THE FORMALIZATION OF DUNKING ON SpinLaunch --- The Dribble kleinbl00: I'm now convinced the main chamber was indeed at partial pressure. Maybe like half an atmosphere or so. In the Clint Mansell soundtrack promotional vid, at 0:46 I can see some of the membrane get sucked back into the chamber faster than gravity alone would pull it downwards, but not fast enough to indicate a near-totally evacuated chamber. Any whooshing and whizzing audio was probably synthesized and added in post, I'm increasingly sure. Right, so I just did some high school math regarding a maximum apogee of "tens of thousands of feet" for a ballistic shot vertically. The upper limit, 100,000 ft., requires a release velocity of a little less than 800 m/s. Escape velocity in the absence of any atmosphere is ~11,000 m/s, so you'll need to go ehhhhhhhhh a little faster. However; good news, some of the requisite velocity is offset by the plan to put something resembling a rocket engine and its fuel up to 10k g's before lighting the fuse before the payload can fall back to Earth. Did you notice the verbiage used in the press release? Launched at "20% of the centrifuge's maximum power"? This is not really a system well-defined by its power consumption. It’s a question of release velocity and how much payload is second-stage rocket and fuel. I bet it takes a lot of power to spin anything up to a high speed in an almost-not-vacuum. v^2/r says that if you scale up the centrifuge by a factor of three, --- Juke Uh-oh --- C'mon n' Slam if You Wanna Jam The establishment rocket launch environment is pretty well-characterized. NASA has specific requirements for each launch vehicle, which are passed on to contractors. For example, mechanical engineers are given a set of vibration table testing requirements. There is no static loading requirement, only a sine sweep test to confirm and zero-in on the resonances predicted from modeling, and then a random noise test. Based on the 2,000-kg weight limit, the mass of "payload" dedicated to shielding the actual payload from introduction to a near-instantaneous shock, or damping the actual payload response from the “jerk” may be, like, almost all of the "payload". The secrets behind the stability of a missile going Mach whatever with a bomb inside of it are: 1) A gradual acceleration inside a gradually changing fluid environment (lessening atmospheric density as it goes up). 2) The direction of the axis of symmetry (where the nosecone points) is almost exactly parallel to the velocity vector, and any stabilizing spin is confined along this axis, the axis of the lowest rotational moment of inertia. 3) Everything.; Everything, including the bomb and all associated electronics inside the missile, was designed with the environment in mind. We can see for ourselves in these videos that 1) & 2) failed. For 3), I doubt that anyone who's ever made any comms, optical, EM-fields, or particle sensing instrumentation (or even spacecraft buses, whatever) could honestly tell you they could pull 10k g's static load with anything remotely similar to their current mechanical design. Solid-propellant rocket fuel? Good luck, ya got a lotta free energy floating around, hopefully it doesn’t localize into anything sparkable. — The Rebound But, OK. We might should think about payload design with a ~100 g static load (just, like, for starters) and a way wilder dynamic environment, primarily based on the shock. As Devac points out, there are potentially more realistic future applications of spin-launching in other environments, like on the moon. The entire concept isn't stupid, but SpinLaunch currently looks to me like either an intentional misrepresentation of the facts to investors or a very deep ignorance. Or a bit of both. Just my opinion.10k g's
ten thousand times one “jee"
10,000*9.8m/s^2 of static centripetal acceleration
Hopefully, for attitude control, the release is exactly instantaneous across the entire length of the payload
Hopefully, to avoid a disastrously high jerk response of the payload components, the release interval (Δt) is as large as possible
