Is SpinLaunch Still Trying To Make An Orbital Accelerator?

[@Survivalguy]

"UPDATE" There is no update.

[@kahlzun]

thankyou for noticing this notice.

[@Meatball2022]

This notice is an official notice from the department of redundancy department.

[@mikhailkerman8323]

Magic the Noah?

[@bradkubota6968]

Who shorted this stock will be the only ones other than the clowns running it to make money.

[@mepizzasmangled]

Reminds me of the daily half life 3 updates guy. What a hero

[@AndersHaalandverby]

"New Chapter" is marketing speak for "Our ass is broke, and youll probably get fired soon if you work here."

[@sethdrake7551]

their only next chapter is chapter 7 bankruptcy

[@AdministrativeReload]

@@sethdrake7551 Not if they can keep attracting more clueless investors.

[@blondegirlsezthis8798]

"We are refocusing our current market penetration in the incredibly large roulette wheel market" -- an outsourced spokesbot

[@JorgetePanete]

you'll*

[@Ezekiel_Allium]

​@@JorgetePanete autodepellify

[@antimonark7837]

They may use this tech on the moon, but here on earth the delta v is brutal.

[@ValuedTeamMember]

Well stated, Antman

[@Thirty-Two]

Yep, and that is my main concern with the Longshot Company. Instead of taking the SpinLaunch approach, they're using a multi-stage gun for the first propulsive boost. However, they both share the same issues of getting so much deltaV in a short period of time and atmospheric heating/losses.

[@DalHrusk]

And the atmosphere is a problem too. The projectile would be slown down and generate a lot of heat. At least, they should build it in high mountaints to reduce this issue.

[@machineenvyllc437]

100% where it will shine

[@rouey]

Then again, on the moon you could just use a linear accelerator and do without the issues with the enormous centrifugal forces generated by this spinny thingy

[@glenith50]

Aw dang it, I was looking forward to jumping on a Hyperloop to watch the 2 hourly launches….

[@Broockle]

o jeez, u'll make my heart explode

[@letMeSayThatInIrish]

Since the hyperloop has not quite taken off yet, maybe it could be made to work if combined with spin launch? I envision a "pod spinner" at each station flinging pods into vacuum tunnels towards their destination. No need for powering the pods en route, all the force is provided with the initial spin. At least we can make some cgi models and ask around for investments.

[@glenith50]

Genius idea!

[@Unknown-mf4of]

@@letMeSayThatInIrish Note that the pods would be speeding to their doom while rotating at the same RPM as the launcher! An absolutely fun fair ride, if anyone could even survive the launch (very unlikely).

[@Unknown-mf4of]

@@glenith50 I assume that you meant "jenius" idea! Nearly as good as the antigravity drives invented every year!

[@mbmurphy777]

I’m amazed that they made it as far as they did. There’s no way this can make sense on the earth. Now the moon or mars… That’s a different story.

[@kreynolds1123]

There's certainly a place for a spinlaunch platform on the moon and Mars given low gravity and no or very thin atmosphere. Earth does have more atmosphere and more gravity to complicate getting an orbital accelerator up to near space, but I'm assuming they had the major hurdles worked out when they went looking for a location and this posed a major road block. Furthermore, less ideal launch locations away from the equator deliver less ideal low earth orbits fir many customers and add challenges to getting orbital velocity with less than equatorial rotational velocity. Add to that Spinlaunching from earth with its high G during acceleration might pose a challenge to getting enough customers with costly R&D into ruggedized satellites that they want put up in orbit. Despite these challenges, I think a spinlaunch platform and orbital accelerator in principle is doable even on earth. But I think who ever does it needs to rethink payload. The kinds of payloads to first target should not need expensive R&D into making satellite rugged enough to survive a spinlaunch. Maybe a case could be made to cheaply launch buckets of water to a low earth orbiting space station. The station would process that to hydrogen and oxygen with space based solar poeer and the rocket fuel. Then the oxidizer and fuel would be loaded into more traditional rockets launched from ground, and fuelled/refuelled in orbit. If a rocket could fuel or refuel it's upper stages, without carrying that off the launch pad, then maybe we could launch bigger payloads in existing rockets or use smaller rockets for a given payload. Maybe the orbital accelerators could be refueld and get a second life reused as boosters. Of cource, all this hinges on, is it actually cheaper and who wants to invest and try it. If the base technology turs out to work well then maybe R&D to ruggedize satellites at launch may grow a larger potential customer base.

[@vinny142]

" Now the moon or mars… That’s a different story." Sure, but for what purpose? First: Spinlaunch only carries 200kg of payload on earth and the payload and it cannot, ever, launch anything living. Just... not. Full stop. Not on earth, not on the moon, not on Mars. Second: launching from the moon or mars is easier for the sling, but also for regular rocket engines, and they have no limit on payload and they can launch humans. So all it can do is put satellites into orbit, and fling stuff back to earth, but then... what satellites? Those would have to be sent from earth to the moon and Mars and then people would have to recover them, put them in the sling and re-launch them? why not just launch them from earth directly into the proper orbit? it could send resources back to earth, but neither Mars nor the moon have any that we need on earth and even if it did, the payload of 200kg includes the rocketry to make the thing actually get to earth so each launch only delivers a few kg of material. Even if it was pure gold that would probably not even pay for the launch of empty rockets to Mars for the sling to shoot back to us. The sling is an interesting idea but it's a solution that's looking for a problem, just like SpaceX's Starship: it's not a solution to an existing problem, they are building it with the expectation that somebody else is going to find a very profitable application for it.

[@TheJacklwilliams]

Two, maybe three steps down the road, hower long that road may be, the next big thing is to build in orbit, high orbit, and launch from the vacuum of space.

[@kreynolds1123]

@@vinny142 if the current suborbital platform were on the moon it could launch with a near lunar escape velocity. And it could allocate more mass to payload without a shielding for thick earth atmosphere. Why use a spinlaunch platform? Cost per unit mass! Spinlaunching off the moon beets propellent carried from earth or made in situ on the moon. Sure, the weight might currently be around 200kg and excludes anything living, but that's perfect for launching raw materials to be processed in space with the sun providing energy for space based industrial solar thermal and solar pv constantantly 24h 7d a week. If The planned 100m spinlaunch platform were instead built on the moon it could instead launch far more payload with a lunar escape velocity. And, the launch platform would be far simpler without trying to hold back an earth atmosphere. A spinlaunch platform on the moon could cheaply provide simple regolith for tethered momentum transfer stations off the lunar surface, a lunar skyhook, or a lunar to martian gateway. And a lunar tethered momentum transfer station could use reaction mass for sending rockets to Mars, Space based spinlaunch stations for craft with crew or martian supply run. Or enough of the regolith can provide significant shielding against solar wind and much of cosmic rays.

[@mbmurphy777]

@@vinny142 i’m not suggesting that spin launch is a good idea. Just that it is a terrible idea for earth. It could have some applications on the moon or mars to launch fuel or oxidizer separated out on the surface into orbit for use. Or building materials such as aluminum, refined on the moon surface into orbit for construction projects or even launched into low earth orbit from the moon. Whether it would be an easier option than building along railgun acceleration track is hard to say.

[@googleyoutubechannel8554]

Bummer, this was never going to work of course, but I was hoping we'd get some amazing and hilarious test shots before they ran out of money

[@SVW1976]

😂

[@classydave75]

Just another scam. And I suspect the heads of the company carefully diverted some of the grants and subsidies they received for themselves.

[@Bukwas]

It was always a non starter. The forces generated during spin up would require hardening the payloads and weight equals money.

[@pewterhacker]

Amazing how people who have no clue about whether a new technology will work or not talk exactly like Arthur Clark said they would.

[@dianapennepacker6854]

I've seen people run the numbers. Some type of gun is better. Sure you have a f!ck load of Gs, but only for a moment. Where Spin Launch had less Gs, but for long. A hybrid gun would just out perform this. Still a cool thing to see in action.

