is that the moment the rocket is launched, the rotor ceases to be balanced and the imbalance creates immense forces. Did they solve this? How? And is this part of the reason for the delay?
They dropped some dead weight at the same time in a renforced place of the launcher. Their end goal is to put a second rocket on the other side to make two launch in one go.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 The current version has one rocket going to the sky and the other (but is really just a wieght) to the ground (the reinforced part). The project they have is to launch one rocket but keeping the other attached for half rotation and launch it too, arguing the arm is strong enough to handle the imbalance for fractions of a second. Also don't forget that rockets still have thrusters and such and can manoeuver themselves
@@mylushimada7824 Right now, the vehicle faces ~200g acceleration at launch. For each cubic meter of kerosine, that's >1400bar at just 1m down from top of the fuel tank. I don't know how many material can withstand that much pressure without getting ruptured. How many electronics can withstand such pressure is also a question. All in all, looks like this can succeed only for smaller payload with very minimal electionics.
This idea has many problems. Here is just one: Spinning the launch vehicle - call it "Bob" - up to launch velocity takes a certain amount of energy. Call that energy "whoosh". Okay, so the system will need a counterbalance for Bob, which will have to be spun up - whoosh just doubled. The easiest way to deal with counter-Bob is to release it down into a hole, which means that energy will not be reclaimed. The impact will be groundshaking. The arm that holds Bob and counterBob has to be strong, which means heavy, and spinning it up will take energy - call it "whoosh" and "whoosh", roughly. The arm's energy may be recoverable, with enough technology. The whoosh needed to throw Bob is about one-fourth of the energy required for each launch. Factor that into the fuel savings. There's hella more problems. There's also people who dismiss all the problems, and some of them have money. That's incentive enough for the project. It doesn't have to be workable.
Instead of medium sized satellites they should be concentrating on shooting water into LEO. Water stands up well to g forces and could be retrieved from LEO by a space tug that would collect it and take it to a processing space station. Once there it could be converted to oxygen and hydrogen for rocket propellent or be used by various space stations for drinking water or oxygen. As we get more and more commercial space stations, supplying them will become a viable business.
I like the way you think. Spin Launch could do many missions, but proving the technology with cheap useful items, like water and maybe building materials (radiation shielding sheets or tiles for example), could be interesting. 🤔🚀🛰🌕
@@gutluckbro9802 (The Joke) A penny? Cool, lets build a dozen. 🤣 (But Seriously) Water on the supply rockets uses up a lot of the available mass. Therefore shooting it into orbit would be cheaper in the long run. Also small Space Tugs are already in development, and said development would benefit greatly from this important use. Hurling supplies up for space stations may be in the plan, but we'll have to wait and see.
@@gutluckbro9802 Hundreds of millions but there are expendable launches all the time that are over $200M. If they can build the infrastructure for $500M then launch costs should be the lowest available and they should be able to launch multiple times a day. They don't have to contend with cryogenics and weather doesn't matter. This would be a paradigm shift in getting stuff to LEO.
@@RealBenAnderson says you. SpaceX is facing a review by some federal fish and game or something now that they added water to the mix. The more options the better, and the tech might end up in other things. Hypersonic is a thing now.
@@RealBenAnderson So you're unaware of the effects of rocket fuel on solid boosters, I presume you believe that the fire and ice of SpaceX is the cleanest possible fuel. We have centuries of using the horse, your car is stupid.
I'd like to know how they release the projectile from the end of the spinning arm. The release time (time from commanding release to actual release) must be very consistent/repeatable because small differences would effect the launch angle.
Since I first learned about this I could see nothing but issues with the entire concept. I can't believe the company is still going ahead with it. Just wait for the first launch-arm failure when it flings something through the side of the launch errrr circle? at an angle where whatever being launched stays close to the ground and obliterates a target unintentionally. This is besides all the issues with physics, heat, materials, durability of payload etc. I STILL think launching from an aerial platform (airplane, airship whatever) would be the most efficient.
I really hope that they achieve what they are wanting to achieve. I, personally, can't see this working for numerous reasons, but if they can solve this, go them.
That was my thoughts exactly, I have no confidence this system will work but have absolutely nothing against them. I would be just as happy for them if they can make this system successful.
"I really hope that they achieve what they are wanting to achieve" --> you mean raking in the money from investors and then dissolve the company because of "unforseen circumstances"
@@SimonAmazingClarke I figured you meant that. But I am more skeptical of the end result, therefore I am more cynical about what their motivation really is. Of course, they may believe that it's theoretically possible, but they themselves must know that most probably they will not succeed - but if there are people/institutions who are willing to fund their research and trials, I have nothing against that.. as long as those people are not lured in by false promises
It would be nice, i think, to get the exit tube higher into the sky to reduce the air pressures they have to deal with. Maybe even some kind air stream system to move the air the projectile is going to enter into so that the surrounding fluid is moving with a velocity comparable and the same direction to the projectile.
The options for where this launches from do present benefits and troubles. If you go high you gain lighting while reducing atmosphere and some amount of necessary velocity.
@@WTFBOOMDOOM It could even be a hybrid system in that case, but I think the idea with this is you can build momentum greater than a straight line rail gun could for a given maximum amount of acceleration, peak power, and height constraints.
The Moon. Build it on the Moon, where it's more efficient (1/6 g, no atmosphere). No propellant is used in this propulsion system. You don't have to mine water and purify H2 and 02 - you just need electricity. The ultimate reusability.
It would be more practical to build a maglev monorail to accelerate payloads to ludicrous speeds and just have them slingshot away from the moon's surface at slightly more than escape velocity, which is about 1.9 km/sec or about mach 5.5
That is a total waste of investors money the only people that are going to make money on this are the people that are collecting the money gravity is a very very very very very very hard for us to overcome
It's a ridiculously cool piece of engineering. I'll always celebrate the pursuit of 1st-principles-thinking, but it's healthy to be skeptical about EVERY concept until it's proven.
I've never understood why they think their high tech trebuchet is a better idea than a big ass high tech rail gun. There is comparable acceleration for a device of a given size. And it is a lot easier to scale up a rail gun than it is to scale up a massive rotating thingy in a vacuum chamber.
Rail gun has only 70% efficient versus electric engine 98% and rail gun is technically a cannon like normal cannon destroy barrel, so you can shoot dozens of times, but rails will be damaged quickly.
Absolute minimum energy required for orbit is nearly 8 km/s at an altitude of 170km. A child with a $5 calculator could tell you why to sell their stock short.
They aren't throwing this thing all the way to orbit. They're basically replacing the first stage of a conventional rocket. Because a rocket needs to carry fuel for its fuel, this saves a lot of fuel. As for the drag induced by the atmosphere, it is actually lower if the launch vehicle goes at Mach 5 rather than Mach 1. In fact, at that speed it would be out of the densest part of the atmosphere before it even has time to heat to dangerous temperatures. Also, a conventional rocket needs to push through the densest part of the atmosphere, which this system doesn't, meaning it needs to carry even less fuel. Of course there are still plenty of issues, but if they can solve them, this might be a cheaper and more efficent way to launch pretty much anything that is not a living organism.
Anyone remember reading the millennial project by Marshall Savage back in the 1980s? He proposed a railgun type device on Kilimanjaro, significantly through the atmosphere and nearer the equator. 40 something years ago...
at the speeds they claim... exit tube closing "in the blink of an eye" is laughably slow when compared to the micro seconds they have to release something spinning 5000 mph at the exact point to obtain the proper trajectory to get to a targeted goal
I think spin launch is a good idea maybe for very small objects, but in my opinion the linear accelerator idea has a better chance, but it’s good to see various ideas being tried because it’s all useful for learning things.
The release mechanism releases the projectile but also a plunger in a partially gas filled vacuum chamber thats on a spring. It probably spins for an hour or longer after release. They probably have something like the box on wind turbines thats directly connected to its own grid. Other wise i cant see something like that working with out exploding. They got one on the moon you can see on that app to view the surface of the moon
The main advantage of SpinLaunch is they should be able to launch small payloads every few hours because they are not dealing with all the complexities of cryogenic propellants and rocket launches. This makes it a perfect platform for space station consumables resupply.
chances of this working is rather slim - fuel for a solid rocket 2nd stage would collapse and a liquid second stage would deform its fuel tanks (a second stage comes higher from a plane )
It seems like similar forces to a giant gun like in Jules Verne books. It has to reach enough velocity to overcome drag and escape gravity, faster than a bullet, so anything inside has crazy G forces. Can just transport very strong materials.
