Bernard,
Since the centrifuge is located inside a vacuum chamber (I'm trying to
stick to only the details from the article), that probably puts some pretty
solid limits on the practical radius of the spin launch system. Doing the
math, and using the velocity numbers they gave in the article (~1300m/s)
implies several thousand Gs. To be fair, that is quite a bit less than you
see from an artillery round (those get up to 60,000Gs), and they have
successfully put computers and guidance packages on those, so it isn't
impossible that they could adapt that for launching some subset of
satellites that could be hardened enough... But I wouldn't quite classify
it as a "very acceptable minimum".
Ben, Lars,
I've seen a bit more of what they're doing and it's actually a lot better
thought-out than that article implies. I'm not convinced they'll put all
normal rockets out of business, especially with how much hardening would
likely be required to fly on their vehicle, but if they raise the money, I
think they've got a decent shot at making their system work, and finding a
niche they could compete in. Not as good of a chance as say the top 5
current expendable smallsat launch startups (RocketLabs, Virgin Orbit, a
certain other Bay Area stealth rocket startup that got outed this week,
Generation Orbit, and Vector), since you all are going after a more
straightforward technical challenge with lots of past existence proofs. But
I'd give them better odds than most of the other less-well-funded
expendable smallsat launch startups that seem to appear every month or so.
~Jon
On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 11:30 PM, Bernard Pritchard <bernard.7gen@xxxxxxxxx>
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.
Bernie Pritchard.
On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 10:04 PM, Lars Osborne <lars.osborne@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The next time anyone claims that V.C.'s are careful investors who look at
technology fundamentals, I will show them this.
Thanks,
Lars Osborne
On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 9:45 PM, Ben Brockert <wikkit@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've been hearing rumors of them for months. They finally came out of
stealth, and are as silly as the name implies.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/spinlaunch/amp/