[@hdschoedel]

Wouldn't it be launching at it's highest velocity exactly where the air would be at it's most dense? Most returning spacecraft burn up in the upper atmosphere at sub-orbital speeds. This sounds like a meteor in reverse.

[@2o4II112II26o2]

You have made the best comment here, today - thank you !

[@billpugh58]

Correct.

[@deltaxcd]

that thing wont even reach speed of average bullet

[@andrewwade1651]

Spinlaunch is not very upfront about its design (one of the things that makes me suspect a scam). The second stage is what will be supplying most of the delta-V to reach orbit, not the spinlaunch stage. Oh, and to prevent the centifuge becoming unbalanced they're also going to be launching a counterweight into the ground.

[@nitePhyyre]

To get to orbit, it needs to leave the tube at 8km/s. Meteors hit the atmosphere at 70. Not even close to the same thing.

[@acmelka]

Key tip offs it's a scam, the futuristic control room. They spent a lot of effort on the appearance of futuristic vibe. Even the launcher, why not put a shed structure around it? Instead of a complex outer shell to fight the elements. Also the CEO seems to favor black turtle necks. Run

[@lavaot5207]

It literally works ,why would you think they would spend so much into research and development , and build a working structure with highly complex components just to scam people? there are dozens of completely stupid space companies , applying for funding with completely made up and impossible concepts , including one that says they are going to launch a DATA CENTER into space with a 12 KILOMETER wide solar panel array in the next like 5 years , and they recieved MILLIONS of dollars of investment . Why would they bother on building and developing ALL THIS ,when all they had to do was make a 40 second 3d animation , with completely made up and impossible goals written all over it? Oh no but the CEO wears turtle necks , and they want to show off their amazing structure , they must be a scam! after all , they have a pretty furistic facility right? Honestly I don't how you can you claim this stuff with that much confidence.

[@clkbateman]

Also people with well groomed beards should never be trusted. I've noticed a trend in that

[@temptationgreetsyou]

@@clkbatemanwait what makes you say that?

[@bruhtholemew]

@@temptationgreetsyou He has an unkempt beard and it makes him feel better.

[@blondegirlsezthis8798]

it's not a scam it's just a napkin brainstorm a couple of self-important rich kids took too far

[@russell2952]

This one has always been stupid. The insane timing requirements, the insane forces, the insane acceleration upon launch, the insane heating upon launch, the insane vacuum requirements, and the list goes on and on. Not a damn thing with this launch method is conservative or practical.

[@malcontender6319]

Look at their "engineers". See the manbuns? See the unkempt states they're all in?

[@jedihunter176]

@@malcontender6319 Wait until you hear about Isaac Newton and his hair. Constantly disheveled and filled with mercury

[@knightssquire2376]

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard".

[@krux02]

I personally like that they at least tried this. As on the other hand the fuel consumption of conventional rockets is also brutal. Even spin launch on it's own might be futile, maybe its observation can be utilized at least a little bit to reduce fuel consumption for sattelite launches.

[@drsnova7313]

I think "the insane heating upon launch" or "the insane acceleration upon launch" aren't exactly disqualifiers looking at our current method of riding a well-controlled explosion into space.

[@joakimlindblom8256]

Years ago, I met with a VC that was involved with SpinLaunch (we were meeting to discuss our proposal for a very low cost solid propellant launcher that would launch 50 kg payloads into orbit). When he described the SpinLaunch architecture to us we were astounded that they had gotten VC funding for what seemed like a harebrained idea (the physics of it just didn't pencil out). I suspect they were able to convince a bunch of investors who were clueless about the physics involved and how atmospheric heating would destroy the payload at a fraction of orbital velocity in the lower atmosphere, and the fact that supposedly savvy investors didn't realize the ridiculousness of the architecture says something about the sorry state of science education in this country.

[@2o4II112II26o2]

Abso-bloomin-lootely !!!

[@peter3860]

Am not a physicist, but am not sure I understand all the skepticism on the viability of the technology, because they had their suborbital test system, and this seemed to work as they predicted. Of course, an orbital version would be much larger, but guessing it's the same principles?

[@joakimlindblom8256]

@@peter3860 While their system worked (sort of) for their "suborbital" tests (i.e. they got the "payload" up to 1000 mph and approximately 30,000 ft), atmospheric drag increases with the square of the velocity and energy loss and heating of the payload scales with the cube of the velocity. This means that as you increase the speed, you will be losing a larger and larger fraction of your energy in the lower atmosphere, which in turn means you need to add additional velocity to the payload to compensate for the losses, which in turn increases the fraction of the energy lost, meaning that you need to add additional speed, and so on. Not only do you quickly reach the point of diminishing returns on required launch energy, the heat load of the payload in the lower atmosphere becomes exorbitant: even if you if the technology existed to shield against this (it doesn't), it would add a huge weight penalty, greatly diminishing the fraction of useful payload mass. SpinLaunch did understand this issue to some extent, which is why they instead called for an operational design the would launch the projectile well short of orbital velocity and height, and then have the an attached rocket take them the rest of the way to orbit. However, pushing the design to the limit (i.e. 10,000 g's of centripetal acceleration for the payload), they could still theoretically only achieve a tiny fraction of orbital velocity, thus requiring a rather big rocket stage, and still have to solve the monumental technical challenges in numerous areas and be limited to only payloads that could withstand 10,000 g's). As a result, the economics of the system completely falls apart, and you are much better off with a conventional rocket launcher. SpinLaunch's system *might* be viable on the Moon, where there is no atmosphere and required orbital/escape velocity is much less, but not certainly not on Earth.

[@malcontender6319]

@@peter3860 "Am not a physicist" Go learn some and come back with your own answer.

[@peter3860]

@@malcontender6319 Hmm, I think that was my answer, I don't understand all the skepticism considering they have a real working test system (oh, one thing I really should have mentioned is I am not a physicist, but am a software engineer, so I understand just how useful test system are). Yeah, maybe just answer in facts instead with flashy attitude ... although, maybe based on your username, this is kind of your calling card? haha:)

[@tommolldev]

I guess you can call me a SpinLaunch hater since day one, but after they admitted that any payload needs to handle 10,000 G's for 30 minutes when spinning up, that's when they gave up the game. This thing is only gonna be able to throw rocks back from the moon, that's it

[@guspaz]

I never saw it as practical for anything but sending up contiguous materials for resupply, something like water, where the acceleration was irrelevant. Only, it wasn't clear why you'd want to do that instead of just sending up water or some similar material in a re-usable rocket. Especially when just getting spinlaunched containers filled with water into orbit wouldn't get them where you actually need them, how would you get them from their insertion orbit to, say, the space station?

[@kauske]

It's basically just an orbital gun, which we tried and had no success with in the past. As others have said, it would only be good to send up raw materials that don't care about g-loading. It would actually be ideal to send stuff from lunar surface to orbit though, you'd need far less acceleration, no vac chamber, and no kicking up of regolith. If you needed to hurl huge amounts of refined titanium or rocket fuel into lunar orbit, this would be a great solution, same with a launch rail or launch gun.

[@MegaWizarrd]

They should remake this shit into long range dugin artillery piece Its gonna be much more useful as a jdam flinger than satelite launcher

[@SioxerNikita]

@@kauske Even raw materials can change their structure due to the G Forces, so they do care about the G Loads :P

[@kauske]

@@SioxerNikita Really, so liquid H2 is somehow going to meaningfully change its molecular structure? By the time you had the G's to do that, it would be undergoing _fusion._ :'D I don't think you understand what 'raw materials' are, there's no 'structure' to a granular material that is awaiting further processing. For example, bricks are not a raw material, they are an intermediate step between raw material (clay or cement) and finished structure. Brics, metal plates/rods/trusses can be damaged by excessive G's, shipping liquid rocket fuel, or titanium powder literally will not care about the g-loads that would be generated by an accelerator launch.

[@chenbenzvi2164]

Orbit is not a distance, its a velocity

[@takanara7]

You do need to get out of the earth's atmosphere though.

