I agree it’s a much more likely solution for a low gravity situation. But that implementation would be several years, if not decades, down the road. And I’m not sure those solutions are cost effective. having 2 different launch solutions available for something like Lunar launches would add complexity to the equation when I’m not sure it adds a lot of value.

I love the testing and validation of concept. I worry for the company as I don’t see this as a viable business model for quite a while if ever. it’s good they are looking for other solutions to fund the company until they find something this can work with.

Now, if we can find a way to leverage this to throw materials that can handle the stresses into orbit in parallel to standard launch solutions – that might be very interesting. For example, imagine if we can throw fuel to reload something like a starship. Or water for human use in space.

Impey Barbicane and the Baltimore Gun Club, eh? The only “Longshot” I’m familiar with was a notion from the 80s about a probe to Proxima Centauri, but that didn’t involve a giant gun so far as I know. Do you have a link to anything about the “Longshot” you’ve referenced?

jburn,

Interesting idea. Not sure what the maximum strictly ballistic range would be but then the plan is to use rockets to complete the trip to orbit so the same could be easily done to extend the range of suborbital ammunition payloads. I suspect the rate of fire would not be particularly impressive though.

SpinLaunch is interesting technology but not especially well-suited for Earth departures. It would be ideal for yeeting bulk commodity payloads into orbit from the Moon without requiring any propellant, being much more compact than notional O’Neillian linear mass drivers. I hope the company’s diversifications allow it to stay in business long enough to establish itself in the coming cis-lunar industrial economy. The technology might well be practical for Mars too.

Digital Night,

The centrifuge is only the equivalent of a first stage in terms of imparting orbital energy. What would actually be spin-launched would be the equivalent of rocket upper stages that would handle the rest of the job of getting highly G-tolerant payloads into orbit. The rockets, of course, would also be engineered to be highly G-tolerant.

As I noted above, this technology seems a rather poor fit for Earth-origin launches but would be ideal for the Moon and probably workable on Mars as well.