It's actually substantially higher. In a gun, you have the length of the barrel to speed up, with the propellant accelerating you the entire time, so the g-force can be distributed across that time frame. With this, they have to first get it to spin at full speed, and only then they can release it. But while it's spinning at full speed, it's getting pulled sideways at over 10,000gs.
It's very hard for me to believe that a launch system like this big enough to launch something substantial into low earth orbit wouldn't exert such tremendous forces on whatever it was launching as to damage it at the very least if not outright destroy it. Launch systems like this would place a far higher degree of stress on satellites than any traditional satellite launch system. It's also very hard for me to believe they could have gotten as far as they have if they weren't able to at least show they'd crunched the numbers proving it was viable. Time will tell.
This concept works much better on an airless body. Solves the sonic boom problem, maintaining vacuum in the spinner, etc. Otherwise it's just a daffy sub-orbital experiment.
@@up4open it's unlikely to work as advertised at least. It could make a lot of sense as a lunar or even martian system, but on earth they're getting awfully close to claiming to do something that's physicsally unpossible. If they were developing it as an extraterrestrial system that'd be fine. If they know it's not going to work here but keep taking money from people it's not fine. There's also the possibility that there's people at the top who are genuinely passionate about it and think that they'll solve the issues any day now, not unlike Theranos, where the end will have justified the means.
I think they’d do better to offer it as a carnival ride or maybe an updated human cannon ball type rig. The physics look about as favorable for this as they did for the hyperliop.
Seriously. Spin Launch is in my eyes a waste of time. All that to send up a muffler sized satellite into orbit. Something that size can be rideshared on a F9, for a fraction of the cost and 1/4 the amount of work putting the satellite in its correct orbit. They should just join SpaceX and help develop. It could be used for other things like missile defense. But all that for something so small is just not worth it. Yes it uses no engine lift at sea level, but again.. all that to send a microwave into barely orbit. Thanks for another great episode! - NOM
Actually... this might be a good test bed for developing an orbital launch system, launching from the Moon or even Mars. Another user commented that they should be sending water to LEO for processing into fuel. They could do the exact same thing on the Moon, either sending up ice or manufactured fuel which isnt as g-sensitive as electronics. It would be a handy fallback option when the Earth orbital launch system inevitably fails.
@@s1l3ntw1 The ludicrous G-forces created by the spinning is the killer, not the gravity. Agreed, the G forces would be less because they'd have to spin the payload less fast, but 1/6th of 100,000 is still nearly 17,000 G. It would be cheaper and more viable just to build a 5 km long maglev rail on the moon and have payloads accelerated linearly at a "modest" 100Gs and tilted up slightly as it leaves the monorail so it can spiral away from the moon at slightly more than escape velocity, which on the moon is between mach 5 and 6. Once at the right altitude a small thruster can slow the craft down to put it into a stable orbit.
@paulmichaelfreedman8334 I hear what you are saying, and would be keen to see the feasibility comparison between a maglev system and this spin launch system. I guess my comment was more just trying to incidate that this system would be much better suited to a low gravity, minimal atmosphere situation (eg the Moon) as a lot of the downsides start to go away (eg lower escape velocity so no need to hit such high g's, no atmosphere so drag can actually be neglected, no need to seal the chamber so no worries about a fancy airlock system ), etc.
@@s1l3ntw1 I understand, but 17,000 g's... hard to build something capable of withstanding such forces. each gram of matter in the object would experience a force of 170 Newtons or every kilogram adds 17 tons. That still a lot, although less impossible than 100,000, that's very true.
This seems like the most inefficient way to launch something. The energy of the rotating arm is not transferred into the projectile, so it remains to spin after the projectile is released. You then need to decelerate this rotating assembly and accelerate it again for the next launch. Something like a trebuchet style energy transfer would be more efficient and it wouldn't require any counterweight on the rotating arm because as soon as it dumped all of its energy into the projectile it would be basically stopped.
I just wonder if it'll be cheaper than simply using the falcon 9 to launch rockets. Maybe this would provide an avenue for more amateur / smaller satellites to launch that wouldn't have the budget to pay for rideshare on Falcon 9. It would probably increase launch times for small satellites as well, compared to waiting weeks or months to catch a Falcon 9 rocket. Just hope the FAA isn't archaic and speeds up their certification process for the growing space industry.
Well, If the Launcher is balanced while loaded and spinning at insane speeds then launches the payload and becomes quickly unbalanced, the whole thing is going to be damaged
Might be great for moon launches. You could make this more viable with a ramjet on the vehicle but this wont work for straight orbital launches. What satellite could withstand those forces? And the sonic boom...
Supplies? Satellites that have been built to survive the G's? The question isn't "Are there no problems to solve," the question is why not solve them? Even the internal package hold can be designed to minimize risk. It's a matter of practice in will.
This gives me a great idea for an amusement park ride. Toss them up about 1000 feet. But what to do about reentry?🤔 Got it!! "Land on the launch pad and your 2nd ride is FREE!!"
Even if they got it to work it’s a lot of material and resources to get into another planet. For as much effort as this is you could likely setup equipment that could produce fuel for a more normal rocket.
@@asumazilla Yeah. Just rocket up everything to setup manufacturing on the moon so you can then maybe send small payloads of stuff back a little more efficiently. Would work great for that highly populated moon base they've got up there.
@@NBSV1 Yes and even better is that once we get set up we can then manufacture or grow what we need on the moon. So the people at the moonbase won't need to import everything. Use a 3D printer, grow our own food, recycle water and waste and so on.
"300 ft in diameter" It's a football stadium. The launcher alone will be the size of a football stadium. Plus all of the necessary support facilities. Of course they got pushback in Hawaii. Their facility would take up the whole island.
There's a fundamental problem in that the payload has motion components that are the super position of the rotation about the center plus translation caused by the arm. You might think of the payload at the center of the system just rotating and then translate the payload to the end of the arm. When launched the payload disconnects from the arm stopping the translation, but the payload is still rotating. The payload will NOT fly like a rocket, but rather will tumble head over heals.
@stuartschaffner9744 and @DreadX10 make this point in the top comment thread and @rpercifieldjr (below) and I agree. The projectile leaves the launcher with an angular rotation equal to the rotation of the arm. Many can't understand this concept, but imagine a camera tracking the rocket while it rotates inside the vacuum chamber. It has enormous spin and therefore enormous angular momentum. Dissipating that spin/tumble via air fins would be unworkable. Some have said it could be alleviated by releasing the front of the rocket before the back - but that would put super-gigantic angular acceleration on the projectile - even more force than the 200Gs of the centripetal force - forces needed to stop its rotation within milliseconds.
Perhaps add a 2nd rotational mechanism at the end of the arm to counter-spin the payload. Still seems hard. And if anything goes wrong, everything gets obliterated.
@@Brooke95482 Or maybe you've missed that we have a thing called drag forces which stabilize? Once it's in the air, it's going to face resistance which can do work.
Have they considered switching to a giant trebuchet? It would yield the same results but look way cooler
I was gonna say it will have the same problems plus some more, but yes it will look cooler
Cooler or not, a trebuchet couldn't go that fast.
@@gkw9882 how about a giant Coil Gun?
They need high altitude so they can cut through most of the air. They also need to be near the equator. I would recommend Pichincha Mountain in Quito, Equacor. Only 0° 15' from the equator. It has road access to take you to 12,500 ft elevation and cable car access to the summit at 16,000 ft. It is an extinct volcano, which means you won't have any of that inconvenient lava hassle some of the other volcanoes in the region would offer. It is only six miles from Quito city center and is very easily accessible by road. You could mount the launcher itself on the summit and have your control station at the 12,500 ft level so your people can breathe.
I spent a week on Mt Lemmon outside Tucson, Arizona at 9000 feet. I had a nonstop headache and could barely think. I don't know if a control station at 12,500 feet is a good idea.
⁰⁰00
Thanks for the suggestion, I will pass it to the concerned teams.
Altitude would be far more beneficial than proximity to the equator. But the cost of building and maintaining the system must also be considered. Everything about altitude and proximity to the equator is just as true for rockets and they are not launching them from mountain tops.