[@k.chriscaldwell4141]

You are wise.

[@TomatOgorodow]

Yep, this person get's it

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

​@@takanara7no. You can orbit in the atmosphere just fine. If you have the fuel. And the braindamage to think you should.

[@TimeFadesMemoryLasts]

It's neither, lol. You can have an orbit that changes distance from central mass and velocity constantly. Orbits are a special set of trajectories around the center of a mass (with the unit of position)

[@cosmicphoto05]

SpinLaunch has a "Solar Freakin' Roadways!!!" vibe. In principle it seems like a good idea. In practice, there are many many problems.

[@benjamindees]

All the idiots on the internet loved Solar Roadways, though. They hate this.

[@TheOneAndOnlySame]

What happened: someone on their team actually took a physics class for the first time and realized how absurd their idea is.

[@willb5278]

Not quite. Remember, they built a prototype that launched without exploding, that means they had multiple people on payroll who understood the relevant science and math REALLY well. Try to make a prototype like that without knowing what you're doing will just make a very big mess. My bet is more on someone in charge of funding the thing finally had the limits explained to them in the context of alternatives. Because if you're willing to throw enough money, materials, energy and design work at it, you could maybe have made spin-launch work. You would not make it work cheaper than the alternatives.

[@dohabandit]

@@willb5278 When I took physics and mechanical engineering classes, some of the problems we as students were given to solve were the viability of a "space elevator" and a spin launch type launcher. Short story, neither are viable with any technology that will likely every be humanly possible.

[@robinsonmitchell9995]

Spinlaunch is a profoundly foolish way to put something into orbit. Designing a satellite or payload that can withstand 10,000g, which is what the mechanism would impart to a payload, not to mention designing and building a mechanism of sufficient strength to reach such centrifugal forces, is tremendously difficult and more cost prohibitive than building a payload that can withstand an acceleration of 3-5g. It is a silly idea. Totally impractical on Earth. That said, the idea has real potential for launching payloads from the Lunar Surface, so there may be some serendipity for a future Lunar centrifugal mass driver.

[@DalHrusk]

I doubt SpinLaunch could be viable in conditions of Earth. However if it would be viable, I would be interested in the price for the mass sent to LEO. If it would be at least comparable to rockets, It could be used for refueling on the orbit.

[@wkjeeping9053]

Mars it could work starting a civilization putting small satellite in orbit. Spacex starship will be way busy traveling between the planet's for supplies the first 10 years. You might be able to use it on mars as planetary asteroid defenses for both planets.

[@cogoid]

The project obviously did not succeed. But google and Airbus were among its early investors. They did not see it as an obviously silly idea. While it is *possible* that they lacked engineering expertise to evaluate the proposal, it is also possible that they actually did a much more careful analysis than an average person would, and saw things which may not be obvious at a first glance. Hence, they considered it worth a shot.

[@kahlzun]

if you're building it on the moon, why not just have a linear accelerator?

[@takanara7]

@@kahlzun You need a lot more mass to do a linear accelerator, since the acceleration happens over a long distance.

[@Merlmabase]

This was never a compelling technology for orbital launch. I wonder if they hyped up that element to attract funding, but ultimately hoped to sell it off to a big defence contractor as some weird in-between of traditional artillery and a ballistic missile. I guess the lack of a heat signature at launch is compelling, and being able to launch multiple warheads a day without needing to truck in full rocket stacks. Who knows, not my wheelhouse, but the whole thing had a whiff of BS from jump

[@maglax]

Eh. It's not really mobile and it'd be launching ballistic so it wouldn't be near the front lines. The ballistic makes finding it easy once the booster lights, and you still need to truck the payloads out to it. If you look up some of the soviet style ballistic missiles you'll see that it isn't much harder to transport the launch than it is to transport the missiles. The only advantage I guess might be no early warning from the launch but first strike isn't typical American policy. Like I'm sure North Korea could bury some of these in the mountains near the border and lob unpowered payloads at South Korea, but that's maybe it.

[@markoreilly3414]

Like most of these "Tech" Companies ~ It's a Ponzy Scheme, to milk $$$ from "Investors" , & ensure "Life Teniour" for the PHD Doctoral Candedates !

[@takanara7]

This is a terrible idea for artillery

[@hugegamer5988]

Fake it u til you break it seems to have been the business plan.

[@NinetooNine]

Yes! Finally, someone else had the same idea. But not as a ballistic artillery system. That is a dead-end idea. Instead, use it to lob scramjet hypersonic missiles into the air. Put it in Hawaii and pair it with a solar farm and batter system, and you could lob hypersonic ship-killing missiles anywhere in the Pacific. Even better, satellites couldn't detect the launches because there would be no heat bloom. This makes the perfect system for attacking with a nuclear missile for this exact reason.

[@2dozen22s]

Would have been neat if they could just launch at a velocity necessary for a ramjet/scramjet booster to ignite. Would be less overall required velocity, making the mechanism easier on the hardware and allow for larger payloads. That would also let them sidestep the issue where they ram through the thickest part of the atmosphere the fastest.

[@ednitsche8188]

They can branch into making amazing salad spinners.

[@knife-wieldingspidergod5059]

I will buy it!

[@results4526]

Our salad spinner will do the plating for you at aerospace-grade precision!

[@DerSolinski]

Nobody wants to build payloads for that thing. The acceleration forces are unhinged. A freaking mass driver would be more subtle than that monstrosity.

[@user-vp9lc9up6v]

Their Long Beach location seems abandoned, they removed their logo from the building this year I believe. 3:12

[@michaellefevers4248]

They did indeed!

[@martincday007]

It is criminal that such dumb ideas manage to secure funding which could have been used for something that actually has a chance of working.

[@snorttroll4379]

like aubrey de grey's medical research

[@Awaken2067833758]

solar roadways 🤣

[@Unknown-mf4of]

Like Hyperloop! And FSD! And personal radio-controlled robots that can be your "friend"!

[@martincday007]

@@Unknown-mf4of Well Hyperloop definitely a non-starter; FSD, others have proved that it is possible but that the last 10% represents 90% of the required effort; humanoid robots, at the level they have been pitched at - not for another 20 years at least and also what would be the point? Why would people need a robot to push a lawn mower to cut the lawn when there are robotic lawn mowers? In Tesla CGI humanoid promotions, how many of the tasks do people really need, and if they are required how many could be done by a non-humanoid robot. If humanoid robots have a purpose it might be in off-world situations, but even then would it need to look like a human restricted to two arms and two legs?

[@Unknown-mf4of]

@@martincday007 "others have proved that it is possible but that the last 10% represents 90% of the required effort" Waymo has achieved SAE Level 4, and SAE Level 5 is far more than 10% away from Level 5 The SAE Level scale is very non-linear, such that Level 3 isn't halfway to Level 5. Waymo's Level 4 is restricted to be on pre-mapped slow speed city streets, and yet it still can get confused and create grid-lock. It does have the obvious advantage of being far safer than the Tesla FSD (577 deaths thus far, vs Wamo's zero deaths). Do not get confused by the SAE FSD Level numbers, the scale is far from being linear. No one is anywhere near 10% of the SAE Level 5. In all likelihood, functional FSD is still decades away.

[@PamelaContiGlass]

For those suggesting this could be used for artillery, I was a Lance Missile Section. Commander. Our biggest issue was GTFO of our launching position ASAP for fear of counter-battery fire (nuclear in those days). There is no way this would work as a mobile missile launcher.

[@alexbaumans6493]

It would work just once, I guess.

[@criticalevent]

The US navy would be the only ones able to use it, but they keep trying to replace gun powder and realizing that there's no replacing gun powder.

