We've had many discussions on HN about SpinLaunch, but Brian real goes through and answers several of the questions that were left unanswered, love it.
Related. Others?<p><i>Can We Throw Satellites to Space? – SpinLaunch</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32375464" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32375464</a> - Aug 2022 (5 comments)<p><i>An Inside Look: SpinLaunch Flight Test #7</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31098021" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31098021</a> - April 2022 (4 comments)<p><i>NASA to Test SpinLaunch, a Giant Slingshot for Launching Satellites into Space</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31010244" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31010244</a> - April 2022 (1 comment)<p><i>NASA will test SpinLaunch's ability to fling satellites into orbit</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996665" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30996665</a> - April 2022 (199 comments)<p><i>SpinLaunch completes first test flight with rocket-flinging launch system</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198589" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198589</a> - Nov 2021 (219 comments)<p><i>Spinlaunch completes suborbital launch without engine</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29175912" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29175912</a> - Nov 2021 (6 comments)<p><i>SpinLaunch is building a centrifuge to launch satellites into orbit</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25204660" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25204660</a> - Nov 2020 (143 comments)<p><i>SpinLaunch raises $40M to build a machine to catapult objects into space</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17317688" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17317688</a> - June 2018 (105 comments)<p><i>Space catapult startup SpinLaunch comes out of stealth</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16439835" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16439835</a> - Feb 2018 (110 comments)
I think creating cannons along the designs of Gerald Bull would be more promising. Just huck cube sats into orbit. Obviously you'd probably want a cube sat with no moving parts or something that could withstand what I'd assume to be like 10K G's.
Real Engineering always does such an amazing job on all their content, although I can't help but fixate on what the release mechanism looks like since it wasn't revealed in this video.<p>This comment was inspired by another commenter saying something about shooting the rocket off the side of a mountain.<p>I'm theory-crafting here without any specialized knowledge on the subject, asking strictly out of a mix of curiosity and fun. Is there an online community where I could pose this question and get a well-informed response about its viability?<p>What if you dug a very deep hole, created a near-vaccuum, and you shot the rocket out like a rail-cannon?<p>Here's a quick and simple sketch [0] of what I have in mind.<p>[0] <a href="https://imgur.com/bmHiMdq" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/bmHiMdq</a>
> we ended up doing it for less than a couple of million dollars<p>That's a nice way to make a couple of million dollars sounds less than it is:-)
Hacker News is shown as example of naysayers: <a href="https://youtu.be/yrc632oilWo?t=2401" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/yrc632oilWo?t=2401</a> :=)
I’ve wondered this about airplanes. Couldn’t we launch an airplane into the air and it spends the rest of the time gliding back down to earth? It would make things a lot simpler and the chance of something going wrong is much less since it’s in a perpetual state of gliding back. Is this even possible?
Think there also a middle ground in this debate that is overlooked. Perhaps it might not work for chucking humans into space. If you can do some with component part of liquid fuel that is in isolation inert that would be a massive win.
I cant believe anyone with basic physics knowledge can be serious about this.<p>Its the sign of the times where anything thats pitched big tends to be seen as "revolutionary"