@@bradleyrex2968 What makes you say that? Have you done the calculations? From the equator, you can launch into ANY orbit without needing to do a plane-change maneuver. Plane change maneuvers are very costly in terms of delta v.
SpinLaunch is pretty much on par with Hyperloop in terms of its probability of ever being realized
Hyperloop is vastly more likely.
Hyperloop is very likely just requires cheap tunneling because above ground loses too many risks. Once tunneling is cheaper it's inevitable.
Plus fusion power and gravitricity.
Maybe for it's intended purpose, but for hypersonic weapons development it could be insanely useful.
@@SpiraSpiraSpira You mean "hyperloop" is unlikely. You spelled *unlikely* wrong.
They're in the "drag our feet as long as possible before people realize this is a scam" phase.
The reason it can't work is in the name.
There is no force to stop the projectile spinning around it's own axis after release.
It's like throwing a Frisbee that is going to spin through the air.
@@zachary3777
Release the front latch first. The trailing latch pivots and releases when the connection angle is correct. There will be no spin except within the spherical liquid propellant tanks. Deploy tail fins for stability.
@@imconsequetau5275 is this what they are planning, or your idea?
I think that might work
@@imconsequetau5275try run the numbers. Have you?
Lmao...they solved it, by releasing the counter weight.
If they ever build the orbital accelerator (which I highly doubt) the first catastrophic failure will be spectacular.
The people within the contraption will be evaporated within milliseconds
This has never seemed to be feasible given the laws of physics. If the accelerator arm is roughly ten meters long and the exit velocity is Mach 5, my back-of-the-envelope calculation of a = v^2/r gives a centrifugal acceleration of 200g. I'm confident that the contents of an artillery shell could survive that, but not any commercial electronics that I have ever heard of. Orbital velocity is Mach 23, so an exit velocity to reach orbit would produce a centrifugal force of about 20,000g. That's a SERIOUS amount of stress on the vehicle. I don't know any kind of material that could be used to make a strong-enough rotor arm, if the missile to be thrown weighs very many kg.
However, it gets worse. There's a vacuum inside the accelerator, but once the missile exits it hits air at approximately sea level. Even at Mach 5, a lot of that energy is going to be bled off by moving through the atmosphere. A lot of this energy will be transferred to a sonic boom. This wouldn't be like the sonic boom from a jet flying at Mach 1.5. Even at Mach 5 it would be BIG. I don't even want to think about what it would be at Mach 23.
The new plan seems to be to fling a full rocket an undetermined amount into the air, then have the rocket ignite and carry the rocket into space. Like launching from an airplane, this gives the rocket a small head start, so it could perhaps be lighter. However, it still must resist hundreds of g's of acceleration, which would mean that it would have to be built much stronger than, say, a ground-launched rocket.
Disclaimer: I have degrees in physics, but I am certainly not a qualified rocket scientist. My calculations are only rough approximations and have not been thoroughly checked and tested. I sense that something is very wrong about the "science" behind this project.
Your points have been discussion topics for a while now, for the exact reasons you have stated. Unfortunately it seems everyone is super keen to go along with the hype without actually looking at the details.
Yes, I've had the exact same reservations about this launch method since the day I heard about it. Simple physics says the engineering challenges are extreme and thus seriously limits the chances of success. And the maintenance and checkup schedule for such a launch installation would have to be extreme too. Any flaw in manufacturing of the high strength structures that have to withstand the high G forces will result in a catastrophe sooner or later.
I agree it seems like a staggering problem. If they launch a regular second stage vehicle it’ll require sensitive flight computers. If they are using liquid propellant for the second stage then the pressure from the G force on any tanks or valve hardware would result in serious over engineering, reducing payload mass. By the time they solve this problem (if at all) SpaceX will most likely have their next gen launch vehicle Starship in operation and beat them at cost per kilo.
I'd love to see the plasma produced at the moment of leaving the vacuum at that speed.. I think they will make more money selling the material built to survive launch both in the vehicle and the launcher. Like a submarine imploding. But apparently they have a door fast enough.🤔😏
The video did show the launched capsule to contain a rocket engine to bring the payload up to orbital speed. While this helps making the requirements less extreme, it is indeed still seriously strong g forces during rotation before release. And that rocket engine and fuel tanks would also have to be able to "survive" the rotation.
There are many issues with this system, as many have covered here. Per Spin Launch, they propose a 5,000mph release velocity. This is Mach 6.5. The forces upon the projectile when exiting the system will be massive. Lets look at some of them:
1. Rotational Yaw. You can see the projectile exiting the spin device with a significant rotational moment around the center of mass. This is due to the fact that while released in vacuum the rotational moment of the projectile is not attenuated by aerodynamic forces, and this causes the projectile leave the port still rotating. As you increase the rpm for higher velocities this moment will increase to the point at your window will need to be larger to accommodate for this rotation, and the forces applied when encountering the air will be significant. You can see this instability in their videos.
2. The ram pressure in the atmosphere at 6.5M is significant, and will cause excessive force upon the forward leading edges, and well as negative acceleration turning kinetic energy into heat at a rapid rate. You will also have this force being very abrupt upon rupturing the vacuum membrane. Something akin to hitting a brick wall. It will not do the electronics and sensitive systems any favors.
3. The impact of the seal for the vacuum within the spinning system will place at 7,333ft per second will significantly increase the forces applied to the body of the projectile. Any large cover able to withstand the atmospheric pressure across a large area, will have sufficient mass to cause damage. Look what foam from the fuel tank on the space shuttle did to the leading edge of the spacecraft, at much lower speeds.
This is nothing but a snake oil scheme to get funding for next years vacation or house. As long as it is gullible people investing their own money on this I am fine, keep public funds and my retirement from this type of money pit.
The trouble is that a lot of the money sunk into this sort of thing does come from taxpayers in the form of things like tax breaks. If I invest a million into a company like this, that's a million I don't have to pay tax on.
@Chriscooper312 Is that so simple as not paying any tax equivalent to amount invested? Far from having experience with business practices and investment law of US, in EU you don't have 100% taxback as far as i know, never mind private investments in high-tech start-ups. We have 60% tax-rebate you apply for and get refunded if everything checks out for donations to official charities.Never seen funding paid by your own taxes, just for projects which pass for grants from specifically designated EU funds.
What I don't understand is how the team behind this just seems to keep working on this project. They're somehow capable of designing the thing, but not capable of understanding these massive issues. What's going on with that? I mean, is it like Elizabeth Holmes and they know very well that it's impossible? Or are they so far up Mt. Stupid that they're unaware of the scam they are running?
All 3 of those are solvable issues. Yes, they are real issues, but I can show ways to solve all 3. The are issues with the sub-orbital launch design, not necessarily with the design of the future orbital launch facility.
Landing a rocket booster on a barge floating in the ocean was also a crazy idea. The physical force involved in the spin launch process or immense. I would stay away from investing in the scheme. I think,however, that this may have an underlying use for the military. The United States, being the largest arms dealer in the world may be interested in this concept for drone launches. It would be like a machine gun launching guided drone armaments. Big Money, yea baby.
I would be very astounded if they manage to launch a single satelite into a stable orbit.
What's the basis for your comment? Are you an expert in rocketry? A physicist who crunched the numbers and found a flaw?
Highly informed and experienced experts doubted we could affordably reuse rockets. SpaceX showed it's possible. Same with propulsive landing. Or simple flight for that matter (days before the Wright Brother's took off, the world renowned engineer hired by the US Gov. to do just that threw in the towel). Every leap forward is impossible. Until it isn't.
@@Keiranfuland who are you?
@@KeiranfulNo just simple knowledge of physics.
@@fissavids8767 only an engineer with a good understanding of the conceptual material. I also don't spout doubts without going into why it will never work. Neither do I claim it to be the future of space travel. I just can't stand narrow-mindedness.
@@trolojolo6178 The engineering is tricky, sure, but the basic physics? Simple physics says it's eminently possible. I'd like to know what makes you so assertive that it isn't.
I had my thousandth successful sub orbital launch yesterday.
I threw a rock.
But did you spin your arm to throw it further ;) ?
This thing will never happen. It's absolutely insane on so many levels. It's mind boggling to me that anyone has given them money to get as far as they have.