[@kolbyking2315]

For a 250km orbit, you'll need to be moving at 7800 m/s. Considering gravity and (underestimated) atmospheric losses, let's say they need to launch the vehicle at 9000 m/s (~20000 mph). If we know how many g's the projectile can withstand, we can estimate the diameter of the spin launch segment. 10000 g's = 1.65 km (1 mi) 30 g's (AIM-9L) = 550 km (342 mi) 3 g's (human) = 5500 km (3420 mi) If you assume the construction cost is similar to the HyperLoop ($60 million per mile), making a launcher for realistically robust payloads (30g limit) would cost ~$65 billion.

[@Meatball2022]

9000 meters per second. Assuming the circumference of the launcher is 100 meters, which is gigantic, then they would need to rotate this supremely heavy item at 90 revs per second. 5400 rpm. Can you imagine an item with several tons of weight spinning that fast then suddenly releasing a weight off of one side? Even if they had a counterweight going the opposite direction and released - that’s a load of energy. The thing will tear itself apart just from working properly. And that’s IF you can get something that large to spin that fast. The spinning arm would be a 15m radius. The only way to reduce the spin speed would be to increase that arm size. This whole idea is just plain dumb

[@Meatball2022]

And this isn’t even considering the issues with making a vacuum that big, nor transition from a vacuum into full atmosphere instantly. The launched satellite will explode into shrapnel as soon as it hits that wall of air. The equivalent of firing a toaster at the speed of sound into a swimming pool

[@kolbyking2315]

@@Meatball2022 With a circumference of 100 meters and a tangential velocity of 9000 m/s, the payload would be experiencing ~520,000 g's. Nothing complex is surviving that. 304L stainless steel has a yield strength of 30500 psi. A 1" cube of it weighs 0.29 lbs. That cube would start permanently deforming at ~100,000 g's.

[@Meatball2022]

@ likely not surviving those G’s. Nope. But it’s not a sudden influx of g forces. It gradually increases as the spin does. I think the g force damage will be much worse when it leaves the vacuum and enters the atmosphere. And - when they release the payload and the door opens while the projectile is on the way, when those doors open it’ll be a flood of 700 mph air travelling in the opposite direction of the projectile. So - it won’t survive the spin. If it does, it won’t survive the exit. If it does, the launcher will destroy itself long before the payload reaches any decent height. it’s almost like this company’s product was designed by a 3rd grader.

[@kolbyking2315]

@@Meatball2022 Another crazy thing. The speed of sound in steel is ~5,000 m/s. The only material I can think of that could handle 9,000 m/s stress waves is Beryllium, with a speed of sound of 12,900 m/s. Unfortunately, that would probably fill the surrounding environment with extremely carcinogenic dust.

[@eugenes9751]

Just another investor scam. Nothing new.

[@tpt9028]

Exactly!!! They made a lot of money at the expense of investors!!! Now for the last two years no progress at all!!! Their website also seems to be down!!!!

[@FoobarDesign]

@@tpt9028 Then again, you have to be incredibly naive to invest in stuff like this. The basic premise didn't make sense, it was just a science fiction fantasy all along.

[@jay-em]

Another grift.

[@ellsworthm.toohey7657]

@@FoobarDesign Investors are often clueless when it comes to technology and easily fooled !

[@Bob-cb4tq]

So the investors give them the money and they spent it on engineering, infrastructure, tooling and payroll until they run our of money. Where's the scam?

[@TerryClarkAccordioncrazy]

If this is a viable launch method someone would have used it as a weapon

[@obsidianjane4413]

It was always a weapon. Its only actual business case and even practical case was as a ICBM IRBM alternative.

[@elen5871]

​@@obsidianjane4413I don't think it's a practical IC/IRBM launcher on account of it's so big. ballistic missile launchers are usually in extremely deep hardened bunkers (hardened to 6000 psi+) or they're on the back of a truck. you couldn't build one of these into a hardened bunker, certainly not easily or cheaply, and the back of a truck is obviously out of the question. so I don't even think it has application as a weapon.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@elen5871 It was conceived at a time when the US's only adversary was asymmetric Islamic brown people who had no way of countering a launch platform on the other side of the planet.

[@plainText384]

@@TerryClarkAccordioncrazy it's basically a giant sling... you know, like the one of the oldest known projectile weapons?

[@ellsworthm.toohey7657]

Done !

[@Quasarnova1]

Not surprised they're having trouble, they have just as high of a G load as a conventional gun like Project HARP, but with much higher cost and complexity.

[@---..]

Its even worse than that. The high G load during spin up is sideways, then there is forward G load from drag, then a backwards one once the rocket finally fires up. The space guns keep all the G loads on the same axis, and likely have lower peak loads since the run can be longer then the SpinLaunch cylinder.

[@lavaot5207]

they accelerate wayyy slower than harp , the momentum builds up in a way electronics can be preserved they literally tested with smartphones

[@---..]

@@lavaot5207 The jerk (derivative of acceleration) is lower, but the acceleration in spin launch is very high since its going in a circle. Its velocity vector is reversed every time it goes around. Thats a ton of acceleration. Unlike with a linear system, taking longer doesn't mean lower peak G load. It means longer peak G load. Electronics can take high G loads just fine, but a lot of other things you might want to send to space, like the rocket engine they need to make it to orbit, or anything mechanical like fold up solar panels have a harder time.

[@ryanhodin5014]

​@@lavaot5207Electronics? Probably, yeah. Though they might not like the jerk when released from the spinner - The g load goes from 10,000 sideways to "yes" forwards when they release it and it slams into the lower atmosphere, and it'll do so in extremely short order. What are we sending, though? Anything alive, no. Anything like food would probably remain edible, but I doubt it'd look too good. Solar panel deployment systems will probably not survive, the panels might break, antennas might be in trouble... Basically anything that isn't a homogenous, solid-state payload is going to need serious reinforcement or it'll break (And once you start reinforcing the payload, it gets heavy, which means the upper stage grows very quickly and your payload capacity drops just as fast, probably reversing any advantage spinlaunch actually had over chemical flight - Given that that already happens with airlaunch). So basically, the system isn't useful for crew, comsats, scientific probes, general space station resupply operations, or space station construction. What does that actually leave us? It's useful for mass simulators and specifically carrying water, coolant, and fuel to a space station? We still need conventional rocketry to fly literally 100% of current missions, only we also now spinlaunch some water that would have otherwise been packed alongside other supplies? I really don't see the point. The restrictions it places on the payload are just too high to be worthwhile.

[@criticalevent]

@@lavaot5207 The lateral Gs are the same.

[@tamasmihaly1]

This is like a fever dream I had when I was five. Even then, I understood that it’s not possible. What’s gonna be happening at 60,000 feet when the projectile starts slowing down? Do we have a material that can go all the way to 100 km at speed? It seems uncanny that someone would invest in such an idea.

[@jonnie2bad]

they we're probably flat earthers and moon shot deniers

[@EvanOfTheDarkness]

That's not the problem. On the moon you _can_ send something to orbit with a 45° cannon, and theoretically you could do the same on Earth, you'd just need a *much* bigger cannon. The problem is with the spinning. Spinning something in a circle has an acceleration a = v^2/r, where v is the velocity and r is the radius. Orbital speed is Mach 23. They are aiming at less than that, but even just Mach 1 with a 500m long arm it's 23.5 G. Mach 2 is 94 G, and Mach 3 212 G, and so on. And the tighter you make the radius the worse it gets. Also that damn atmosphere is in the way, and it's slow you down and cook your rocket.

[@plainText384]

It won't start slowing down at 60000ft, it'll start slowing down the moment it is released into the atmosphere at 0km. It'll continue to coast while slowing down until it has left behind most of the atmosphere. At that point the shell, which has protected its contents from the atmosphere, is detached revealing a lightweight liquid fueled rocket inside, which carries the payload up to orbit.

[@winstonsmith478]

Why the NIMBY with SpinLaunch? Sonic booms (once operational...if ever)?

[@obsidianjane4413]

Most likely. Also Hawaiians, native and hippy immigrants, tend to be Luddites who will sabotage projects if they don't care about them or don't think they are getting paid off enough. That is probably what they ran into in their "community meetings".

