Oh shit, sorry, 2,000 km/s is SpinLaunch II, when we need to start considering relativistic effects. Investors love it. But thanks, I edited my above comment, I do typically work in the thousands of km/s regime, with ~ 100 eV electrons, and bluk flows of ~ 500 km/s. Yup, even more incriminating than the aversion to explaining where their funding is coming from is indeed the lack of showcasing any modeling results. They don't even say that they've used any fluid models whatsoever. I think this could be an engineers only project. There might not be a single physics PhD floating around the company. And I wonder, after this thing goes tits up, if ex-employees will want to put it on their resume. How many of the higher-ups do you think truly believe this is possible? "Forced entry, re-imagined" is the most American thing I've heard in at least a couple weeks, thanks for that.
Hey man, as a low achieving engineer even I can see the holes in this, It's a yes-man-only project because they've gotta keep this going until the next scheme gets funded.
The only thing funnier than an "engineers only" project is a "physicists only" project. A bunch of pasty nerds writing Python routines to turn a wrench using a Raspberry Pi and 80/20 t-bars, consulting several Wrench Turning Theory textbooks. But yeah 'bl00 really blew the roof off of any doubts that this is anything but a VC scam with the links in this thread. Stick it to 'em, SpinLaunch! And then, maybe (more) jail time. But doing time won't bring the money back :).
On second thought, you could totally do this by hiring engineers to each 'own' some small component and yelling at them if they look at anything else or the system as a whole.
I dunno, man. The compartmentalization on this is gonna run into serious issues no matter how small you chop it. - We need a kinetic object to do 2200m/s in a 250m radius in a vacuum and then release - We need a 250m radius of vacuum - we need a 2200m/s release - we need 450rpm out of a 250m radius I mean, the Air Force kinda noped out of launching at hypersonic speeds. Of their two attempts, one was a near disaster and the other was a catastrophe. And that was at 80,000 feet where all they had to do was let go. Yeah, you've got stages on rockets but up until recently, doctrine was "throw the bottom one away." I'd have a hard time writing an RFQ for any part of this project, no matter how compartmentalized. Each aspect has some gonzo shit in it like "I need a stadium's worth of hard vacuum" or "I need to release thirteen oil tankers' worth of mass".
Dude I'm not willing to believe there's even any physics majors involved. I like how they spent five or six minutes talking about the magic vacuum pump that works in the regime they're absolutely never going to hit. After they spent five or six minutes talking about how mild steel outgasses which fucks you over when you're trying to draw a really hard vacuum so isn't it nice that they built everything out of mild steel because they totally never have to worry about a vacuum that hard. They just installed the pump as a conversation piece. I think if you put Adam and Jamie on this they'd probably call in an expert who would tell them to stop. ALUMINUM: 660 c SKIN TEMP OF THE SPRINT MISSILE, WHICH FORMED A PLASMA AT LAUNCH: 3,430 c Assume their lawn dart survives the hard luck of actually being released. Aluminum ignites at 2000c. The thing is a damn match the minute it hits air even if everything goes perfectly.
What is a nose cone with good heat conduction fixing? Making sure the inside cooks too, because they never made any mention of heat capacity or dissipation.