Idiots are still pumping hundreds of millions into solar 'freaking' roadways...
I weep for the intelligence of my species.
I agree this is some weird experiment burning though money maybe for something else
Bah-Baah-Baaaaah
I don’t know, it’s worth looking into at least. It’s not theoretically impossible like plenty of other bunk promises, but it needs a couple breakthroughs in material sciences first
Right? Things like these are really a symptom of our „post-truth“ times.
The main issue with this is: the payload has max velocity at the same time as max air pressure. That is extremely inefficient. A conventional rocket accelerates as it lowers air pressure, which is ideal. So that idea could work on e.g. the Moon
It's ideal only because we've studied very little at this velocity. Study more, and you'll learn more about how to beat the problems. Besides, hypersonic is a thing now, you'll need to do this anyway.
In addition you have a enormous acceleration in the launcher...
But, it’s not like efficiency matters in this case, if your infrastructure can handle it.
In rocketry, inefficiency means millions of dollars wasted, and hundreds of tons of extra fuel. Here, it just means you need to spin faster.
I agree it won’t work with our current engineering, but if it ever does in the future it will be orders of magnitude cheaper, no matter how “inefficient” it is
there is no such thing like a "max" velocity. Its possible to accelerate thing within atmospheres like our own up to the speed of light - *but* you will need exponential amounts of energy for that. If you want to come close to the speed of light ... well ... better be packing the entire energy of several stars, per second, that is.
You don't know the rocket equation. The spin launcher is extremely efficient, because it accelerates the payload without being subject to the rocket equation. The rocket equation means that the fuel grows exponentially to the payload and velocity, because you need to haul the fuel you need to haul the fuel. Inside that vacuum chamber, spinning on the ground, you don't need any of that. Then you release the payload, and even though the speed decreases from the first second, it will reach an altitude that would require immensely more energy if it were to be reached with a rocket engine. Then the second stage ignites.
They got a 200 kg projectile to 30,000 feet, with no remaining vertical speed.
You could attach one to each external hardpoint of an F-18F and get 11 at a time to 40,000 feet, with mach 1 vertical speed, which would net an additional 17,000 feet or so.
then why isn't it being done?
@Name-nw9uj it is done, rockcoons and air lifted 500 lb rockets to orbit are not unheard-of. The Pegasus is probably a superior effort to this abomination.
@@testpilotmafia862 right but all of those are rare. if a small jets can be used to launch small payloads like this spin launch thing why arent they being used?
@@Name-nw9uj Because it isn't a good way to collect huge $$$ in investments and grants and give yourself a big paycheck.
@briant7265 Well said. Shiny big facilities are a good way to separate investors from their money. A dull boring working method isn't as flashy.
I think this is a great idea.... but for off world launches. This would work very well on the moon, go cheaply get payloads back to earth. Or on Mars for a similar reason. If you wanted to port raw materials frequently and reliably back into earths gravity well with minimal oversight and cost, this is it. And the vacuum, noise and reusability issues wouldn't be as applicable on those worlds.
It would be far cheaper than a magnetic rail gun or mass driver to deliver menerals from lunal mining.
@@jameswilson5165 I think a conventional gun would beat both the spin launch and any electromagnetic sci-fi solutions.
Yeah definitely ok for an environment that is already under vacuum. Might even work on Mars and still not need any extra vacuum, Build it on the top of Olympus mons.
The issues would be the propellant to fire gun and the very large barrel. Magnetic accelerator and rail gun components are lighter and only require electricity.
But it does work here too. It's a question of willingness to get over the noise. Right now we burn all kinds of fuel and make much longer sustained noise with traditional rockets.
What happened? They proved that this was a *_great_* high school project but nothing more.
Dear readers. Many comments here about 'It won't work.. etc", but not many actual descriptions on why it won't work. Obviously there are mechanical problem previously mentioned, release timing, high g resisting components etc. but the biggest problem almost never mentioned is ground atmospheric air pressure. At a (proposed) exit velocity of 2200m.sec^-1 (5000 mph) atmoshperic air resistance would drastically reduce the missile's velocity and cause it to heat up. It would mechanically unfeasible to to reduce the missiles coefficient of friction to a low enough level where the missile would reach atmospheric altitude where air pressure becomes lossless. The section of physics where this can be studied and modelled is called Ballistics and even simple spreadsheet calculations are sufficient to show that Spinlaunch is not a viable method of space launch. The biggest question is why NASA etc.are putting money into it.
Seems like this team is moving forward without addressing the real physics issues, kind of like an unproven submersible design we've all recently heard about.
So the full success of their first version isn't a reason to scale up then?
@@up4open You mean the full failure of their first version?
@@up4open There is no justification other than maintaining the grift train.
@@JoeOvercoat Cool story Joe. I see value, and if it's not clear to you why, that's ok.
I think it needs a longer barrel with several ultra high speed air lock doors, varying the pressures along the barrel. The projectile would pass through progressively denser air until it departs the barrel, thus preventing “the wall of air”...
they could just have a few chambers with that fabric cover at different pressures? maybe?
Ultimately the same amount of air resistance will be exerted on the launch vehicle, you'd only be drastically increasing the complexity and cost with this design but for no gain.
like saddam hussein gun?
Stuartschaffner is exactly right, we will not see this work in our lifetimes. Thunderf00t does a great debunking on spinlaunch.
Thunderfoot might be wrong about this one. Spinlaunch has been successful so far, and this is just the test launcher. Time will tell.
@@jjbarajas5341 We'll see! Great sci-fi if nothing else ;)
My biggest concern with spin launch is the 10,000 Gs the satellite and booster engine are expected to survive while spinning.
Edit.
I am concerned about the plumbing for an upper stage rocket, and an antenna large enough to aim back the 100 miles to earth, and unfoldable solar panels.
Edit:
With at 100 meter diameter spinner, would need 10,000 Gs ( not 50 Gs ).
That number is a little too low. It's closer to 10,000 g's.
Not to mention the vacuum that will fill with air the moment the rocket exits going mach 30+. We've all seen space ships as they enter the super thin outer atmosphere, imagine hitting a wall of full atmosphere both in terms of heat and aerodynamic stability.
The idea is garbage, it'll never happen. We'll have fusion powered apace elevators before this vaporware ever solidifies.
This comment displays nicely how much they misrepresent their progress.
Then there's impacting the atmosphere as you leave the vacuum chamber and then the heat from air friction as it travels at much greater than orbital speed through the thickest part of the atmosphere as the whole point is to still have orbital velocity once it leaves the atmosphere so the speed must be much greater at launch and remember how much re-entry heat we currently have to deal with when a spacecraft slows below orbital velocity and encounter the thinnest portion of our atmosphere. If they want to go with this launch strategy then they need to focus on suborbital and firing a rocket once it leaves the atmosphere to finish accelerating to orbital velocity without the hindrance of the atmosphere. Not quite completely rocket less launch but something that is probably achievable. There's a big difference in velocity required to be orbital from suborbital. The Canadian space gun was focused on firing a rocket once out of the atmosphere though they never got past testing a few models for aerodynamics and launching suborbital dumb ballistic loads that would be unaffected by the extreme g-forces.
@@johnwang9914 I agree with the concerns you raised regarding the air friction after leaving the pressure chamber. But the payload will need a rocket in any case (if they want to reach a stable orbit around earth). Orbital mechanics dictate, that the projectile will hit the earth after revolving around it. So you always need to fire up a rocket and increase the speed after launch (when the projectile ist at the peak of it's trajectory) to "pull up" the orbit on the other side of the earth.
Here's my take as an engineer...I'll try to keep this as non-technical as possible... This will never work because PHYSICS!
This is a silly Idea, project HARP was a much more reasonable idea.
I did the math a while ago and was surprised to realize that payload spinning in their planned 100 m diameter spinner chamber needs to withstand more extreme forces than if it was launched out of 50 m long cannon at the same initial launch speed. The only advantage seems to be that they can build the speed up gradually using the spinner but we all know that it comes with all sorts of technical difficulties mainly related to vacuum in the chamber and rotational moment of inertia of the payload and at the same time we all know railguns exist and have way higher barrel exit velocity than their planned 2 km per second.
Make the payload water. Once in orbit it is recovered by a space tug and taken to a processing depot. From this you could get drinking water, oxygen for breathing, and hydrogen for rocket fuel. I think they could make use of those resources in space.