[@Meatball2022]

This place will go in. Tear up the landscape. Then go bankrupt and leave all their crap there…

[@instantchow]

I think the sound. But I'm not sure either. Seems like a neat idea. I do want to know more about the feedback from the potential neighbors tho. More interesting than the g forces calculations actually.

[@takanara7]

Shouldn't get sonic booms if the object is moving away from you.

[@mathewferstl7042]

the same reason we don't allow aircraft to break the sound barrier over populated areas

[@Hoopaball]

They should mount it on an AWACS airplane. If you're going to dream, you might as well deam big.

[@wally7856]

With a several ton gyroscope running on that plane at least the pilot wouldn't have any trouble flying in a straight line.

[@mururoa7024]

- My goodness what is that noise? -- It's my sheep, jumping of this tree, only to plummet to their death because they think they can fly. - That's horrible! Why don't you stop them? -- Because of the immense financial opportunities should they succeed.

[@runewinsevik8471]

It was obvious that his was a hopeless endeavour - no rocket science needed to see that.

[@peter3860]

Am not a physicist, but am not sure I understand all the skepticism on the viability of the technology, because they had their suborbital test system, and this seemed to work as they predicted. Of course, an orbital version would be much larger, but guessing it's the same principles

[@MM-24]

@@peter3860 scale is everything. I don't know the specifics of this - but an RC airplane of any shape (even a brick) will fly just fine. But scale that up and try and create a 747 its become significantly harder.

[@peter3860]

@@MM-24 Agreed, it does make it tougher (and just looked it up, the test system's projectiles reached 30k ft, but the full-sized system would need to reach 200k ft, after which a small rocket engine would take it to 300k to reach orbit). This is a large difference... but still, think this idea has merit. The most fuel-intense portion of a rocket's flight is the initial liftoff and the initial ascent. The spinlauncher removes all this, moving all that work into the launcher system (am just a software engineer, but love to read about spaceflight). It feels like some version of this could get small payloads into space for dirt cheap, with minimal fuel usage. It might be good for sending up things like raw materials for space manufacturing and small, durable satellites (and yes, for military too). Seems, it's got a lot of uses and am surprised it's failing since they got so far.

[@QuantumHistorian]

@@peter3860 It's not height that matters, it's speed. You need to be both in space and moving very fast to be in orbit. That means it has to be moving very very fast when it leaves the accelerator, even with a small rocket component to circularise the trajectory at apogee, something around Mach 15 to 20. And you want to shoot at a fairly shallow angle so it's going mostly around the Earth rather than directly away from it. Do you know that happens when you go very very fast at ground level where the atmosphere is thick? You lose a lot of that speed to air resistance, which turns it into phenomenal amounts of heat that destroys your projectile. Try to go faster to compensate, and the problem gets quadratically worse. Go slower or at a steeper angle to minimise this and you need a bigger 2nd stage rocket to actual turn your parabolic trajectory into an orbit. Which means that you have a bigger payload to accelerate, and need to make a rocket engine that still works after having been accelerated to 10000s of gees for hours in a centrifuge. And those are only the surface level physical problems, there hundreds of engineering ones on top. Scale matters. They didn't get "so far" they did the equivalent of shooting a firework, and claimed that an orbital rocket was just around the corner. And if you didn't understand that, then trust the people who do know physics when they tell you it's impossible.

[@drsnova7313]

It literally DOES need rocket science (meaning putting numbers into the right equations) to know it's not viable. No-one's "gut feeling" is reliable at the scale and the speeds involved. So no, it's not obvious.

[@NackDSP]

So any engineering student could do the calculations required to show that this wouldn't work. Some how they didn't hire a single engineer?

[@hugegamer5988]

Engineering student? Try high school student, maybe 7th or 8th grade understanding of basic physics.

[@obsidianjane4413]

What makes you think they didn't hire any engineers? You think they bought that centrifuge off Aliexpress?

[@Urufu-san]

It’s a business model, look at random 100 startups, 80% just exist to receive funds, public and/or private.

[@cogoid]

I do not underestimate the skills of the engineering students, but to do the calculations, one would first have to understand what the project was *actually* trying do. Unfortunately, half of the critics, including here, did not pay enough attention even for that. And if one does start with the right picture, the exercise is not to imagine a way to construct this such that it would "obviously not work", but to find an actual engineering solution to make it work, despite difficulties. And that is what Spinlaunch was doing. Of course they had some of the best engineers in the world, and the whole project started because of a book written by a scientist from NASA. It was an odd project for sure, but incompetent it was not.

[@LQ-C]

They hired civil engineers to build the civil works. Most civil engineers would not care as long as they get paid or would not be able to figure out it would not work. I have been "around" wind mill and solar projects and it does not seem to bother the Civil engineers who should know better.

[@Dyson_Cyberdynesystems]

Please explain how you circularize your orbits? What does your 2nd stage design look like to withstand the centripetal forces?

[@cogoid]

They start with the fastest centrifuge which can be practically built on a reasonable budget with available materials. This gives about 2 km/s for a centrifuge 100 meters in diameter. So most of the orbital velocity needs to come later from the propulsion system. Their idea was to build a very simple, relatively fragile, low thrust, low dry mass, pressure fed disposable rocket. Then this rocket is put essentially in an egg, with the shell made of a very thick, extremely strong composite material, which allows the whole thing to withstand 10000 g's. The thing gets shot out of the catapult, very quickly crosses the dense layer of atmosphere, the shell opens and falls down to be reused. The rocket fires to propel the payload to an orbital velocity. In principle, such design could actually work rather beautifully, which is shocking considering how wild the whole idea looks at a first glance. Of course, it is still extremely hard to implement in practice. But the toughest problems are not the ones which critics usually bring up. As far as I know one of the hardest to solve real issues is absorbing the energy of elastic waves in the tether after the million tons of the force which was previously stretching it is suddenly gone. This requires overbuilding the centrifuge way beyond the static strength requirements, and then the impact of this extra mass cascades down to other parts of the system, and makes the whole thing completely uneconomical.

[@Awaken2067833758]

@@cogoid 90% of the energy needed to make it to orbit is that second part. Getting a small rocket to orbital altitude is cheap and easy, even blue origin can do that XD

[@malvoliosf]

@@cogoid Wait, they are planning to take EXPLOSIVES and subject them to 10,000g? That’s the plan?

[@cogoid]

@@malvoliosf I did not say a word about explosives. But consider that tanks shoot explosive filled shells at 50,000 g's. So if somebody wanted to include pyrotechnic devices in the satellite or the rocket itself, they certainly could.

[@cogoid]

By looking at any real space launch vehicle, it is clear that most of the mass and cost is in the first stage, which is never "cheap and easy".

[@KB3M]

Today's rockets move slowest thru the low altitude thick atmosphere and as it consumes fuel and becomes lighter it ascends into thinner air and goes faster. This thing goes fastest in thick low altitude air and gravity reduces speed as it ascends into thin air. It makes little sense.

[@knife-wieldingspidergod5059]

It can be done just as well using air launch by plane.

[@theussmirage]

​@@knife-wieldingspidergod5059 So much less complexity doing airlaunch. They could get their repeatability using a fleet of aircraft for a fraction of the cost of the world's largest centrifuge inside what's probably the world's largest vacuum chamber.

[@diogoduarte369]

A lot of these companies don't exist to produce value or any product which actually exists, but to get investor money and enrich the company founders.

[@jonnie2bad]

i feel bad for anyone that got involved in this scam

[@joshtaylor6911]

Too true, most people with a bare science knowledge could see this was never going to work . It was ridiculous from the start and they seemed to ignore the obvious.

[@deltaxcd]

If they are that stupid to believe it you should not fell bad LOL people that stupid do not deserve to have any money

[@ericrandall3539]

Max-Q at sea level. Instantaneously. Yeah totally feasible.

[@jlvandat69]

As I said 3 years ago, the extreme G-forces during spin up seriously limits the types of payloads that can be launched. This means the service would have a small, select number of customers. A linear accelerator is obviously a far better concept, albeit requiring a lengthy accelerator structure.