So I did some college physics. Statics'n'dynamics. Engineer stuff. It ain't hard. Let's start with a model, shall we? I'ma do that obnoxious engineering oversimplification thing where we model a horse as a sphere. I'm also going to start in Freedom Units and work backwards because ugh. So a lawn dart is about 12" long and weighs on the order of half of a pound. We're gonna simplify that into 30cm and one kilogram. We're also going to disregard the complexity of fins and non-uniform cross section and turn this thing into a highway flare, basically - let's model it as a cylinder 30cm long by 2cm in diameter. LAWN DART = 1kg, 30cm x 2cm cylinder We're going to do this because we're going to rig up a bola-thing out of jumprope and do some playground physics. Through sheer MacGyver awesomeness I'm going to craft a sling with a length of around 3 feet (1m) and I'm going to spin my lawn dart around my head at a rate of 3Hz. Once it's as fast as I can spin it (3Hz) I'm going to let go. LAWN DART ANGULAR VELOCITY = 6pi radians/sec = 1080 degrees/sec I'm then going to abuse the bejeesus out of online calculators because I'm lazy but will link them. In this case, I'm going to convert from angular velocity to linear velocity. LAWN DART LINEAR VELOCITY = 18.85 m/s Hey that's pretty good. I'ma ask my buddy Newton (Vf = Vi plus at) how long it's gonna be in the sky, assuming it goes straight up, because I'm lazy and because it's a lawn dart and that's what they're for, duh. No drag because again, lazy. LAWN DART FLIGHT TIME = 1.92 s Great now I can ask Isaac for its distance (d = v0t plus 1/2at^2). LAWN DART DISTANCE = 18.1m 59 feet straight up. Bitchin'! Definitely more than people can throw. We got a soup goin' baby! But now we gotta get Isaac to run some of the harder numbers. Like, energy. KE=1/2mv^2. LAWN DART KINETIC ENERGY (linear) = 177J ....shit. Why did the universe compel me to put a caveat on the KE? Musta been those two solid years of intro physics, followed by three solid years of engineering. Hmmm. KE = 1/2 Iomega^2. SHIT. Frickin' moments of inertia? I = L/omega. L = M x V x R. Uhhhm, M is mass is 1kg. V is angular velocity. R is radius around the centroid - hey we got all this shit! LAWN DART ANGULAR MOMENTUM = 18.85 kg/m^2 s I don't like those units. They're... foreboding. But now we can calculate the angular kinetic energy. LAWN DART KINETIC ENERGY (rotational) = 3,349J ...that is more. more energy. Uhhhhhm somehow between spinning it around our arm and launching it straight up we bled off 95% of our energy. Which, my buddy Isaac reminds me, is not permitted by the universe. So here's the basic problem: we were spinning that lawn dart around a fixed axis that happened to be "where I hold the jumprope." That lawn dart is not going to stop spinning just because we did. It's going to spin around its new system centroid. Good thing we already defined it as a road flare rather than a lawn dart 'cuz here's where stuff ceases to be fun (or starts, depending on one's perspective). Now - I did this math? I did the shit out of this math 20-f'n years ago. So here's where I start fumbling. Because what we're worried about is conservation of angular momentum. ice skater pulls their arms in, they spin faster. In fact, if you look up "discus throwing momentum" you will get like long-ass papers that are mostly speculation, a little measurement and no real answers on the "conservation of angular momentum" problem. Because really, the momentum of the system is conserved, and we've presumed our rope (and me!) has no mass. But let's fumble on and wait for Devac to poke holes in this 'cuz he's wicked smart. Anyway: angular momentum be conserved, yo. We have our kinetic energy - it's 3349 - 177 = 3.2kJ. we can calculate our new moment of inertia to be 0.007556 kg-m^2. So through sheer dumb conservation of momentum, our lawn dart is now in a 146Hz flat spin. Is it really, though? I have a degree in this shit and I'm pretty shaky on it. Turns out you physics nerds are better at this shit. Lo and behold you can't disregard half the system no matter how hard I, or Spinlaunch, wants to. But since we know even less about it than we do about the business end of the process, I'm not even going to try. I'm going to refer to that 146 Hz flat spin as the lawn dart's "suicidal urge" because while we can all agree that I'm not flippin' a lawn dart into a low thrum above my head, I think we can also agree that I'm not NOT putting a spin on it, and that when 95% of the energy is not pushing my lawn dart up, it's pushing something SOMEWHERE. Note that "suicidal urge" isn't "jerk" but they're related. The suicidal urge is what changes the lawn dart spinning around my center of mass at 3Hz to trying to spin around its own center of mass at 150. Again - don't think it's 146, certain it ain't zero. What we're looking at here, obviously, is KSP attempting to deal with corner-case physics it definitely wasn't designed for. I doubt it's got a 2-body problem algorithm in there. The launcher does not tear itself to shreds. It's got a vectoring motor capable of covering up nearly any crime. And even Kerbal is all "lol this thing is going through a full spin before we figure our shit out." LAWN DART SUICIDAL URGE = 146Hz = 3.2kJ