Would old german Paris Gun with high elevation and slower gunpowder be more gentle?
If we can imagine it, I firmly believe all ideas can be realized given enough time. I think a better comparison for proof of concept that sophisticated electronics can survive, would be hypersonic missiles.
railguns also have the problem of trying to turn both their payload and their rails into plasma, though.
- β
How many watts of power would be required to fire a coilgun with equivalent energy? Mass drivers are a cool concept.
I was litterally trying to find out what they were doing TODAY, like 4 hours ago. I haven't heard anything in months.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. Not today but recently.
This is a useless comment that could be expressed with an upvote, but I already did that and wanted more engagement points.
Same
Vacuum to atmosphere. Can't see it happening. Space maybe. But a big rubber band should work just as well.
@@jtjames79it’s obviously an AI/low effort channel
Same, talked about it to my co worker today, and this popped out in my recommendation video😅
At this stage, I think it's an interesting idea for small-scale testing, that's it.
Safety-wise, this monstrosity scares the #### out of me. If a rocket or big gun type launch goes wrong, the worst case scenario is blowing up / burning down the immediate launch area. If this thing goes wrong, the worst case scenario is random chunks of wreckage being flung in random directions at EXTREME velocity.
"Random chunks of wreckage flung in a random direction at extreme velocity". Sounds to me like you're describing a "conventional" mid-air rocket explosion. Yet, rocket launches are more frequent than ever these days. In spinlaunch's case, if the payload detaches before its time, it will first have to go through a nigh parallel thick metal wall that can be engineered to stand this eventuality
@@anthonyjaccard3694 All you have to be sure of is that all of that aforementioned wreckage flies in the right direction to hit that wall. No problem.
@@7thsealord888 The whole spinning contraption is enclosed in a big metal cylinder so I really don't see how that's a problem. Plus, should the spinning arm rupture in any way, the geometry of the things makes it so the fastest moving parts (the extremities) will hit that wall with the most parallel trajectory to the wall, allowing it to have less of an impact on the surface. Again, if you are okay with rockets at the rate they are being launched today, you have no reason to be scared of this thing. It has many flaws but security really is the least of them
@@anthonyjaccard3694 Rockets are a well-established technology, and we are pretty much alongside all the things that can go wrong with them.
This contraption ...... MAYBE, as you seem to think, it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I am unconvinced at this stage. It is going to need A LOT more testing under varied conditions before I share anywhere near your certainty on the matter.
@@7thsealord888 my point is : rockets too were once a very much untested technology were the worst case scenario was a big explosion and a huge hunk of metal being flung in a somewhat random direction. However, with enough time and security measures, we are now in a world where a rocket is launched every week without everyone in the world fearing that at any given moment they could receive a rocket on their face. It certainly wasn't without some catastrophic accidents but it hasn't stopped it from happening so maybe we shouldn't discredit a potential great technology because it "seems" dangerous without first testing it
Forget all the difficulties and concentrate on one. The instant the projectile is released, the spinning arm is instantly out of balance and if you watched the video of the wind generator destroy itself you can see just how much energy a spinning object has. If you get that far then you got over the problem of releasing the payload with incredible precision or the projectile will destroy itself and whatever happens to be within a fairly large area.
release the counterweight at the same time and just slam it into the ground
@@-NGC-6302- ouch!
@@-NGC-6302- what's gunna stop the counterweight once its released? That will have equal energy .......... just in the opposite direction 😮
@@donuthole7236right into the ground supports holding up the spinning arm.
They’ve solved that issue with a temporary counterweight that they just smash , the actual launcher will release a reusable counterweight half a rotation after the initial release which shouldn’t cause any major off balance seeing as it is occurring half a revolution later.
If you thought Saturn IV failure were spectacular. Wait till you see a payload leave the side of the launcher at Mach 6 on a horizontal trajectory towards a populated area.
SpinLaunch should add Nuclear Fusion, Carbon Capture with storage, nuclear waste disposal, green hydrogen cars and Unicorns to its product line as these are just as likely to work.
SpinLaunch has already been demonstrated with suborbital launches. Next up is orbital but they need a bigger launcher. You have no imagination
Solar freaking spin launch
Self driving vacuum tubes to orbit
Let’s be fair this is great data collection at least
Something I've wondered about SpinLaunch: how do they maintain balance in their centrifuge? They spin up a payload, then release it. If their centrifuge arm is balanced with the payload, it becomes badly unbalanced at the moment of release. Do they somehow accommodate this imbalance? Do they somehow very quickly rebalance? (e.g. a counterweight which is released downwards at the same moment the payload is released upwards.)
Probably one of the things they keep a "Corporate secret"
The only viable solution to that physics problem I can think of would be to have the counterweight pulled on magnetically and at the instant of the launch vehicle release the magnetic field would be shut off.
They covered this already. They plan to drop a dummy payload from the short end that is much heavier but traveling much slower. Catch it and reattach for the next launch. As crazy as the ideal sounds they have put a lot of thought and engineering into the project.
@@edwardson6825 I didn't know about the counterweight payload idea. Thanks! I wonder how they plan to "catch" it? If the weight is magnetized, dropping it through a coil would allow for regenerative braking. That might be a cost-saving upgrade for the long-term.
@@edwardson6825 Thanks, that is the most obvious method, but I didn't see it in the animations.
What happens to the arm and bearings etc when the spinning mass suddenly changes when the launch vehicle is released? I'd imagine there would be some heavy shaking and stress. Usually things that spin that fast have to be extremely well balanced.
That are the questions I’m looking for!
And how accurate has the release-time-window to be, not to hit the wall?
In one video, they said that there is counterweight on the other side of the arm which is released too.
Of course it is quite inefficient and problematic at high speed. I am just reproducing what they claimed.
Sounds logical. @@DalHrusk
Currently the counter mass is fired down into a very solid wall they also mentioned working on the ability to have two payloads, one on each side, the second payload will be unbalanced for half a rotation but they don't think that will be all that bad but haven't shown that yet.
@@muctop17If it's so difficult, how come they already did it with ease on their smaller scale tests?
"At its full-scale size and with a desired exit speed of 5,000 mph (8,100 kph), [the payload experiences] acceleration, just before the payload is launched, of somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 gs.
Building a payload that can take that much acceleration is more expensive than the fuel it takes to send the payload to orbit. I think this idea is completely impractical for this reason and will never be economically viable on Earth.
For launching raw materials from the Lunar surface for usage in space, however, the idea may have some legs.
Agreed. Simple, proven physics says it loud and clear.
Even for lunar stuff though I think a space elevator would make much more sense. Standard Kevlar is strong enough to build a lunar space elevator
@@aadamawad1647 A space elevator would not work on the moon.
satelites are generally built to be lightweight, and relatively fragile, they are not designed to be put through hundreds if not thousands of Gs. I’m all for new tech but this is somewhat ridicolous. The market they are trying to open is extremely niche, the small sat market has been filled with companies such as Rocketlab and even SpaceX on rideshare mission. This method of launching payloads into orbit, to me anyways seem impractical and really unecessary.
It's far more practical than you think. Satellites already have to account for vibrational loading caused by rockets so they are already built to be resilient. Also, cost of launch would be orders of magnitude lower than even RocketLab for smallsats due to simplicity, limited need for fuel, and smaller rocket components. Yes you have to test and adapt slightly for G-loading, but you can ignore other aspects of space launch that have plagued satellites since the dawn of the space age by eliminating the need for vibe tests. It's more of a paradigm shift than anything. That being said, larger satellites will still need dedicated rockets, but anything up to ESPA-class could easily fly on SpinLaunch.
What about R&D costs? What about construction and maintenance costs? Then you still need energy to drive the centrifuge (even if you use a system to recover energy from the centrifuge after launch it won't be anything like 100% efficient and you're still losing the energy in the projectile). All of this adds up.
You forgot to consider the deceleration through the atmosphere that would slow the satellite out of the highly elliptical orbit that causes impact
Don't get me wrong: i really want this to become true. This is cool af. But as long there is no proof, that this can actually work, i am *very* sceptical.
Even without doing the math, this project seems to be rather ridiculous. I can only imagine the HUGE g forces a sattelite should be able to withstand continously to not break something in the spinning process. I read, that it´s over 10.000 g's and what kind of fine electronic equipment can take that kind of force? And what would happen to the facility in case of an accident during the spin? I would not like to be in the area!!
