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"Slingatron" To Hurl Payloads Into Orbit
cylonlover writes "People have been shooting things into space since the 1940s, but in every case this has involved using rockets. This works, but it's incredibly expensive with the cheapest launch costs hovering around $2,000 per pound. This is in part because almost every bit of the rocket is either destroyed or rendered unusable once it has put the payload into orbit. Reusable launch vehicles like the SpaceX Grasshopper offer one way to bring costs down, but another approach is to dump the rockets altogether and hurl payloads into orbit. That's what HyperV Technologies Corp. of Chantilly, Virginia is hoping to achieve with a 'mechanical hypervelocity mass accelerator' called the slingatron."
Have they actually studied physics? This project is so bogus on multiple levels:
1) It's much easier to use a linear accelerator. It won't have to deal with tremendous loads from centrifugal forces, for one thing.
2) Acceleration will be murderous for anything that's not a solid material.
3) And finally, it still won't work even if a payload is accelerated to orbital speed. That's because the payload would re-enter the atmosphere and return to the point where it left the accelerator at the end of its first orbit - that's simple freaking orbital mechanics. And you need quite a bit of delta-v to lift the perigee high enough to avoid it, which requires a rocket with an engine, see 2) why it's not feasible.
A surprisingly large amount of stuff sent into low earth orbit and even geosynchronous orbit consists of fuel and oxidiser. The Shuttle launched with over 14 tonnes of manoeuvering fuel and oxidiser on board for the OMS and RCS motors. That's 14 tonnes that couldn't be dedicated to payload, food, water etc. Similarly a geosynchrononous satellite weighing 6 tonnes will be carrying two or three tones of fuel and oxidiser so it can maneuver into its final orbit and allow it to maintain station for a decade or more. Some GEO birds have been decommissioned when they nearly ran out of fuel, not because they broke down or became obsolete.
Using a slingshot or other brute-force technique to put tanks of fuel and oxidiser into orbit cheaply could well be worthwhile; robot tugs could collect them into a tank farm of some kind in a higher orbit and then deliver fuel and oxidiser to various vehicles as needed rather than them having to lift their entire fuel and oxidiser loads along with delicate electronics, structural components for Mars landers, fleshy meatbags etc.