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Spinlaunch conducts first prototype test launch

Spinlaunch prototype suborbital launcher

Capitalism in space: Spinlaunch on October 22, 2021 successfully completed the first launch of a prototype using its radical spin technology that spins the payload to high speeds and then releases it upward.

On October 22, the company completed its first test flight at its Spaceport America base in New Mexico, successfully launching a prototype vehicle from its Suborbital Accelerator which reached supersonic speeds and was recovered for reuse thereafter. It plans to conduct further test flights across 2022 with different vehicles and at different launch velocities, as it plans for its first customer launches in late 2024.

In the photo to the right, note the vehicles and cherry-pickers in the lower right corner. They provide some scale. There is also a video showing this test flight on the company’s webpage. Lots of music, few details, but the video does show the prototype rocket-shaped payload rising upward after release.

If this technology becomes viable, it offers the possibility of an incredibly cheap method for putting bulk payloads into space, such as water, fuel, and other resources that will not be harmed by the initial high accelerations.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

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61 comments

  • geoffc

    Cyclotrons to the stars!

    I am more of a linear accelerator kind of guy. But I am weird that way.

    (the way g-d and Heinlein wanted it).

  • Questioner

    It makes sense for the moon, but not for the earth, because you need a two-stage rocket thrown by this dangerous device (10,000 g!) To put a payload into orbit. The complex mechanism replaces the first stage. But since the rocket to be thrown has to be very resistant to acceleration, you still need two upper stages and not just one. And this rocket again needs a particularly stable casing. The whole thing doesn’t make sense to me, even if I congratulate the guys on their technical performance.

    “Can Spinlaunch Throw Rockets Into Space?”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAczd3mt3X0

  • John

    That’s really interesting. I knew they were working on it and it’s good to see they made some progress. They think launch packages can survive 10,000g and a ton of thermal heating, wow. They’re not thinking of bulk commodities, they still need a rocket and are targeting around 400 lbs to orbit.

    The giant pipe leading into the ground indicates they buried a lot of the infrastructure. Seems to me that’s an acknowledgement that there might be some 5,000 MPH statue of liberty sized unscheduled disassemblies. Be some great footage if they intend to test to failure!

    This looks like it has military applications for long range bombardment or flinging guided interceptors up. They’d have to increase the spin up time, but they wouldn’t necessarily need to reach orbit. I wonder where the R&D funding comes from.

  • Jeff Wright

    Now rail gun mass drivers are best for the Moon, Ceres and maybe Mars. But this might also double as a reaction wheel/gyro upon a more solid nickel-iron asteroid, slinging refuse out and product inwards. Maybe Psyche’s mass extruded out to Tarzan around as a starwisp if nothing else. Easier to drag a cable than lift an ingot.

  • wayne

    Remnants of Project HARP
    https://youtu.be/n4peA9lqBUY
    5:44
    [not to be confused with Project HAARP.]

    “Dr. Gerald Bull’s High Altitude Research Project (HARP) 1962 – 1967, Paragon, Barbados in conjunction with McGill University in Canada and the U.S. Army Research and Development. The aim was to test the feasibility of launching satellites using a low cost super-gun.”

    “On November 18, 1966, the HARP gun operated by BRL at Yuma Proving Ground launched an 84-kg Martlet 2 missile at 2,100 m/s, sending it briefly into space and setting a world altitude record of 179 km.”

  • Questioner

    This project belongs to the elite club of the most idiotic projects, on which significant sums of money are spent with 100% probability of loss. You can also throw the money in a heap and set it on fire.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Unless they can make it work.

    Cannot use linear accelerators on Earth. At least not until they figure out how to manage the air pressure problem.

    Basically, if you have a long tube, and you start pushing an object through it, at some point during acceleration, you are pushing against the entire column of air in front off you.

    It is like “Max-Q” , but worse, as it will increase until reaching the end of the tube.

    I have seen a few ideas about how to mitigate, but I have not seen anything tested.
    If anyone has info on that, feel free to post it. I would be interested.

  • Questioner

    sippin_bourbon:

    My concerns aren’t even about whether or not they’ll make it work. You should just take a few steps back and get an overall picture to see the absurdity of this venture.

    You clamp a two-stage rocket in a huge device that accelerates the rocket for over 90 minutes, whereas 10,000 g radial acceleration are reached at the end. That is twice as much as a bullet experiences acceleration in the barrel of a gun. (How fast does the deceleration actually take, if you have to serve the rocket or postpone the mission?) So the thing has to be extremely robust. So it cannot be a particularly powerful missile. I’ll come back to that later. Somehow I get weird when I think about a “bomb” (containing tons of liquid propellant !) hurling around. If that goes up, the whole system will be gone.