You'd be surprised. I've worked with companies needing motors, gears and electric parts to withstand 10,000 gs. Smart munitions, timed fuses, electrical contactors small computer chips. I recall one that was a sabot fired missile that needed to deploy stabilization fins after being fired from a tank or naval gun. So they needed a gearbox that could withstand 10k gs. I'm more worried about how you arrest the 1300 rpm backspin you put on your rocket after launching it.
@@edcross447 I doubt they have thrown anything much further than your average pumpkin chucking trebuchet.
How do you get a job with a coumpany like this and what are the requirements?
i'm guessing a degree in marketing ... which imo seems to be the basis of most scammy Kickstarter campaigns
in my opinion, it's not going to work.
"Ultra high speed airlock doors ... help spinlaunch launch every couple of hours"
Words are easy. Objects are hard.
This ular high speed airlock should keep the vacuum inside. But how is the payload for the next shot is attached in a vacuum?
And how should it be attached while that rotor is still spinning?
You also forget to mention the elephant in the room. The forces affecting the payload. What kind of satellite or rocket engine can withstand such forces. Also, what happens when the centripetal force disappears instantly, at the moment of release? Everything that was compressed due to immense rotational force will uncompress. Also, the payload/rocket must go from being in a vacuum, to instantly being in the atmosphere and then back into vacuum.
SpinLaunch is aerospace snake oil. There are too many problems to make this a viable technology.
But they are very good at fooling people into believing their systems aren't so far of that the "prototypes" actually prove exactly nothing.
It’s just a phallic shaped giant smoking device. I feel like only a child would think it would work. Let me spin something so fast it flies into space!
Your chihuahua is an insulting little Runt, Mr. Darwin. Needs to be returned to the dog pound.
@@up4open butt hurt much?
The northern part of Western Australia is reasonably close to the equator, so should be a good place to launch.
Also I'd believe the locals, though concerned, would be more willing to listen than those on Hawaii. 😎
I was just going to suggest the same. Either that or parts of the Northern Territory. As well as less inhabited there is also copious amounts of sunshine for solar energy.
It's understandable that people don't want regular sonic booms in their backyard.
Only problem would be launching payloads for the DoD, DARPA, or any U.S entity really. Rocket Lab skirts this slightly through some complicated supply chain management, but SpinLaunch would need a solution to ensure only U.S entities have access to U.S assets.
In that case an island of Java would be cheaper to buy.
At 75% speed it almost sounds normal. Try breathing every once in a while, and talk clearly, instead of this. Leave a pause here and there, for people to reflect on what you say. Kind regards
I would like to see a demonstration of the hatch opening and shutting in a 'blink of an eye' which maintained such a large vacuum on one side of it.
The only video I have seen was the projectile breaking through a membrane that was not covering a vacuum.
They've probably not yet eliminated the horizontal translation as it launches. One can see the nose moving sideways in the clip. The centrifuge release mechanism does not release quickly enough. Remember early long oval launch tubes? They've gotten quicker but not there yet.
It's nothing to do with the release speed. It's spinning. It doesn't magically stop spinning once it's released.
@@zachary3777 That's precisely why it translates. Glad you understood.
Go to Brazil! Launch base of Alcantara.
Even if they get close to the equator, the size is still limited to micro satellites and it’s unclear how they will acquire attitude and orbit correction. Also, if the tether or vacuum chamber fail it would be catastrophic for the entire system and surrounding area. There’s a reason why HARP was canceled and they also looked into a centrifugal force, cannon, and the radical Orion nuclear launch systems.
As they are launching rockets, how can it be unclear how they will acquire attitude and orbit correction?
Anything leaving a spin-launcher like that will have a lot of angular momentum, unless corrected for during "precision release" (which is non-viable at the angular velocities required). My guess is they plan to use the aerodynamics of the vehicles to correct this, given how much the vehicles shown in the test flights are visibly wobbling around, but at the huge speeds needed to launch an object into orbit it's hard not to envision them self-destructing on contact with air.
I think the way its done is releasing it slightly out of the position - so the angular momentum is essentially "straight"
But this idea is so stupid on so many levels.
I question the engineers at the top on this one. They have to know this can't work. There is simply no way they can fling something into orbit. Let's be very generous and say they did build such a machine, the moment the projectile leaves the vacuum chamber, it's going to vaporize. Basically a reverse meteorite. But I would love to watch the attempts! I can't even imagine what it would sound like. I bet it would be spectacular at night.
Just like a bullet or an artillery shell. Don't those silly gunners know their shell just vaporise as soon as they leave the barrel.
Explosions down-range are just convenient coincidences.
:D
Your claim literally solves itself by placing this on any available mountain where people cannot live anyway.
They are not launching projectiles, they are launching missiles with their own propulsion systems.
Your payload will have to survive acceleration going from stupid-crazy-insane high to zero in milliseconds (microseconds?). What could possibly go wrong?
Ha! I was just thinking yesterday about that whole Spin Launch thing and wondering what are they doing these days (or if they still do anything at all) :)
The scam continues
One obvious engineering issue is that the moment the rocket is launched, the rotor ceases to be balanced and the imbalance creates immense forces. Did they solve this? How? And is this part of the reason for the delay?
They dropped some dead weight at the same time in a renforced place of the launcher.
Their end goal is to put a second rocket on the other side to make two launch in one go.
@@mylushimada7824The second rocket has to go opposite direction to get a balance. So one rocket going to moon, another to Kaizu planet?
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 The current version has one rocket going to the sky and the other (but is really just a wieght) to the ground (the reinforced part).
The project they have is to launch one rocket but keeping the other attached for half rotation and launch it too, arguing the arm is strong enough to handle the imbalance for fractions of a second.
Also don't forget that rockets still have thrusters and such and can manoeuver themselves
@@mylushimada7824 Right now, the vehicle faces ~200g acceleration at launch. For each cubic meter of kerosine, that's >1400bar at just 1m down from top of the fuel tank. I don't know how many material can withstand that much pressure without getting ruptured. How many electronics can withstand such pressure is also a question.
All in all, looks like this can succeed only for smaller payload with very minimal electionics.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 It's their job to figure it out, not mine.
Will be on the look for their success if it works but I have no guarantee it will.
While I wish them the best, I'm skeptical an orbital spin launch system is physically possible...
This idea has many problems. Here is just one:
Spinning the launch vehicle - call it "Bob" - up to launch velocity takes a certain amount of energy. Call that energy "whoosh". Okay, so the system will need a counterbalance for Bob, which will have to be spun up - whoosh just doubled. The easiest way to deal with counter-Bob is to release it down into a hole, which means that energy will not be reclaimed. The impact will be groundshaking.
The arm that holds Bob and counterBob has to be strong, which means heavy, and spinning it up will take energy - call it "whoosh" and "whoosh", roughly. The arm's energy may be recoverable, with enough technology.
The whoosh needed to throw Bob is about one-fourth of the energy required for each launch.
Factor that into the fuel savings.
There's hella more problems.
There's also people who dismiss all the problems, and some of them have money. That's incentive enough for the project. It doesn't have to be workable.
Instead of medium sized satellites they should be concentrating on shooting water into LEO. Water stands up well to g forces and could be retrieved from LEO by a space tug that would collect it and take it to a processing space station. Once there it could be converted to oxygen and hydrogen for rocket propellent or be used by various space stations for drinking water or oxygen. As we get more and more commercial space stations, supplying them will become a viable business.
I like the way you think. Spin Launch could do many missions, but proving the technology with cheap useful items, like water and maybe building materials (radiation shielding sheets or tiles for example), could be interesting. 🤔🚀🛰🌕
Smart but don't u think it's gonna cost quite a penny to build the infrastructure for this?
@@gutluckbro9802 (The Joke) A penny? Cool, lets build a dozen. 🤣
(But Seriously) Water on the supply rockets uses up a lot of the available mass. Therefore shooting it into orbit would be cheaper in the long run. Also small Space Tugs are already in development, and said development would benefit greatly from this important use.
Hurling supplies up for space stations may be in the plan, but we'll have to wait and see.