[@LordDustinDeWynd]

They were never able to get instantaneous release of the payload, so there was always SOME lateral translation, which screwed up their ballistics calculations. Bummer.

[@mityaboy4639]

but thats not even about timing. there is no way to do a straight release. The Projectile is large, which means that the tip of the projectile has a different angular velocity than the end of it and though they try to center it, it is always going to be an issue because nothing is perfectly symmetrical and balanced (sorry Thanos) which means small deviations in the speed and the mass will always result in a skewed launch angle even if timing is precise to the pico seconds or better. not to mention if it carries anything as payload which is not symmetrical (not everyone wants to launch a solid orb) - and the fuel and oxidiser doing its job and slightly compresses to the outerside and then rebounds when its released… if anything i was impressed with their timings because get it just slightly wrong and you smash up your test article and your launch facility but this is unworkable with Earth’s gravity and atmosphere:) but hey

[@DreadX10]

@@mityaboy4639 The spinning fluid for the second stage will keep spinning after launch so this vehicle needs to counteract that by using aerodynamic forces and that increases drag a lot.

[@savage5757]

8:17 Thank you very much for showing 🙏

[@inappropriatejohnson]

A really long cannon, such as those designed by Gerald Bull, would work WAY better in that they are "possible", where as SpinLaunch is a frontal assault on Murphy's Law.

[@etsequentia6765]

Mars sounds like an ideal location. Lower gravity, thinner atmosphere and no annoying locals complaining about "safety" and "the environment" and "whet we get out of this". Go for it guys.

[@fjahja]

Two basic physics problems: 1. 10k g force will limit the payload to only solid-like objects. If it has electronics on it, it will be rigged to death with heavy steel reinforcements like the ones in the airplane blackboxes. 2. Centrifugal imbalance on payload release will destroy the bearings and axle on the spinner, no matter how light the payload is. Im no aerospace expert, but it blew my mind no engineers in that company paused and thought about that.

[@SioxerNikita]

Railguns hit around 3 km/s, and we are talking a factor of 3, no, it's not like hitting concrete, but the rest is relatively true. Not only is it a high g-load, it is a high SUSTAINED g load, which makes it far worse.

[@fjahja]

@ that's correct, i have edited my comments 😂

[@supertuesday600]

For point no.2, they can simultaneously release a dummy counter payload, which will shoot downwards (maybe into a deep tunnel), so as to balance the spinning arms. But it will be too complicated and crazy to build at scale.

[@SioxerNikita]

@@supertuesday600 You also have the option of building the entire contraption so heavy that imbalance becomes relatively negligible, but that is also not a great option. Would be the simpler, and far more sustainable option. Would still have some problems with bearing maintenance obviously, but far less of an issue. You can get some serious RPM even with imbalances without ripping your setup apart, but yeah, requires some decent engineering.

[@mungobaggins8197]

Another problem that comes to mind is that if it can throw an object into space, how far can it throw debris from an accident?

[@muctop17]

Apart from the physical boundary conditions with drag and air resistance: How do you want to achieve the accuracy for the "launch"? At what point exactly do you have to drop the payload and what mechanical tolerances and time delays of the ejection mechanism are permissible so that the rocket doesn't crash into the case and gets exactly its trajectory?

[@MasterMayhem78]

Strange how I can easily see the issues with this while the people building it choose to ignore the obvious limitations. The simple fact is this will never work and there’s no payload that could handle the forces exerted upon it during the spin cycle and the collision with the atmosphere after exiting the vacuum chamber. Maybe these guys and Arca Space could get together and make a fun spinning water rocket or something 🤷‍♂️

[@miguellopez3392]

hey dumb dumb GPS guided artillery shells already exist

[@ballom29]

"The simple fact is this will never work and there’s no payload that could handle the forces exerted upon it during the spin cycle and the collision with the atmosphere after exiting the vacuum chamber" Too bad there was somethign called Harp gun wich sent multiple payload at orbital altitude (but not orbit) with an even greater forcer than spinlaunch

[@Tuxfanturnip]

@@ballom29 yeah, and where did that project end up? there's a lot of money in systems that launch projectiles *almost* to orbit, but for some reason the investors are never quite as interested in finishing the job and launching satellites.

[@robertbensch7748]

As someone with minimal physical knowledge I always wondered: Rockets start slow in high atmospheric density and become faster. This hits high density atmosphere with high speed when launching, and becomes slower when reaching high altitudes as the kinetic impulse wears off. I've never seen a solution presented for this. Gravity doesn't stop affecting stuff at high altitude, you need speed to counteract it, right?

[@QuantumHistorian]

They've accomplished their goal of getting money out of investors' pockets and into their own. Why would they do anything beyond that?

[@bertblankenstein3738]

The main challenge with SpinLaunch is that it uses kinetic energy in the thickest part of the atmosphere. It isn't just doubling the speed and twice the height, as atmospheric drag increases rapidly as the speed goes up. In this way, conventional chemical rockets slowly getting up to speed and then really getting going once in the thin part of the atmosphere are more efficient.

[@Danger_mouse]

Separate to the question of 'if', this has always seemed to me to be a literal flight of fancy system from the beginning. How many payloads are there small enough to send this way AND robust enough to stand the massive G forces? There can't be too many, surely... Not if you don't include rocks 🤔🤷

[@deltaxcd]

I think there are plenty of payloads that can withstand that if only this thing had any hope at all to work. Like various building materials or fuel, supplies that you need to launch into space.

[@Danger_mouse]

@deltaxcd even the items you mention would need some kind of control systems attached to locate them in their final orbit location. I can't imagine anything that could be counted on to achieve this that would not be affected by 100s of G on launch...

[@plainText384]

@@Danger_mouse Spinlaunch has been testing spacecraft components in their 12m diameter subscale demonstrator up to the 10000g's expected in the orbital accelerator, and they claim they've been relatively successful. But if they do end up launching any satellite it would almost certainly need to be built specifically with Spinlaunch in mind. That's probably why they also have their own Space Systems devision where they develop and build spacecraft hardware compatible with the Spinlaunch mass accelerator environment (for example satellite busses, reaction wheels, hall effect thrusters, star trackers, etc.). As far as I can tell the idea would be that the customer works with Spinlaunch to build the satellite, using Spinlaunch's own components as well as custom customer components where needed.

[@Danger_mouse]

@plainText384 As a mechanic, I simply can't imagine how you could engineer anything to withstand those kinds of forces unless they are a solid. It seems incomprehensible to me and the idea still appears to be a flight of fancy (pun intended)

[@94leroyal]

What I don't understand is why this can't be merged with solid fuel rockets. It would lower fuel requirements significantly, and increase thr weight that could be carried, if we could start off not from rest but from some fraction of escape velocity

[@ryanhodin5014]

Any spin launch that meaningfully shrinks the rocket is going to place some unfortunate restrictions on what can go to space with it. We've already tried a better version of this idea with air launch - You take a 747 or other big plane, have it carry a rocket up high and fast, and the rocket starts there. Unfortunately, the benefit is very small (you mostly save the cheapest fuel that carries other fuel up), and already dealing with the transition from horizontal flight means you have to lose most or all of that benefit to making the rocket and payload stronger (because that weight only helps you get a small head start, but holds you back the whole way). Virgin Orbit and Pegasus both tried this, and both died as Falcon 9 spun up and ate the launch market for breakfast. Turns out bringing a normal first stage back to fly again is better than trying to force the rest of the rocket to fit in with a different kind of vehicle to do some or all of the first stage's work.

[@neiltan77]

One thing they can probably do is spin launch "Rods from God". Long range intercontinental artillery.

[@evanbarnes9984]

Oh man, good timing! My coworker and i were just wondering about this yesterday!

[@laskey2175]

You can't get to space when all your dV comes from the ground.