    And why all this? I’ll tell you: In order to be able to omit the first stage of a two-stage, completely normal, light construction rocket that launches normally into space. Examples of such rockets are Astra, Alpha, and Electron. Not quite strangely enough, the goal does not seem to be quite successful: they have to add a second stage again, because this rocket has a heavy construction and probably has to use storable propellant (you cannot constantly refuel LOX during the spin), which owns only a moderate specific impulse.

    So wouldn’t it be easier and better to avoid all these problems and simple leave out this crazy spinlaunch device and stay with the “normal” rocket (like Electron or Alpha)? Haha…

  • sippin_bourbon

    Your confused.
    I do not care if this works or if it does not.

    But if they want to try it, it is their money.

    But people have made crazier things work.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Scott Manley’s take.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAczd3mt3X0

    Interesting.

  • Jeff Wright

    If it works…it deserves the name ‘stage zero’ instead of strap-ons or Musk’s pad. BTW HYPAC was the sea gun…PROFAC the orbiting gas scooper.

  • Questioner

    sippin_bourbon:

    You say i’m confused? Check yourself out. You didn’t even realize that I already linked Scott Manley’s video in my comment above.

    Incidentally, Manley, who like any other person can make mistakes, was more correct in his original older assessment and, in my opinion, was influenced in his overall judgment about the sense of the whole thing too much by the successful functional test of the subscale version of the spinning device. He also forgot some of the obvious criticisms that I raised now.

    I think I am the only one who has brought a clear thought to this insane project so far, here at this point and place.

  • Jeff Wright

    Here might be a way around problems…A tokamak, and a cyclotron need similar shaped housings, and new fusion megamagnets got me to thinking.

    Make the track a bit longer, and instantly convert the inner workings to a motor so as to pump a railgun extension.

    A directed energy beam plows the sabots path, with other beams converging ahead and behind the sabot path as a Leik Myrabo type plasma esophagus. Larger builds as launch loops? Multi-use as weapon…

  • Lee Stevenson

    It looks like a science project on a grand scale! I especially like the super size rain cap!! Suck that up stack equipped truck guys!! Lol.
    I will sleep out for a week in Swedish winter if this ever has any practical space exploration use.
    Dropping big lumps of somthing heavy on neighbors with no ballistic footprint however….

  • Questioner

    Unfortunately, these guys haven’t made any progress with their light gas cannon project either, as it stands. Well, it’s not really convincing either, even if I like cannons. Oh, what are 30,000 g? And a rocket for orbital injection is still needed.

    GreenLaunch 2018

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRVH4C1svSo&t=282s

  • Lee Stevenson

    A little late to comment, but I really have to ask. ( Again!) .. Why do most of you posters here insist on posting YouTube links to “prove” their point, or to expand upon it?
    YouTube, while valuable in many circumstances, ( the arena of live music being to my mind, the most valuable! ) , It is absolutely the least valuable resource available for sharing science. Anyone and their dog can post a video proving whatever they like.

    And while I now have a quiet half an hour before I go back to my “real Saturday life” ( think washing, cleaning, etc…) I refuse to waste any of it on a “5.56” video clip.

    I can speed read an article or paper in seconds.,.and decide if it worth my attention or not.

    I was told by a university professor during an argument that any reference to Wikipedia was an automatic downtick, I can only believe that using YouTube as a source of information would be double.downticks.

    I realize that most of the most prolific posters here are retired, and thus have all day to trawl thru YouTube to find no doubt educational and entertaining clips, but I’m guessing there is a silent majority out there that read this blog, but are reticent in commenting.

    Reticent because of the right wing majority here? I like to think so ;-) ,.but there is also not much to comment upon a video you just don’t have time.to watch.

    Can I respectfully please ask all the regular suspects ( and you know exactly who you are!) To perhaps give a link to the original source material you are referring to, rather than a YouTube link.

    Right, back to the washing…

    Love and light.

  • wayne

    Lee-
    what time is it, in your Country?
    (tangentially– suppose to get snowed upon this afternoon, first of the Season. )

    Ref– youtube clips….
    Can’t speak for anyone else— in general, pretty much everything I want to say or bring attention to, has been said before, and generally by people far more articulate than I, and more comprehensibly (and generally with far better graphics than I could create.) Rather than summarizing, I point in the direction and let people decide if they want to watch something from the source and decide for themselves.

