SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Startup SpinLaunch Inc. has received $40 million in funding. The company intends to use a centrifuge to catapult small payloads to the edge of space:
The company remains tight-lipped about exactly how this contraption will work, although its name gives away the basic idea. Rather than using propellants like kerosene and liquid oxygen to ignite a fire under a rocket, SpinLaunch plans to get a rocket spinning in a circle at up to 5,000 miles per hour and then let it go—more or less throwing the rocket to the edge of space, at which point it can light up and deliver objects like satellites into orbit.
[...] Over the past few years, the rocket industry has become quite crowded. Following in the footsteps of Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., dozens of companies have appeared, trying to make small, cheap rockets that can be launched every week or perhaps even every day. These smaller rockets have been built to carry a new breed of shoebox-sized satellites—dubbed smallsats—that are packed full of imaging, telecommunications and scientific equipment. The small rockets, though, are really just miniaturized versions of the large, traditional rockets that have flown for decades. SpinLaunch is an entirely new take on the rocket-launch concept itself.
[...] SpinLaunch has a working prototype of its launcher, although the company has declined to provide details on exactly how the machine operates or will compare to its final system. The startup plans to begin launching by 2022. It will charge less than $500,000 per launch and be able to send up multiple rockets per day. The world's top rocket companies usually launch about once a month, and most of SpinLaunch's rivals have been aiming for $2 million to $10 million per launch for small rockets. If the startup were able to reach its goals, it would easily be the cheapest and most prolific small launcher on the market.
NextBigFuture puts the velocity at up to 4,800 km/h (3,000 mph) instead.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday June 17 2018, @12:36PM (4 children)
I've had the idea for a while now to shoot myself out of a giant slingshot at Burning Man, then parachute safely back to Earth.
It happens that live-human-carrying gliders are sometimes launched this way.
A 50-foot roll of 3/16" ID and 3/8" OD of medical-grade Latex rubber tubing can be had for sixty bucks from a great many scientific supply shops.
If you ask real nice, Kent Elastomers - the company formerly known as "Kent Latex Products" - will be happy to extrude for you any arbitrary length of any arbitrary inside diameter and arbitrary outside diameter industrial-grade Latex tubing.
I rang them up once in the day to ask if there was a cheaper option than buying their tubes at full-retail price. Kent himself answered the phone and said that if I cut them a check for a hundred Samoleons, he'd give me a loosely-coiled cardboard box with one thousand total feet of random lengths of 3/16 X 3/8 tube.
Here's Why I Wanted So Much Rubber [youtu.be].
Rather more realistically, when I finally managed to produce the wherewithal to attend BM again, I'm going to bring some folding tables, lots of folding chairs, lots of Latex and a few 100-packs of 1/4" hardwood dowels.
And a bandsaw. Can't forget Grandpa Crawford's bandsaw!
And a generator. I'll have to buy that one myself.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @12:57PM (2 children)
> ... bandsaw!
For 1/4" dowels, a good pruning shear will make a clean cut, no need for the noisy generator.
Try this type,
https://www.bigfrogsupply.com/products/felco-f10-left-handed-pruning-shears [bigfrogsupply.com]
The rotating handle costs more, but *greatly* reduces hand strain when using for an extended period (there is a right-handed version too...) Bought an F10 30 years ago, still works great with a few drops of oil and the occasional sharpening.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday June 17 2018, @04:35PM (1 child)
asdfg hjkl;'
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:42PM
Send me the generator (I already have a nice Walker-Turner 16" band saw) and I'll release you from eternal debt.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday June 24 2018, @01:37AM
Sounds like fun, though you might want to double-check that the chute could open in time to do any good. A glider starts life as an airfoil, a parachute relies on an extended period of high-speed air resistance to unfurl it first. It'd be rather embarrassing to soar up into the sky, and them plummet back down to earth like a rock, with a rope of still-furled parachute falling across the playa around you.