[@unflexian]

they have a rocket booster

[@tomasbeblar5639]

Their idea was to hit the sea level atmosphere at orbital velocity. Pretty sure there's no material on the planet that can withstand that kind of heat.

[@deltaxcd]

Heat is not that big problem as you think, acceleration will be main issue here

[@ryanhodin5014]

Heat would be survivable, you'd just need a shitload of mass to tank it. Then comes a bad time dealing with that mass on something you want to put in orbit...

[@plainText384]

@@tomasbeblar5639 their idea was most certainly not to hit the sea level atmosphere at orbital velocity. Their idea was to hit the atmosphere at around Mach 6 (2.1km/s), coast until most of the atmosphere is behind them, then use a conventional rocket to get the rest of the way to orbit.

[@plainText384]

@@ryanhodin5014 the mass would remain on the aeroshell that falls back to earth. After ditching the aeroshell a lightweight rocket would continue to orbit. As no rocket motor was firing while the aeroshell was attached, added weight to the aeroshell only does two things 1) add inertia and improve the ballistic coefficent, thereby reducing drag losses to the atmosphere, and 2) add mass to the end of the tether in the accelerator, requiring it to endure higher forces.

[@ryanhodin5014]

@@plainText384 Right. So the aeroshell, or fairing, only separates relatively late in ascent - Around 100KM up, which we can conveniently just call "Space". So one of three things has to happen. Either you throw the whole thing much higher than that, so the payload arrives there going pretty quickly still, which makes all the problems you already have worse than they need to be, or you burn the engine the whole time up, which increases fuel loss to both aerodynamics and to lifting that mass, or you wait to burn the engine until near the apogee of the toss, which means you need a second stage that's fairly high TWR and has to burn at a high angle to keep itself from falling back into the atmosphere. Single-engine Centaur, for example, would not be capable of this kind of trajectory. Again - It's not insurmountable, but things are continuing to get more difficult and less advantageous the more you work it out. That's basically how everything in spin launch goes - The reality of this thing is that Earth is too big and has too much atmosphere for this to be a reasonable alternative to chemical rocketry.

[@ats-3693]

An object being thrown out of the atmosphere will need the same amount of kinetic energy that an orbiting object has to bleed off using aerodynamic drag as it re-enters the atmosphere, the difference is a re-entering object encounters the thinnest least dense layers of atmosphere first gradually slowing it down more and more as it encounters denser atmosphere, doing the same thing in reverse, throwing something out of the atmosphere means its maximum velocity is when it is in the lower denser part of the atmosphere where aerodynamic drag and the heat that creates is highest.

[@schrodingerscat1863]

It amazes me how people can have such a poor understanding of basic physics and engineering as to believe the nonsense this company was spouting.

[@2o4II112II26o2]

Yes it's truly sad.....

[@NormReitzel]

How do you plan on dumping the projectile's angular momentum?

[@markhodson1945]

"A new chapter"... Yes; Chapter 7.

[@laskey2175]

This replaces a common issue with a huge problem. In order so survive the G forces of the spinner the second stage would need to basically be a solid brick. And it would need to be bigger than a current falcon 9 second stage with more dV as this has lower velocities at lower altitude.

[@LelandReview]

Can't help but think of the Worms games after seeing this :D

[@horrigan495]

I think the "wobble" of the payload leaving these test launches kinda showed the issues that with the orbital velocity or halfway there it might tear itself apart and/or the actual payload its trying to deliver? And if it would survive to the the ignition stage, the stabilisation would have to go nuts to keep that thing going somewhat steady and on course. It might be possible to achieve that perfect launch but if they managed to do that, its not in the live feed, just in the animations. Also it was supposed to be vacuum in that chamber? Well that adds another piece.

[@ltdees2362]

I can "spin" a lot of things, but my friends would always tell me I'm full of sh't 😛

[@anon_y_mousse]

I had no idea anyone was working on such an idea. That's just awesome. I don't know if they can pull it off, but I know I'd never take a ride in one even if they perfect it.

[@WasatchWind]

I do not mourn the loss. A satellite going to spin launch is a satellite that won't fly on Neutron, or MLV, New Glenn, etc. Those rockets succeeding means they can one day launch humans, space stations, high profile science missions, etc - things that spin launch will never fly. Thus, a win for spin launch would be a loss for others. It's for the best. Maybe someone will try this on the Moon or somewhere else far in the future, where it'll have a better use.

[@meltdown6165]

You would use a New Glenn to launch a cubesat? Seems like overkill ...

[@WasatchWind]

@meltdown6165 There's something called a rideshare mission. Also have you not heard of Escapade? The point is if someone is paying, the launch company doesn't particularly care how small the payload is, they just fly it anyway.

[@meltdown6165]

And Rocket Lab make their money if you can't take a ride share because you need a very specific orbit. Spin Launch wanted a piece of that cake.

[@carpemkarzi]

I get the idea behind the super fast doors to maintain the vacuum but how do they load new payloads? An airlock? I think this is a great idea for off planet launches but that’s one hell of a big vacuum chamber to work with. As another person posted, sounds great for the moon but earth?

[@schmitzbeats6102]

I never understood how this can even remotely work: The moment you release the rocket from the spinning arm, you create an enormous imbalance. Enough to break any bearings. Aside from the required tensile strength for the arm if you want to operate anywhere close to orbital velocities. And how this can fool investors is beyond me.

[@tpt9028]

Watched Thunderfoot's video on this?

[@lavaot5207]

Man watch real engineering video on them , they adress all of this problems , and they literally tested it , being skeptical its one thing , being a pessimist who doesnt even search for data is another you are being the second one, be better

[@hugegamer5988]

@@lavaot5207 if I claimed infinite energy production from just using a stone and a blade of grass it does not require any testing to prove its false. A 5th grade understanding of physics is all it takes.

[@tpt9028]

@@lavaot5207 They did not prove anything at all!!!! Just watch Thunderfoot's video on this... They did not address any of the issues pointed out by him!!!

[@schmitzbeats6102]

@@lavaot5207 You mean dropping the counterweight into the wall? That is what RE mentions regarding this in his video. Or launch a second payload half a turn later, and hope the axle will survive half a turn? Genius. Even if the bearing holds the force, your arm will undergo enormous forces for that half turn. Has any of that been demonstrated?!

[@RobertGair-e6z]

I read somewhere that when you crack a whip the tip of the whip briefly breaks the speed of sound, and thus makes a little sonic boom. If that can be achieve with a leather whip, think what you could do with a scaled up carbon fiber whip, with your launch vehicle on the tip of the whip. Sinusoidal momentum transfer sounds pretty technical. But where do we get the giant clowns?

[@shankthebat8654]

This started as a scam, and it’s ending as scams do.

[@donkeytyper1075]

Probably absorbed a ton of our tax-funded R&D government grants. Made us poorer while making a few people rich.

[@metatron5199]

I wouldn’t doubt it was a money laundering operation behind the scenes and the project wasn’t just there to make it look legit to keep prying eyes as far as possible away. A lot of these types of companies are more than likely money laundering operations hence their short lived nature aka once all the money that was needed to be launder the companies die… not saying all companies that are short lived long shot companies (conceptually speaking) are money laundering operations i just bet a good amount of them are given how big the black market is ie its almost as large as the regular economy possibly even bigger too so you need to launder all that money some way…

[@Nathan-vt1jz]

Or it was a space startup trying to innovate in a competitive market. Most startups fail, that doesn’t make them scams - just look at Nikola Tesla. Many called his dream project a scam, but he actually believed in it and just ended up failing. He’s also one of the greatest inventors in history.

[@misdangered4326]

Interesting. I thought that from the start too. It was obviously flawed, not going well, and didn’t stand up to closer scrutiny.

[@KluveRothtar]

I'm almost wondering if there's a military component to the disappearance. Reaching space with a setup like this seems unrealistic but ICBMs with less fuel concern and maybe making detection more difficult without fuel burning on launch and noise... Maybe they got sucked into the military research veil in which case we won't hear anything for years

[@randomconstructions4513]

Shockingly, the guys who never figured out that their spinny thing meant their payload would spin on release can't convince anyone who actually cares that their spinny thing is safe.