  • Localfluff

    They have invented the powderless slung, a tribouchet of a kind. The ancient Greeks did that 2400 years ago, after during the 27 years long Peloponnesian Wars no one had been able to destroy the walls of a single city with their manhandled rams.

    This thing isn’t even accelerating in vacuum. Orbital speed for the ISS at one of the lowest possible orbits is 7,700 meters per second. This is just showing a rock behind hurled around leisurely before being released. Add to that the resistance of passing through the atmosphere. It would be like a meteor burning and melting as it is launched. Destroying the “machine” with the BOOOM at the nozzle when it hits the wall of air. Meteors generally burn up before they reach 70 km altitude. The atmosphere is a BIT denser down here.

    But if they hit the walls of Troy with their catapult, they might make them fall over. And change history forever…

  • Localfluff

    I should add that Persians and Chinese had invented slungs like this even earlier than 2400 years ago, that the Greeks didn’t know about. It is a recurring independently original invention, still today!

  • Questioner

    Localfluff:

    They limited the throwing speed to 2,220 m/s (8,000 km/h). That is still enough to make the thrown missile very hot on the outside. This is another reason why these crazy people need an additional protective cover for the two-stage rocket, which can burn a little and also keeps the air resistance relatively low.

  • Cotour

    Great (cartoon) concept IMO, but I do not like it.

    Too much potential for absolute disaster. Mag Lev rail gun launching system? Makes more sense to me.

    Spinning a multi ton mass to an extreme G level and then releasing it in a micro second, and it may contain fuel or other / any substances through a tube into the atmosphere in order to launch it into space? Materials? Counter balance control? Stresses?

    Gives me chills.

  • wayne

    “Potential Energy: Elastic and Gravitational”
    Prof. Wile E. Coyote & Dr. Roadrunner
    https://youtu.be/Jnj8mc04r9E
    1:22

  • Cotour

    Exactly and to my point, Wayne.

    Will carbon fiber, millennial super nerds and advanced computers make the difference?

    Maybe I am being too negative?

    Like another commenter said, “Its their money”. And it would be up to them to prove me wrong or right.

  • Questioner

    Cotour:

    maybe “Its not their money”, but the money of others whom they have told some fairy tale about the potential of this crazy idea. There is a wide range of gray areas between truth and fraud.

  • Cotour

    Its “Their” money any way you look at it.

    Th developers have produced a working proof that their concept is real and have built a full scale working device. I would not at this point after they have built a working proof of concept to call it a potential fraud.

    I have found that just because I can not see something that it can not be accomplished. Not at all for one second. Without some real in depth presentation and thought I would choose not to invest in this venture. And this is an exact example of the capitalist system in the real world and in real time.

    Have the vision, develop the concept, make your calculations and come up with a design and see if you can present it to investors who are well informed and understand the risks and the rewards should they choose to invest. Then get out of the way, all potentials exist depending on exactly who is driving the vision / concept bus.

    Would you choose to argue with Elon Musk? I think not, I will at least listen to him.

  • Questioner

    Cotour:

    “Would you choose to argue with Elon Musk?”

    Yes, I would argue with him about why he believes that increasing technology in all areas of life leads to a better life. I very much doubt it. I don’t think he thinks about such things at all. He doesn’t seem particularly philosophical.

    Cotour: You are right to criticize globalization. But the desirable end of globalization that destroys peoples and cultures – which is actually also Americanization – also means the end of capitalism as we know it today. No more global markets and no more global division of labor! Are you personally ready to want and accept this?

  • Lee Stevenson

    @wayne, I’m running on GMT +1 Over here…. It’s confusing enough having 2 time zones in my “sphere of influence”, so heaven knows what time it relates to you over the pond!

    It actually just occurred to me that this device is probably never intended to be used for space flight, but is being touted as such just as window dressing for the technology. There will no doubt be someone who has a lightbulb PING into life above their head thinking ” That is PERFECT for………………….”

    A classic case of “Build it and they will come”. A great technology looking for an application. I have no doubt it is fantastic for something…. But earth to orbit, not a flying snowball in hells chance.

    (Anyone care to take a bet against the company being snapped up for military research? )

  • Cotour

    I think Musk realizes that the technology will forge ahead and is to some / most instances / degrees unstoppable at this point. And that has been true about technology for the entire history of the world.

    The problem from an American observers point of view is that corporations have gotten out of control and the Congress and the Senate that are suppose to provide the proper parameters for them to operate are coincidentally owned by those $ame corporations, and coincidentally have become multi national corporations I.E. Globalist in nature and see America as a hinderance to their soulless profit goals.