'Sokay. We've got a lawn dart, and it's doing more than going up. Now let's look at our friends Spinlaunch and their demo launcher. I'ma use your velocity 'cuz you calculated it and again, lazy. I'm also going to model their demo as a scuba tank because - you guessed it! - lazy. Let's go with an AL80 - 14.2kg, 184mm in diameter, 662mm long. we're going to work backwards from your linear velocity. SCUBALAUNCH = 14.2kg, 184mm dia, 662mm long SCUBALAUNCH LINEAR VELOCITY = 800m/s SCUBALAUNCH RADIUS = 1/3 45m = 15m SCUBALAUNCH ANGULAR VELOCITY = 509 RPM Oops, we already have a problem. We know it's designed to go 450 RPM. We also know that "SpinLaunch’s first suborbital flight utilized about 20% of the accelerator’s full power capacity for the launch" which... I mean they been pretty loosey-goosey with terms so I'll bet they mean it was running at 20% of the critter's speed. SCUBALAUNCH PROBABLE ANGULAR VELOCITY = 108 RPM SCUBALAUNCH CORRECTED LINEAR VELOCITY = 168 m/s SCUBALAUNCH CORRECTED FLIGHT TIME = 17.1 s SCUBALAUNCH CORRECTED ALTITUDE = 1438m = 4717 ft which, again, is aspirational but looks a lot more like what they actually got on video. And i mean, I can't throw a scuba tank most of a mile into the air so kudos. But I don't really think Spinlaunch can, either. Can they spin a scuba tank in a 15m circle at 108 RPM? mmmmmyeah, I'll bet they can. Can they put that 30m circle under something kind-of vacuum-ish? mmmyeah, I'll bet they can. But you can hear the whirring. It's under vacuum-lite at best. But let's tie this poor sonofabitch back into our lawn dart. SCUBALAUNCH LINEAR KINETIC ENERGY = 200kJ SCUBALAUNCH MOMENT OF INERTIA = 3195 kg/m^2 SCUBALAUNCH ROTATIONAL KINETIC ENERGY = 772,000 kJ ...this is getting foreboding. That's 215 kW/h. We'll bleed off our pathetic 200kJ and be left with... about the same. We're going to swap our 3195 kg/m^2 moment of inertia for...much less.. NEW SCUBALAUNCH MOMENT OF INERTIA = 0.548 kg/m^2 SCUBALAUNCH SUICIDAL URGE = 8844 Hz Now. this is about where I argue, often ad nauseum, that the model is broken. 214kW/h is a lot of energy to put into a scuba tank. 15m is a hell of a lever arm. But there is no way in hell you're going to get a 9kHz flat spin out of a scuba tank. Ever. Under any natural, normal circumstances. But you're also not going to get zero. Conservation of angular momentum means the lion's share of energy you're pumping into the system stays with you. And it does so in an inconvenient form. Never mind any counterweight you may have, you're pouring the majority of your energy into you, not your launcher and you don't have a convenient way to deal with it. Worse than that you inherit it all at once when you fling your scuba tank into space. You can't get rid of it easily, either. I mean, you could keep your scuba tank from rotating with a linkage. You would then turn it into a cocktail shaker, unfortunately, and shaking your cocktail at 107 cycles per second (never mind 450) is going to be bad for your cargo ("jerk"). But Isaac won't be cheated - the conversion between one kind of motion and another conserves momentum and there is much in this system.
I ran the numbers for Spinlaunch's actual system. This is left as an exercise for the student. What you need to know is it's at a 45m arm, it weighs 11,200 kg, it's 25 feet long and prolly 3-4 feet in diameter. It's "suicidal urge" is gobsmacking. And again. Those aren't real numbers. But there AREN'T ANY REAL NUMBERS AROUND SPINLAUNCH. In order to get to that math you're spinning a pair of orcas around a 45m circle at 450 rpm and then flinging them into the air at Mach 6. I mean, c'mon. Presume you build this thing out of rainbows and hope, dumb-ass dynamics is still slapping you down. A half-gram USB-C connector under 10,000g weighs this: Design for that. Go ahead. Design for it in not one axis, not two axes, but the transition between those two axes. Also tell me you're going to aerodynamically stabilize a two-body problem with this thing. I don't know what kinda yaw is recoverable at transsonic speeds but I'll bet those are heroic calculations, too. And it kinda feels like this is more math than has ever been done around Spinlaunch.
so holy shit y'all - the accepted rotational velocity of a frisbee is like 2300 RPM - the accepted rotational velocity of a discus is like 400 RPM - the accepted rotational velocity of a clay pigeon is 2-3000 RPM So while I'm keenly uncomfortable with the idea of a lawn dart spinning through the sky at 146 Hz is 8700 RPM, I'm 100% A-OK with a frisbee doing 2300. So... maybe the difference between the lawn dart's suicidal urge and the lawn dart's reasonable behavior is the aerodynamics of the lawn dart. This does not portend well for the rest of the math.
