[AR] Re: Spinlaunch
- From: Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2018 15:30:15 -0700
On 2/23/2018 5:05 AM, Joel Roth wrote:
Lars Osborne wrote:
The next time anyone claims that V.C.'s are careful investors who look at
technology fundamentals, I will show them this.
Bernard Pritchard wrote:
Actually, if he can get around the heating, the G-forces can be held to a
very acceptable minimum. It all comes down to the radius of his launcher.
Do the math for yourselves.
Although I'm no rocket scientist (just a lurker among them ;-)
I can foresee that this project would confront the same
obstacles as large-scale flywheel power storage systems, chiefly
self-destruction before achieving the intended levels of power.
There's also the little matter of the notional rotary catapult cleanly
soaking up the (large) twang as a payload is released without coming off
its bearings or breaking apart.
And issues others have already mentioned, generating sonic booms for
miles around the catapult exit and under the flight path for big darts
at (reading the story carefully) somewhere between mach 4 and mach 30 -
atmosphere drag & ablation - in the mach 4-5 case, doing burns for the
rest of the delta V to orbit less expensively overall than a
conventional ground-launched rocket - and of course, coming up with a
customer for lots of small massively G-tolerant payload packets.
In other words, most of the exact same issues that have stopped dead
every hypergun and conventional catapult launch proposal to date.
I have never ceased to marvel at some of the things people have dropped
large amounts of money on in this business over the years. Money they
could have saved, or applied far more usefully, for the price of a short
conversation with me.
Hawaii's putting up $25 million? Well, that's still a fraction of what
New Mexico has sunk to date, I suppose...
That's it - nobody listens because I give advice away for free.
OK, from here on, anyone thinking of making a significant investment in
space launch technology can have my advice and comments for $1000/hr,
two-hour minimum charge, plus $250/hr for time to review their proposal
and do background research (eight-hour minimum) before the advice begins.
Looking back over recent decades, just counting private investments I
could have saved people well north of a billion. Count government
investments, and it's tens of billions.
Oh well! Not responsible for advice not taken, doubly so if never
requested in the first place...
Henry V
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