    And I agree totally, that is not a good thing and we are embroiled at the moment in America in attempting to deal with that condition. Although it may have gone too far and we are all careening out of control into some future that those same out of control and loyal only to profits and soulless corporations dominate and control.

    We all certainly live in interesting times and America and the world will have to go through this particular cycle to see where and what it all results in.

    IMO, all potentials exist, but the deck has been stacked against America and its Constitution and so everyone on the planet is at risk.

    Is America and its system perfect? NO, not by a long shot. And I fully recognize that, the perversions and abuses of power and just straight out corruption by both political parties is disgusting to me and a growing number of others. The now Leftist and un and anti American Democrat party machine has gone totally insane and has become an existential threat to the country in which they sit.

    And to watch that in real time is very disturbing. What will the future bring? Hopefully we are all around to see it resolve in a rational manner after all of the crazy. Or maybe the crazy is here to stay? I do not know.

    But what I absolutely know is that you do not want an EU / Globalist One World Government that is fearful and must pander to the Communist Chinese forever royal Emperor for life, XI for their goods / fertilizer / chips / rare earths / etc. etc.

    Dystopian? Orwellian? Not an acceptable turn of events for the world IMO.

  • Lee Stevenson

    @Cotour, I think your fears are a bit overstated. China is certainly a global worry right now , ( I didn’t see that coming, I have stated some years ago that I didn’t believe they had expansionist goals…. I was completely wrong there!) And there is currently some interesting stuff going down on Polish border with Belarus, with Putin in the background flexing his muscles, but Russia is broke, and can no way afford an all out conflict with “the west”. Not so much with China, but China would go broke without its trade with the west. I believe we might come to a “who blinks first” situation regarding Taiwan, but at the end of the day, without the west’s dollars, euros and krona, the Chinese would all still be farming rice. They simply cannot afford to have a major conflict with the west.
    Regarding your worries regarding politics, as I have stated many times, the pendulum is swinging back. Those of us on the genuine left wing of politics, especially over there, are becoming frustrated with the loony left, and I believe we are close to acceptance by the mainstream that all this “cancel culture” nonsense needs to stop. It will, and normality will hopefully be restored.

    You posted just before I was intending to post about the size of that stack rain cover…. We sell 6″ covers for stacks at my job…. But that bugger eats the biscuit! It impresses me more than the machine itself ;-)

  • Cotour

    America has some serious fundamental problems at the moment. Our own president and the political machine that has installed him as their mouth piece and facilitator is IMO severely compromised and not working in the interests of our country. How do I establish that?

    Everything that he has purposefully done from day one in office has been in service of the Leftist / Globalist agenda fulfillment. In the pursuit of “The great Reset” / “Build Back Better” intellectualized BS (Bovine swill). And they mean business, and by any means necessary.

    From: Day one open borders and flooding the country with now millions of illegals in order to dominate all future elections, (You can not have a sovereign country if your borders are open AND their is an extensive welfare system in place that is given to all comers. And on top of that are willing to pay some illegals “Injured” up to $450K each for their trouble. That is called incentive on steroids), the Afghanistan give away and abandonment of Americans, the faux “negotiating” with China, the insane spending meant to crash the economy and further bankrupt the country in order to manufacture dependency on government the creation of a slave nation to that government and the mandatory compliance that is essential, the attack on the individual and their free choice as to what they must inject into their body or lose their job, and inject that same experimental substance into their children, its a long list.

    Without strong American leadership these agendas will persist and the Globalist agenda will be installed, social credit system and vaccine passport will be cemented in place.

    You think the world is a better place with a “Tamed” and neutered America as crazy, corrupt and perverted as it is?

    If so your fate is sealed.

  • wayne

    Lee-
    GMT +1, gotcha. Thank you.

    Ref:
    “Build it and they will come,” is a line from a Movie, it’s not an economic theory nor how things actually work, –>cause & effect is backwards.

    pivoting…
    I know you dislike YT links, but this is extremely well put together, and you might like it….

    “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald music video”
    November 9-10, 1975
    https://youtu.be/lE2LOhs5jaE
    7:33

    “Lake Superior is the largest and northernmost of the Great Lakes of North America, and among freshwater lakes, it is the world’s largest by surface area and the third-largest by volume. It holds 10% of the world’s surface fresh water.”

  • sippin_bourbon

    Questioner.

    Sry, I missed that you had posted Manley’s video.

    I only posted it because it was relevant. No other reason.