I remember when they were trying to put enormous flywheels in the floor of public buses, which would be the source of motive power. Electromagnets under the ground at each stop were to recharge the spin of the flywheel. (Short version.) There was much concern expressed about the safety of an enormous piece of steel under the floorboards spinning at thousands of RPMs, and what could happen to the passengers in the event of a hardware failure or accident. I seem to remember the were going to address the problem with some sort of graphite flywheel that would basically explode into a giant ball of harmless thread in the event the flywheel failed for any reason. Spinning wheel, WHOOMPF, flywheel chamber full of graphite thread. Now... hear me out here... if the throwing arm in the SpinLaunch design is DESIGNED to explode into a cloud of graphite threads immediately upon release of the projectile.... does that burn off the energy left in the system after the projectile exits the building? Could that be a design feature to address some of the issues left behind once the launch happens? Ok, yeah, it's a stupid thought experiment. But then so is SpinLaunch and it EXISTS. I'd like to at least think someone in one of those rooms has wondered what happens to the arm once it releases...? Someone? Anyone...? Hello? Is this thing on...?
Lol yeah the gyrobus and its lesser-known younger brother, the General Electric Battle Top. Here's the problem: GE's clever idea was to dissipate 1.5 tons spinning at 10,000 RPM through explosive disintegration. That's 373 kJ of bad news. A couple pounds of TNT is 4200 kJ worth of bad news so converting your spinning war top of doom into explosive force, without conversion, is a quarter stick of dynamite. More or less. Work with me here. Spinlaunch, on the other hand, is at about 800,000 kJ assuming the arm that's flinging it has no mass. Assume we're just talking about the counterbalance - we get to dissipate the energy of one of these in our hypercentrifuge every time we fire it up. Again, assuming unicorns and rainbows, massless masses, perfect conversion, la la la la la. They'll want to move the office methinks.
Funny, I didn't even know about the GyroBus! The one I was thinking of was in the 2000's, and I can't find a link to it any more. I think the City of Seattle was looking into them, when I was with the Pioneer Square Community Association. Seems like we saw a presentation on this possible technology being used in Seattle transit buses. Google told me about this older Williams Racing project which used a flywheel as a power-assist in traditional ICE-powered vehicles, too:
On paper? It would. From conservation of (angular) momentum, it'd be a cloud of slower-moving (spinning) particles colliding with the walls of the chamber. From conservation of energy, it'd dissipate in a plethora of ways, but IMO mostly increase in temperature. Depending on the amount of energy to dissipate, if it were made from carbon like in your example, you might end up with friction lightning creating stuff like buckyballs, but mostly chain (=C=C=C=) or cyclic (same, but connect beginning with end) allotropes. Now, if you're asking if this is at all practical or doable...Now... hear me out here... if the throwing arm in the SpinLaunch design is DESIGNED to explode into a cloud of graphite threads immediately upon release of the projectile.... does that burn off the energy left in the system after the projectile exits the building? Could that be a design feature to address some of the issues left behind once the launch happens?
We'll use Tosser to accelerate carbon and make our own nanotubes, dammit! I even know how to get all the carbon we'd need for free: adopt legions of christian children, convince them to act naughty, collect the coal from their stockings. Use said legions as minions. We may be past Bond, but I can still turn it into Johnny English.
Just got off the phone with marketing, here are our two strongest slogan options: JAMES Dissociate." or MOLECULAR Bond." I think maybe the second, the first one maybe makes it sound like our company is destructive or bad."The name's Dissociate...
"It's Bond...
Yup, basically the same company. Watching that gud ol' Texasboi talk a lil' shit brought a tear to my smiling eye. It's unironically called "Not a Flamethrower" and is a piss-poor flamethrower. Closer to a butane torch, really. It feels really bad to churn out all this satirical content, only to be vastly, repeatedly outdone by Master Musk. But I'm busy. Tomorrow I am releasing my self-driving car software update and Donald Trump's healthcare plan.
Man, it's really too late/early for this, but I suspect the problems begin around here: Angular momentum is a vector quantity, and it's almost too easy to lose track of components and frames of reference even without not only having a wrong formula for L, but a wrong formula for the magnitude of L. On a first glance, your model can be simplified to a rod spun a distance r around an axis, parallel axis theorem style, but I'm gonna take this one in pieces. Updates inbound.KE = 1/2 Iomega^2. SHIT. Frickin' moments of inertia? I = L/omega. L = M x V x R. Uhhhm, M is mass is 1kg. V is angular velocity. R is radius around the centroid - hey we got all this shit!
L = r x p (L, r, p vectors) ; p = m * v (p and v vectors) |L| = m * r * v * sin(angle between component vectors r and v)