@@gutluckbro9802 Hundreds of millions but there are expendable launches all the time that are over $200M. If they can build the infrastructure for $500M then launch costs should be the lowest available and they should be able to launch multiple times a day. They don't have to contend with cryogenics and weather doesn't matter. This would be a paradigm shift in getting stuff to LEO.
Dumb idea. They should stop now before someone gets hurt.
Every financial and engineering problem they are facing can be solved by using a rocket instead.
Nope. The rocket can't solve the fuel and fire need.
@@up4open that isn’t a problem that needs to be solved.
@@RealBenAnderson says you. SpaceX is facing a review by some federal fish and game or something now that they added water to the mix. The more options the better, and the tech might end up in other things. Hypersonic is a thing now.
@@up4open says decades of putting things into space.
@@RealBenAnderson So you're unaware of the effects of rocket fuel on solid boosters, I presume you believe that the fire and ice of SpaceX is the cleanest possible fuel. We have centuries of using the horse, your car is stupid.
I'd like to know how they release the projectile from the end of the spinning arm. The release time (time from commanding release to actual release) must be very consistent/repeatable because small differences would effect the launch angle.
They might as well try to design a terrestrial space elevator
Crazy idea. Let's spin a rocket really really fast and let go so it goes to the moon.
Since I first learned about this I could see nothing but issues with the entire concept. I can't believe the company is still going ahead with it. Just wait for the first launch-arm failure when it flings something through the side of the launch errrr circle? at an angle where whatever being launched stays close to the ground and obliterates a target unintentionally. This is besides all the issues with physics, heat, materials, durability of payload etc. I STILL think launching from an aerial platform (airplane, airship whatever) would be the most efficient.
I think spin is the operative word for this whole idea .
I really hope that they achieve what they are wanting to achieve. I, personally, can't see this working for numerous reasons, but if they can solve this, go them.
That was my thoughts exactly, I have no confidence this system will work but have absolutely nothing against them. I would be just as happy for them if they can make this system successful.
"I really hope that they achieve what they are wanting to achieve" --> you mean raking in the money from investors and then dissolve the company because of "unforseen circumstances"
@@panda4247 No. What I mean is I hope they aucees in their launches.
@@SimonAmazingClarke I figured you meant that. But I am more skeptical of the end result, therefore I am more cynical about what their motivation really is.
Of course, they may believe that it's theoretically possible, but they themselves must know that most probably they will not succeed - but if there are people/institutions who are willing to fund their research and trials, I have nothing against that.. as long as those people are not lured in by false promises
Well said. Wishing them the best on a really difficult problem. Would love to see all the math on this.
I don’t see this being safe until it’s contained underground encased in earth and concrete. Like a massive silo
It would be nice, i think, to get the exit tube higher into the sky to reduce the air pressures they have to deal with. Maybe even some kind air stream system to move the air the projectile is going to enter into so that the surrounding fluid is moving with a velocity comparable and the same direction to the projectile.
The options for where this launches from do present benefits and troubles. If you go high you gain lighting while reducing atmosphere and some amount of necessary velocity.
You're slowly nearing the idea of a railgun :P
@@WTFBOOMDOOM It could even be a hybrid system in that case, but I think the idea with this is you can build momentum greater than a straight line rail gun could for a given maximum amount of acceleration, peak power, and height constraints.
Looking forward to Thunderfoot's reply
The Moon. Build it on the Moon, where it's more efficient (1/6 g, no atmosphere). No propellant is used in this propulsion system. You don't have to mine water and purify H2 and 02 - you just need electricity. The ultimate reusability.
you wouldn't even need a vacuum chamber
Yes, this has been suggested in many sci-fi novels.
It would be more practical to build a maglev monorail to accelerate payloads to ludicrous speeds and just have them slingshot away from the moon's surface at slightly more than escape velocity, which is about 1.9 km/sec or about mach 5.5
Now all they have to do is Spinlaunch the payload to the moon so it can be Spinlaunched from there to low earth orbit.
lol🤣@@Pixelsplasher
Thunderf00t debunked this. I'm not sure why there's still interest in something that's been proven can't ever be done. Reminds me of Hyperloop.
I'd like to know what happens to the remaining (ROTATING!) mass when the cargo/missile is released.
That is a total waste of investors money the only people that are going to make money on this are the people that are collecting the money gravity is a very very very very very very hard for us to overcome
It's a ridiculously cool piece of engineering. I'll always celebrate the pursuit of 1st-principles-thinking, but it's healthy to be skeptical about EVERY concept until it's proven.
I think we should listen to Elon on this Orbital Accelerator matter...
I've never understood why they think their high tech trebuchet is a better idea than a big ass high tech rail gun. There is comparable acceleration for a device of a given size. And it is a lot easier to scale up a rail gun than it is to scale up a massive rotating thingy in a vacuum chamber.
if they get it working they don't have to replace the rails every three shots.
Because you weren't on the team building it, wonder why that is?
Rail gun has only 70% efficient versus electric engine 98% and rail gun is technically a cannon like normal cannon destroy barrel, so you can shoot dozens of times, but rails will be damaged quickly.
Absolute minimum energy required for orbit is nearly 8 km/s at an altitude of 170km. A child with a $5 calculator could tell you why to sell their stock short.
This is a great idea… for a different planet with lower escape velocity and less dense atmosphere.
That remains of the movie, The Wedding Planet.
They aren't throwing this thing all the way to orbit.
They're basically replacing the first stage of a conventional rocket.
Because a rocket needs to carry fuel for its fuel, this saves a lot of fuel.
As for the drag induced by the atmosphere, it is actually lower if the launch vehicle goes at Mach 5 rather than Mach 1.
In fact, at that speed it would be out of the densest part of the atmosphere before it even has time to heat to dangerous temperatures.
Also, a conventional rocket needs to push through the densest part of the atmosphere, which this system doesn't, meaning it needs to carry even less fuel.
Of course there are still plenty of issues, but if they can solve them, this might be a cheaper and more efficent way to launch pretty much anything that is not a living organism.
You would get greater heights if your recommissioned the Schwerer Gustav and pointed it vertically...
Anyone remember reading the millennial project by Marshall Savage back in the 1980s? He proposed a railgun type device on Kilimanjaro, significantly through the atmosphere and nearer the equator. 40 something years ago...
Brilliant
at the speeds they claim... exit tube closing "in the blink of an eye" is laughably slow when compared to the micro seconds they have to release something spinning 5000 mph at the exact point to obtain the proper trajectory to get to a targeted goal
I think spin launch is a good idea maybe for very small objects, but in my opinion the linear accelerator idea has a better chance, but it’s good to see various ideas being tried because it’s all useful for learning things.
Like how to scam idiots with a stupid idea that will NEVER achieve practicality. The Brousards are masters of this.
The release mechanism releases the projectile but also a plunger in a partially gas filled vacuum chamber thats on a spring. It probably spins for an hour or longer after release. They probably have something like the box on wind turbines thats directly connected to its own grid. Other wise i cant see something like that working with out exploding. They got one on the moon you can see on that app to view the surface of the moon
The main advantage of SpinLaunch is they should be able to launch small payloads every few hours because they are not dealing with all the complexities of cryogenic propellants and rocket launches. This makes it a perfect platform for space station consumables resupply.
Who wants sonic booms every few hours?
the small satellites need to be that much Gforce resistant to launch on spinlaunch
chances of this working is rather slim - fuel for a solid rocket 2nd stage would collapse and a liquid second stage would deform its fuel tanks (a second stage comes higher from a plane )
Pipe dream,no free lunches in physics🍕
@@tr4l1975 the rockets are flying away from you so you wouldn't be able to hear the sonic booms, right?
You know how re-entry sucks?
Yeah?
Let's do that, but in the beginning.
It seems like similar forces to a giant gun like in Jules Verne books. It has to reach enough velocity to overcome drag and escape gravity, faster than a bullet, so anything inside has crazy G forces. Can just transport very strong materials.
It's actually substantially higher. In a gun, you have the length of the barrel to speed up, with the propellant accelerating you the entire time, so the g-force can be distributed across that time frame. With this, they have to first get it to spin at full speed, and only then they can release it. But while it's spinning at full speed, it's getting pulled sideways at over 10,000gs.
@@eugenes9751 I imagine the deceleration force too when the projectile hits a solid wall of air as it exits the launcher.