    My thinking is, if they can make it work, Great.
    If not. Great.
    It is their money, and if it works, and is cost effective, then it will survive.
    If not, the market will end it.

    That is the way this should work, and I am content to let it, and not sit here and declare they should give it up because I do not think it will work.
    There are obvious issues they have to overcome. But I hesitate to declare things impossible or unreasonable, especially considering I am not in their engineering meetings.

    On the contrary, I would rather see all of these idea’s, crazy or mainstream, get a fair shake.

    And with the commercial sector finally taking the lead, and the government no longer picking winners and losers, we have an actual chance.

  • Questioner

    Cotour:

    Cotour:

    Thank you for your text, which I broadly agree with. It is a fact that the European Union (which I oppose) has been an instrument of US geostrategy from the start. It is not only for this reason that it would be extremely desirable, in line with our goals, if the United States forfeited its economic, military and cultural supremacy in the world. But we have already discussed this in depth.

    An important step towards this would be the US dollar forfeit its role as a world reserve currency and then a collapse of the western financial system happens, which is based on debt money, even if I as a shareholder would be negatively affected by the consequences.

  • Lee Stevenson

    @Cotour,

    The points you raise mostly have some worth of discussion, but to throw them all in the same bucket, give it a stir, and label it a conspiracy kinda removes any chance of reasoned discourse.

    Not ever conspiracy is false, but the more elaborate the theory, the lager the chance it is wrong. I believe that your president is a bit too “sleepy” to be the leader of the free world, but his infrastructure bill should surly be to the republicans liking…. Unless I am very wrong in my US history, most, if not all of the big infrastructure spending projects over there were proposed and passed by republican govenment.

    @wayne

    I realize my “build it and they will come” is not any kind of “law” , but in the case of this huge tennis gun I believe it is a fair comment. If it never gets off the ground ( pun intended ), I am sure someone somewhere will find an application for the tech. ( I will try and watch your clip after dinner tonight, if my not so small angels give me chance!) It’s both remembrance day in the UK and fathers day in Sweden today, so I wish all you US guys and fathers a happy both.

    @Questioner,

    That’s why you are not working in the financial branch of your government, or hopefully any branch of any govenment ;-)

    Love and light, and given the day… Peace for us all.

  • Cotour

    Questioner: “An important step towards this would be the US dollar forfeit its role as a world reserve currency and then a collapse of the western financial system happens, which is based on debt money, even if I as a shareholder would be negatively affected by the consequences.”

    Precisely! And the moment that America surrenders its position as the reserve currency (In trade for what I do not know, Bitcoin?) the entire world economy collapses and true chaos ensues. Exactly correct. Who or what will take its place? Communist China? Russia? Digital currency controlled by the U.N.? The World Economic Forum? George Soros?

    Lee: “The points you raise mostly have some worth of discussion, but to throw them all in the same bucket, give it a stir, and label it a conspiracy kinda removes any chance of reasoned discourse.”

    What devalues your observation is the current Liberal / Leftist / Millennial “Politically correct” “intellectualized reality” political movement contingent that is currently underway in America who is driving the Democrat party machine out of desperation to follow and pander to them because they see them as the future, is very real.

    And their alliance and belief in and with the Globalist model that must destroy American dominance in the world in order that their agenda be fully realized is what makes this point in history a point where this “There can not be a conspiracy this involved and convoluted” false. There are no conspiracies, and there are no coincidences.

    Call it a convenient confluence of agendas, call it what ever you like, but that is exactly what is underway even if you are unable to see it. Its going on right in front of your unbelieving eyes. But there it is all the same.

    These political forces in the world are without doubt focused on the destruction of America and its Constitution as founded, its their one and only stumbling block and problem. Without America and its annoying Constitution in the way they will dominate the planet with their Socialist / slavery / “In the future you will own nothing, and you will be happy” utopia.

  • Cotour

    Both Questioner and Lee:

    “Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), called during a March 2021 virtual conference to eliminate all private bank accounts and deposits.”

    “Omarova discussed one of her papers, “The People’s Ledger How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy,” which would help “redesign” the financial system and make the economy “more equitable for everyone.”

    She said it would change the “private-public power balance” and democratize finance to a more systemic level.”

    “Her paper calls for eliminating all banks and transferring all bank deposits to “FedAccounts” at the Federal Reserve.

    During her conference speech, she said, “There will be no more private bank accounts, and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the Fed”:”

    Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), called during a March 2021 virtual conference to eliminate all private bank accounts and deposits.

    Who is she? The current American administration is desperate that a full blown COMMUNIST take control of our currency!