[@JustJayGaming]

Why didn't they consider a typical spaceport location, like Wallops?

[@obsidianjane4413]

Ideally they need a high altitude location to minimize atmospheric drag and get a "headstart". Right on the coast isn't a good choice. On Hawaii or Alaska I imagine they would have put the spinny thing on top of a mountain. Also existing spaceport land is expensive.

[@zeta4687]

i would rather believe a railgun launcher than this spinlaunch tbh

[@pegcity4eva]

Problem is the power needs to operate a rail gun

[@FloydPhillips-uv8pi]

I think the whole idear is a bit fasicle. Surely a type of mag rail gun would be more appropriate. Yes lots of G's depending on available length of gun and required velocity but just think about the forces present whilst it's committed to travel in a circle before the rather precious release which seems to impart a lateral component to the launch.

[@Chris.Davies]

You don't need to be an engineer to know this is 100% pure horse hockey. It's less dumb than a hyperloop, but a hyperloop was the dumbest idea of all time. Right up there with a Dyson Sphere - the dumbest idea in the universe.

[@jstrotha0975]

There's a problem with the audio towards the end of the video.

[@Urufu-san]

Guess the usual happened: They received tax and private money, and the venture capital was written off as tax credit. So in essence the tax payer financed this completely useless idea one way or the other.

[@adrianwilson7536]

The thing that seems the biggest oversite is the bearings wouldnt survive a real launch. The cgi design goes 10k unballanced at massive speed and would take a while to spin down. Unless it under went a rapid disassembly event. Sure you could have a mass on the other side to release to keep the balance. You'd be firing a kinetic weapon point blank behind your facility, so thats a issue, but otherwise we dont have material science for this

[@esesel7831]

You can really make anything a startup these days, don't even need to do some napkin math beforehand

[@shaneintegra]

ice seen a lot of people say the company wont ever work... but i hope it does... even though it has a small payload. when it comes to space anything is worth having. imagine needing medication in space due to an emergency or something. this could be like an uber system for critical medication, tools, ect

[@memonk11]

It doesn't work. Not hard to understand.

[@Neumonics429]

The biggest issue with this is that you have to design a satellite, that is already challenged by the design requirements of low gravity space, needs to *also* be designed for incredible centrifugal forces to launch it. I do not see any way to do this and keep in mind, if you intend to actually orbit the earth you are going to also need to send a second stage to round the orbit.

[@XCX237]

Ive seen this thing s few times now and its still a dumb idea and a waste of time 😞

[@BuxleyHall]

What with at the technical issues that SpinLaunch faced, I’m amazed that one of the biggest hurdles they had was the “not-in-my-backyard”-ness of the locals.

[@pewterhacker]

Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: 1 - It's completely impossible. 2 - It's possible, but it's not worth doing. 3 - I said it was a good idea all along. Arthur C. Clarke

[@debasishraychawdhuri]

The logical fallacy is to then assume that every idea that looks impossible in the beginning actually goes through all stages. In reality, most ideas that look impossible are actually impossible.

[@AdministrativeReload]

This idea is still at stage 1. And unless Earth loses it's atmosphere, it will forever remain at stage one. But of course at that point we would all be dead and it wouldn't matter.

[@cogoid]

@@debasishraychawdhuri Lots of things look impossible unless you look into details of how it can be done. Even rather competent people doubted that reusable rockets were practical, but SpaceX has proven them wrong. All sorts of people laugh at Spinlaunch. Half of the critics did not even bother to understand what the project was trying to accomplish. But everybody thinks they know more than the actual world-class aerospace engineers who worked at the company: "A child would have told them that this is impossible." So cute.

[@mqb3gofjzkko7nzx38]

Facebook's Metaverse seems to be stuck at stage 2.

[@MrMichalMalek]

@@cogoid Well, SpaceX did start at stage 2 from the very beginning - for a long time we already succeeded with propulsive landings, it was just uncommon to do so on Earth directly (parachute rules). So their initial conditions were "overly complex and probably not economical", not necessarily impossible. All they had to do was to make it profitable. Not trying to take anything from SpaceX, just pointing out that they did not have to get through the "possibility study" phase. I was a 'stage 2 critic' initially - did consider the idea doable, but likely not worth the effort. Was happily proven wrong though :)

[@rotorrant5867]

What happens to the balance of the system when the vehicle is released? Doesn’t it just destroy it self?

[@tomservo5007]

the fraud must be making money

[@gustavorabino9353]

Is crazy they have buit this before veryfing it on paper and regulations. Such a big risk for such a small payload if they even get this to work. What is the cost per kg to space compared to future starship for instance?

[@marks7502]

nimby

[@thick45]

The other guy that stated this will be perfect on the moon, is right on. It will even solve the problem of debris issue on lift-off.

[@shaider1982]

So thunderf00t was correct.

[@cosmefulanito5933]

As always.

[@arandomperson4718]

Nor always. Have you seen his Starship streams? I've never seen anyone huff so much copium in one stream

[@JustJayGaming]

I don't think there was anyone not questioning this.

[@dnomyarnostaw]

@@arandomperson4718 Huh? What did he get wrong ??

[@tpt9028]

Absolutely!!!

[@Arcsecant]

I'm working on a similar idea, except that it catches things dropped from space and slows then down, but it's not ready yet.

[@wargreymon2024]

it's a scam

[@kelaarin]

A scam requires deliberate intent to defraud. It wasn’t a scam, it was a test bed for an idea that proved infeasible.

[@wargreymon2024]

@@kelaarin it's bullshit

[@davidioanhedges]

Spinlaunch needed a system with a spinning arm made of a material almost as strong as the strongest that exists, or close to it, and could *never ever* fail ... or would be catastrophic

[@corporalpunishment1133]

It just another grift these guys get to live like billionaire techbros while dwindling down the investment money until their is nothing left then they will claim insolvency. Anybody can see this will never deliver anything to orbital velocity.

[@danielmills7972]

They can test on the medium scale all they want but they still haven't overcome basics questions of physics. The larger the structure the more impossible it will be to get that needed vacuum (or even in that proximity), not to mention blowing a hole in the launch tube every launch immediately removes said vacuum. If you look at the test launches, the vehicle is coming out at an angle and not straight up (so their idealized straight launch isn't happening). That motor itself is going to be a major wear problem. You're better off trying to build this with a straight roller-coaster-style linear induction motor system, and even then prior experiments in this field (back in the 80s) still have yet to overcome a lot of these same hurdles.

[@TheRenofox]

This reminds me of the project to fire rockets into space using a railgun. USA didn't want to fund it, so they took the project to Iran. It made progress too - but USA had no problem paying orders of magnitude more for rockets shot AT the country so the project stopped there too.

[@prjndigo]

There is no material science on Earth that can produce an arm strong enough to spin the module fast enough to do what they want to do. Not even a tungsten core depleted uranium anti-tank dart would survive the 7200 foot per second interface between vacuum in the chamber and the one atmosphere pressure it will slam up against like an egg against a brick wall. Even at the just 5000 foot per second velocity those are designed for they don't survive more than 4500 meters (15,000 feet) as a solid object. A 7200 foot velocity would literally erode some kind of launch module like a water knife cutting sugar cubes. The technology IS however viable for returning materials from the Moon to Earth due to the near double order of magnitude lower energy requirements. Highly viable.

[@kellyaquinastom]

So two equal weights: one is the payload, the other is disposable, for example water. Release both at the same time. One goes down the other goes up v

[@justinfreeman9489]

I think a long and super powerful rail gun in a vacuum tube pointing into the sky would be more reasonable version of this. But still need to solve how to hit atmospheric pressure at 8km/s and close the vacuum doors without everything falling apart or exploding...

[@imantsjansons5009]

There is a way how to use that device what they have built. They could spin a disk instead of that beam and use the device as the flywheel type energy storage.