Isn’t this just the harp project all over again
It's very hard for me to believe that a launch system like this big enough to launch something substantial into low earth orbit wouldn't exert such tremendous forces on whatever it was launching as to damage it at the very least if not outright destroy it. Launch systems like this would place a far higher degree of stress on satellites than any traditional satellite launch system. It's also very hard for me to believe they could have gotten as far as they have if they weren't able to at least show they'd crunched the numbers proving it was viable. Time will tell.
The only numbers they need to crunch is “How much can we get from contributor x?”
This concept works much better on an airless body. Solves the sonic boom problem, maintaining vacuum in the spinner, etc. Otherwise it's just a daffy sub-orbital experiment.
Think that maybe a more Big and reach hypersonic because we only Will use for cargo
So what? Is it wrong to develop these things now?
@@up4open it's unlikely to work as advertised at least. It could make a lot of sense as a lunar or even martian system, but on earth they're getting awfully close to claiming to do something that's physicsally unpossible. If they were developing it as an extraterrestrial system that'd be fine. If they know it's not going to work here but keep taking money from people it's not fine. There's also the possibility that there's people at the top who are genuinely passionate about it and think that they'll solve the issues any day now, not unlike Theranos, where the end will have justified the means.
I think they’d do better to offer it as a carnival ride or maybe an updated human cannon ball type rig. The physics look about as favorable for this as they did for the hyperliop.
Seriously. Spin Launch is in my eyes a waste of time. All that to send up a muffler sized satellite into orbit. Something that size can be rideshared on a F9, for a fraction of the cost and 1/4 the amount of work putting the satellite in its correct orbit. They should just join SpaceX and help develop. It could be used for other things like missile defense. But all that for something so small is just not worth it. Yes it uses no engine lift at sea level, but again.. all that to send a microwave into barely orbit.
Thanks for another great episode!
- NOM
Actually... this might be a good test bed for developing an orbital launch system, launching from the Moon or even Mars.
Another user commented that they should be sending water to LEO for processing into fuel. They could do the exact same thing on the Moon, either sending up ice or manufactured fuel which isnt as g-sensitive as electronics.
It would be a handy fallback option when the Earth orbital launch system inevitably fails.
@@s1l3ntw1 The ludicrous G-forces created by the spinning is the killer, not the gravity. Agreed, the G forces would be less because they'd have to spin the payload less fast, but 1/6th of 100,000 is still nearly 17,000 G. It would be cheaper and more viable just to build a 5 km long maglev rail on the moon and have payloads accelerated linearly at a "modest" 100Gs and tilted up slightly as it leaves the monorail so it can spiral away from the moon at slightly more than escape velocity, which on the moon is between mach 5 and 6. Once at the right altitude a small thruster can slow the craft down to put it into a stable orbit.
@paulmichaelfreedman8334 I hear what you are saying, and would be keen to see the feasibility comparison between a maglev system and this spin launch system.
I guess my comment was more just trying to incidate that this system would be much better suited to a low gravity, minimal atmosphere situation (eg the Moon) as a lot of the downsides start to go away (eg lower escape velocity so no need to hit such high g's, no atmosphere so drag can actually be neglected, no need to seal the chamber so no worries about a fancy airlock system ), etc.
@@s1l3ntw1 I understand, but 17,000 g's... hard to build something capable of withstanding such forces. each gram of matter in the object would experience a force of 170 Newtons or every kilogram adds 17 tons. That still a lot, although less impossible than 100,000, that's very true.
I think a giant rubber band powered wrist rocket launcher would have a better chance of working.
This seems like the most inefficient way to launch something. The energy of the rotating arm is not transferred into the projectile, so it remains to spin after the projectile is released.
You then need to decelerate this rotating assembly and accelerate it again for the next launch.
Something like a trebuchet style energy transfer would be more efficient and it wouldn't require any counterweight on the rotating arm because as soon as it dumped all of its energy into the projectile it would be basically stopped.
At least you're trying to advance the concept, thank you for that.
Regenerative braking would slow the arm down quick and recoup most of the energy as stored electrical energy for the next launch.
Ideally people realized this stupid scam could never work as an effective launch system and stopped giving them money.
How about they put it on an abandoned oil drilling platform that they can relocate to the equator or build something similar?
I just wonder if it'll be cheaper than simply using the falcon 9 to launch rockets. Maybe this would provide an avenue for more amateur / smaller satellites to launch that wouldn't have the budget to pay for rideshare on Falcon 9. It would probably increase launch times for small satellites as well, compared to waiting weeks or months to catch a Falcon 9 rocket. Just hope the FAA isn't archaic and speeds up their certification process for the growing space industry.
It's going to take them quite a while so they will actually be competing with Starship not Falcon 9.
The market they are trying to go into has been filled with rocketlab, they are doing something for nothing
eventually it will be, I think, since electricity can be produced with all kinds of methods.
Well, If the Launcher is balanced while loaded and spinning at insane speeds then launches the payload and becomes quickly unbalanced, the whole thing is going to be damaged
Have they considered a giant high altitude zeppelin launch base?
at their spin rate the movements in any other direction would be damaging to equipment and stability at launch.
Sorry to be a spoil-sport, but I doubt if this launch technique will ever grow out of the novelty category.
That's what they said about the first aircraft.
Thanks man...I still don't believe in this project. @luigispitlip...😎😎😎
a good project for this machine....is to launch raw materials in to LEO for 3D printers to make future space craft with.
Might be great for moon launches. You could make this more viable with a ramjet on the vehicle but this wont work for straight orbital launches. What satellite could withstand those forces? And the sonic boom...
Supplies? Satellites that have been built to survive the G's? The question isn't "Are there no problems to solve," the question is why not solve them? Even the internal package hold can be designed to minimize risk. It's a matter of practice in will.
This gives me a great idea for an amusement park ride. Toss them up about 1000 feet. But what to do about reentry?🤔
Got it!! "Land on the launch pad and your 2nd ride is FREE!!"
You know, this could be great to have on the moon or Mars.
It would be great for sending up fuel, supplies or raw materials.
Even if they got it to work it’s a lot of material and resources to get into another planet. For as much effort as this is you could likely setup equipment that could produce fuel for a more normal rocket.
@NBSV1 You would set up manufacture on moon before building this.
The payloads are so small though. To send up any usable amount of fuel it would have to be scaled up significantly.
@@asumazilla Yeah. Just rocket up everything to setup manufacturing on the moon so you can then maybe send small payloads of stuff back a little more efficiently. Would work great for that highly populated moon base they've got up there.
@@NBSV1 Yes and even better is that once we get set up we can then manufacture or grow what we need on the moon. So the people at the moonbase won't need to import everything. Use a 3D printer, grow our own food, recycle water and waste and so on.
"300 ft in diameter"
It's a football stadium. The launcher alone will be the size of a football stadium. Plus all of the necessary support facilities.
Of course they got pushback in Hawaii. Their facility would take up the whole island.
There's a fundamental problem in that the payload has motion components that are the super position of the rotation about the center plus translation caused by the arm. You might think of the payload at the center of the system just rotating and then translate the payload to the end of the arm. When launched the payload disconnects from the arm stopping the translation, but the payload is still rotating. The payload will NOT fly like a rocket, but rather will tumble head over heals.
@stuartschaffner9744 and @DreadX10 make this point in the top comment thread and @rpercifieldjr (below) and I agree. The projectile leaves the launcher with an angular rotation equal to the rotation of the arm. Many can't understand this concept, but imagine a camera tracking the rocket while it rotates inside the vacuum chamber. It has enormous spin and therefore enormous angular momentum. Dissipating that spin/tumble via air fins would be unworkable. Some have said it could be alleviated by releasing the front of the rocket before the back - but that would put super-gigantic angular acceleration on the projectile - even more force than the 200Gs of the centripetal force - forces needed to stop its rotation within milliseconds.
@@skylark9845 Since this fundamental physics problem was not addressed it seems this was a scam from the get go.
Perhaps add a 2nd rotational mechanism at the end of the arm to counter-spin the payload. Still seems hard. And if anything goes wrong, everything gets obliterated.
Fundamental problems often have fundamental answers. Taking the time to solve things isn't a mistake.
@@Brooke95482 Or maybe you've missed that we have a thing called drag forces which stabilize? Once it's in the air, it's going to face resistance which can do work.