    Are you getting my point now?

    https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2021/10/1024/512/Saule-Omarova.jpg?ve=1&tl=1#

    And this is why this is now what will come soon, but not soon enough.

    SHOCK POLL: GOP HOLDS LARGEST LEAD OVER DEMOCRATS IN 40 YEARS

    And this is why the Democrat party machine is so dangerous right now. They can and will do anything to remain relevant, up to and including screwing with elections and murder. Conspiracy? Call it what ever you like.

  • wayne

    Lee–
    one thing you should understand about American politics:
    progressive Republicans and progressive Democrats, are both the enemy of Freedom. They (progressive republicans) believe they are the true scientific-managers of the State, they claim they’ll run it “better” than Democrats, more efficiently, maybe “like a Business,” blah-blah-blah. They Love the State as much as democrats, they don’t really care if they aren’t in-power per se, as long as it gets bigger, they are both happy.

  • wayne

    ref-
    world reserve currency…..
    When the dollar is used as the ‘world reserve-currency,’ it allows the Federal Reserve (and subsequently all other Countries underneath us,) to inflate the dollar (and local currencies) far beyond what could be possible, if say something like gold was used. Not everyone can inflate at the same time or rate however, when we inflate first it ripples across everyone else as they try to concurrently inflate.
    If our money was backed with gold, (not since Nixon closed the gold-window) it would be impossible for the Federal Reserve to create trillions of dollars in debt, without all that phony-baloney paper coming back to us and draining our gold reserves to zero.

  • wayne

    Lee-
    just for you!

    Lex Fridman Podcast Number 200
    “Michael Malice: Totalitarianism and Anarchy”
    https://youtu.be/R5rNoV1Qy_Q
    2:37:21

  • Lee Stevenson

    And a happy Father’s Day, and peaceful rememberance day to you all too…..

    When you all have finished foaming all over your keyboards due to the imaginary fall of civilization which exists purely in your own echo chambers.

  • Lee Stevenson: To call the discussion here by those who you disagree with “foaming all over your keyboard due to the imaginary fall of civilization” is quite insulting and beneath you.

    The discussion has been remarkable civilized. What you really object to is the fact that there are terrible things going on, most of which have been instigated by leftists worldwide. You dislike it that others are pointing this out, even though you yourself agree with them on this point.

    So to discredit those others, you now imply that they are all overly emotional and thoughtless, and only you have been sane and civilized.

    I have warned you about this before. Please stop. Make such a generalized insulting comment again and I will suspend you.

  • Cotour

    “Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), called during a March 2021 virtual conference to eliminate all private bank accounts and deposits.”

    Lee: While you live in your EU managed life there are things of great consequence going on around you.

    But you are so immersed in your own security and managed “Freedom” that you are unable to see what must be seen. Long term you my friend are the problem. And who will suffer the consequences of your short term thinking and short sightedness? Guess who? (You live with them)

  • Cotour

    Things like this is in your future, Lee:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10200293/Trigger-warning-device-classrooms-parties-sounds-alarm-detects-offensive-language.html

    And “technology” like this is the least offensive of what will be in your future.

    In America this thing would be going off every 2 minutes until it blew up. And then when the voice recognition that identifies the “Political correctness” violator is included in the A.I. package then your social score rating / FICO score / grades will be influenced, the mocking will cease.

    And then you will comply. That is the future you so short short- sightedly embrace whether you realize it or not.

    And I am not even making any of this up to make my point, its right in front of your own eyeballs. And they are very serious, you will comply.

    How dark and cold the future is in your Intellectualized reality. I say, no thank you.

  • wayne

    Cotour–
    Mark Levin hammered Omarova last week— she’s an absolute professional card-carrying marxist America hater. And like most communists, she always shows up at Harvest time, but never at Planting time.

    Elon Musk ? & Akira The Don
    “If You Don’t Make Stuff, There is No Stuff”
    https://youtu.be/nA4Ya-yKJ0A
    3:23

  • Questioner

    Cotour:

    What do you think (in the context of our discussion) of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi and Jean Monnet as early examples of globalists?

  • Cotour

    The Left in our country are without being self conscious or embarrassed about it are telling everyone exactly who and exactly what they are. And they are asking, “Is this what you want America?”.

    (They really do not care what you want, its all about what they are going to force on everyone)

    And where do you find them? Being hired by the current administration in Washington D.C.. If I had made that up you would say I was spinning or lying to make my point. But there is no need for that, that is exactly what they are doing. And they mean it.

    This is ruthless political warfare of the first order, and so we must fight them in kind, ruthlessly.

    And in the end we must win. But there are no guarantees, all potentials exist at this point in time because of the one thing that gives them an edge, TECHNOLOGY.

    (And where is the silver lining here? Because the Left is being so overt people are actually beginning to pay attention and they are rejecting them. BUT, the control of the technology and the corporate tendency to be Globalist oriented is a big hurdle to overcome. So all potentials exist IMO)

  • Cotour

    Big picture? I think this is all a mass desensitizing operation being played by the Left. Are you “Socially sub optimal?”. And the Left calls the Republican party Conservatives Fascists?

    https://youtu.be/4vPisGG6nvw 12 min.

    The Left is always moving the ball forward and to the Left. They may sustain massive losses in 2022 midterms, but they will have conditioned the populous to be receptive to their extremism, and then they dial it down and “compromise” and move the ball further forward. They / the Democrat party machine are playing the long game.

    And the Republicans? What are they doing? A segment of them have given Biden a win on an insane budget bill. And what is their thought process IMO? They know that Mansion and probably Sinema will not agree to the next insane multi Trillion dollar bill that must be approved by the Senate, but they will agree today and get their states the cash included in the first bill. So they get their funding and they can justify that, but will deny Biden the Democrat party machine wet dream.

    And that is a risky game to play IMO.

    They must ALL be thrown out and replaced with actual Americans who can see past their own nose and political self interests.

  • Cotour

    Questioner: Never heard of them but will look into it.

  • Cotour

    From my initial look they appear to be the grand fathers of the EU concept.

  • Questioner

    Cotour:

    Yes, that’s right. But the two weren’t alone. They had a lot of help from the CIA and other American organizations. Your nation became already immediately guilty in 1945 of having laid the foundations for today’s globalist – as an ideology that destroys peoples, nations and cultures – as America laid and financed the foundations for the creation of the EU.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Committee_on_United_Europe

  • Cotour

    I concur.

    If you think that I have been avoiding such things I think you need to reread much of what I have been getting at all this time.

    Read Strategy Over Morality and you will find what you are looking for in our and all other governments.

    At least in the American model there is the potential to have these conversations about what is what. There is a bit of a counter intuitive thinking that you must engage in, but choose all the same.

    America has a major problem and has gotten and has been out of control.

    Is it too late? I am not certain, but I do know that at least there is some degree of hope if there is strong American leadership and strong movement in America that has the potential to push back and stave off this Socialist “Utopia”. Why do you think Trump had to go at any cost? Do you really think he lost the election because of how popular and desirable a candidate Joe Biden was?

    Trump or someone like Trump has the potential that the world needs IMO.

    Try this, remove America from the equation, tell me what the world looks like tomorrow.

    What does an unrestrained Globalist / rogue CIA / Communist Chinese slave nation / social credit score / surveillance world look like to you?

  • wayne

    Operation of the HARP gun
    https://youtu.be/O7WBOREruaM
    5:27

  • Questioner

    What remains of the High Altitude Research Project (HARP) 1962 – 1967 Paragon, Barbados?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4peA9lqBUY

    5:44

  • Questioner

    Space Guns Don’t Work (But We Built One Anyway)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fJnPcxxfDM

    5:54

  • Questioner

    In the long run, rockets as a means of transport for orbital injection should be replaced by a more efficient infrastructure. How inefficient rockets really are for this purpose, I would like to demonstrate below with a small calculation:

    The kinetic energy of one kilogram of payload in LEO is E_kin = 1/2 * 1kg * (7800 m / s) ^ 2 = 30.42 MJ. Starhip needs 5000 tons propellant to bring 100,000 kg into orbit (LEO). Of the 5000 tons, 1042 tons are methane (rest is oxygen). The calorific value of methane is 50.0 MJ / kg. That means Starship has to burn 10.42 kg methane (= 10.42 * 50.0 MJ / kg = 521.1 MJ) for 1 kg payload. The efficiency of the whole process is therefore eta = 30.42 MJ / 521.1 MJ = 0.058 or only around 6%.

    We need an infrastructure that can increase this level of efficiency by an order of magnitude. Maybe an electromagnetic acceleration track. However, this must be 1000-2000 km long and end at an altitude of 80 km.

  • Questioner

    Spinlaunch: BUSTED (Part 2) by Thunderf00t

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE

  • Questioner

    First part, also very funny…

    Spinlaunch: BUSTED!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE

  • Edward

    Questioner,
    I love how the critic believes that a proof of concept test should have all problems solved and be a mature technology ready for full operations.

    Can Spinlaunch be made to work as advertised? I don’t know. It seems implausible, but the nice thing about America is the freedom to try new things, even if they seem implausible. Even if it does not work well on Earth, it may be a reasonable way to move some things off the lunar surface.

    In reviewing your November 18 comment, above: “The efficiency of the whole process is therefore eta = 30.42 MJ / 521.1 MJ = 0.058 or only around 6%.

    You seem to have concluded that 6% efficiency is bad, but modern cars are not an order of magnitude better than that, even after more than a century of trying to increase efficiencies of automobiles. Thermodynamics is a real bear, and the four stroke internal combustion engine can’t be expected to get much better than a theoretical 30-ish% efficiency, and the reality is even worse — just for the engine. (Industrial Rankine cycle power plants have to work hard to get above 28% and a harder time getting above 42%, which already requires superheaters and other tricks.) Add on the wind drag, road resistance, gearing, and air conditioner.

    A rocket, on the other hand, has to lift and accelerate the fuel that it will use later in the flight. It also has to lift and accelerate the rocket structure itself. I’m surprised that you calculated a whole 6% efficiency, although you forgot to include the energy of the height gain (which, for Earth, I calculated, in my youth, to be around 1/10th the orbital kinetic energy — I had been interested in the energy needed, not the efficiency), which may bring your calculated efficiency to around 6.4%.

    A space elevator may do significantly better at energy efficiency, but there is already too much stuff in Earth orbit for these to be a practical solution. The expected energy use for an electrical space elevator is just the lift to geostationary altitude, and from there the spacecraft can be released into a circular orbit. The energy to accelerate the spacecraft comes from the rotation of the Earth, where the accelerating force imparted onto the spacecraft is the Coriolis force. Orbital acceleration comes from the rotation the Earth, so we could see an electrical efficiency above 1.

  • Questioner

    Edward:

    I know how rockets works. There is non easy way to replace rocket for space transportation. So, I guess, we have to live with their low system efficiency for some while in the future. We know all alternative principles like space elevators, tethers, more or less for over hundred years and there is no easy alternative, but we have to keep on it. I would say, some sort of an electromagnetic guided acceleration infrastructure system, which lifts itself from ground to the injection point in 80 km altitude, and is about 1,000 km long (which results in 3 g average acceleration), may be a guiding idea.

    By the way: When working with efficiencies, if you want it to be helpful, it always depends very much on how they are defined. Example: If I define how much of the energy that was originally available in the energy storage of a car (e.g. in the fuel) is finally available in the car, at the end of the car’s “mission”, then this efficiency is for all types of today’s cars exactly Zero. All energy initially available for propulsion has been completely converted into thermal energy (if the car has not driven up a extreme high mountain :-)).

    About the spin launch thing:
    The nice thing about some “ideas” is that very often (not always unfortunately) a discussion of their basic principles is enough to realize that the ideas are useless. Here at the Spin launch this is the case, as “thunderfoot” has shown very simply and beautifully. He didn’t even go deep into the numerous technical problems because the insanity of the idea inevitably emerges from the simple analysis. By the way, these “spin-launch” people weren’t too smart to fake false results. See how the missile flips over and it is already going off at an angle.

  • Edward

    Questioner,
    You wrote: “When working with efficiencies, if you want it to be helpful, it always depends very much on how they are defined.

    Thank you for continually redefining efficiency so that it is difficult to discuss the topic with you.

    By the way, these “spin-launch” people weren’t too smart to fake false results. See how the missile flips over and it is already going off at an angle.

    On further review of SpinLaunch’s claims, I have realized that they did not make the claims that you said they falsified. Their claims were that they could spin up the projectile and release it with precision timing that sends it through the exit at supersonic speeds, and that they recovered the projectile in a condition satisfactory for future use. This is good for a proof of concept test. Proper trajectory, expected speed, stopping the tumble, firing rockets for orbital insertion, etc. did not seem to be claimed by the company, but one claim was that there is a lot of work left to do to accomplish orbital launches. Perhaps they meant that these were some of the issues that need to be addressed.

    From the article:

    There is a lot of work to do before non-rocket-powered space launches become a reality, but last month SpinLaunch took an important step forward. On October 22, the company completed its first test flight at its Spaceport America base in New Mexico, successfully launching a prototype vehicle from its Suborbital Accelerator which reached supersonic speeds and was recovered for reuse thereafter.

    Not claimed by the company, and not mentioned by the critic, is the sudden imbalance on the spin mechanism after release and survivability of the bearings, support structure, and other parts. The projectile might be reusable, but is the launcher?

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