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"Slingatron" To Hurl Payloads Into Orbit

Posted by samzenpus on from the throwing-it-out-there dept.

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."

39 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. HyperV? by mingot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are they virtualizing this?

    1. Re:HyperV? by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nobody uses HyperV for virtualization.

      --
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  2. My oh my by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Be careful if you build one on the moon, though. Those people will get uppity and use it as high ground to gain independence from the democratically-elected governments of Earth.

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    1. Re:My oh my by sweatyboatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      TANSTAAFL

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    2. Re:My oh my by jamstar7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yup. In the West, they vote with dollars. The voter with the most dollars elects their own government.

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      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    3. Re:My oh my by mrego · · Score: 3, Informative

      Some kind of Moon is a Harsh Mistress reference is needed here.

    4. Re:My oh my by Salgak1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, except that a linear accellerator, aka a mass driver, is significantly more efficient, as you don't need to spend the energy to constantly change the velocity vector of the payload. . .

    5. Re:My oh my by organgtool · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just to clarify: it's not that the person with the most dollars gets his guy into office. The system currently allows someone to contribute money to all possible candidates and without those candidates knowing that you paid their opponents as well. Since you have paid all possible parties, your views are guaranteed to be represented regardless of who wins. And then a whole bunch of people will call the voters stupid for electing these guys when the fact of the matter is that all sides were bought because the system is corrupt. I hate to sound cynical, but at this point, it really doesn't matter who you vote for in federal elections.

    6. Re:My oh my by HiThere · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sorry, but given a "plurality rules" voting system, that won't work. If a majority of votes were required, that would be a defensible tactic. This is why I favor either Condorcet voting or IRV (Instant Runoff Voting.).

      I will agree that there is no perfect way of counting votes, but plurality rules is worse than most of the options. In fact I would consider it significanlty worse than slection by lottery.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  3. Limited cargo use by stewsters · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That sounds cool for launching tungsten balls into space, but probably wont work if you put any astronauts in it.

    1. Re:Limited cargo use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the article:

      It’s questionable whether any rocket system could survive such stresses and there’s certainly no chance of a slingatron being used on a manned mission because it would turn an astronaut into astronaut pudding. Only the most solid state and hardened of satellites built along the lines of an electronic artillery shell fuse would have a chance of survival. The developers say that a larger slingatron would reduce the forces, but even with a reduction by a factor of 10,000, it would still be restricted to very robust cargoes. This makes it mainly attractive for raw materials, such as radiation shielding, fuel, water, and other raw materials.

    2. Re:Limited cargo use by tmosley · · Score: 5, Funny

      Stop anthropomorphizing space. It hates it when you do that.

    3. Re: Limited cargo use by butalearner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Space nutters... Man they are nuts.

      And yet, between the ones who want to terraform Mars tomorrow (which I will note that GP is not), and the people like you who want to kick the can down the road forever, we will make progress. Just as GP said.

      One important thing to note is that astronauts will need cargo for the foreseeable future. Just because it doesn't look like we'll ever be able to Sling people doesn't mean it's not useful to manned spaceflight.

    4. Re:Limited cargo use by Type44Q · · Score: 3

      How about use it as a burial device.

      I suppose if you pointed it at the ground... :p

    5. Re:Limited cargo use by kylemonger · · Score: 3, Informative

      Robert Forward used such tanks in Dragon's Egg, and Heinlein used them in Starship Troopers. Neither story subjected the people in the tanks 60,000g's though.

    6. Re:Limited cargo use by wagnerrp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      1 and 5, sure. 3 is iffy. 2 and 4 are out of the question.

  4. I'll save you some reading by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's a Kickstarter campaign.

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    1. Re:I'll save you some reading by Sockatume · · Score: 3, Informative

      A kickstarter for a version that'll launch 1lb loads up to a small portion of the speed of sound. You're not getting anything in to orbit on the back of this, just helping this guy make a marginally more convincing case to bigger funding agencies. Although if the physics and engineering made sense, I'm not sure why a marginally larger prototype than the ones they already have is needed.

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  5. Wonder if it can be weaponized. by ron_ivi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Anything that can launch stuff into orbit can probably also be tweaked to drop stuff literally anywhere in the world.

    Wonder if this'll turn into the poor-man's ICBM -- where you target a house of an enemy with google maps; and drop rocks on it with this 15,600 mph slingshot.

    1. Re:Wonder if it can be weaponized. by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Anything that can launch stuff into orbit can probably also be tweaked to drop stuff literally anywhere in the world.

      I don't think there's any probably to it ... if you can get something into space, you can get it pretty much anywhere you like if you can figure out the flight mechanics of it. Which is why when people do any rocket testing, people are paying close attention since a rocket and an ICBM are pretty similar -- if you can do one you can do the other.

      At those speeds, even a few kilos of mass is going to hit anything with some pretty serious force.

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    2. Re:Wonder if it can be weaponized. by flyingfsck · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, but Intercontinental Trebuchet sounds like a helluvalot of fun...

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  6. Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Funny

    So we're going with the Wile E Coyote school of engineering then?

    Awesome!!

    Might be sure your payload doesn't get any sudden G-forces it's not built for, but it sounds interesting.

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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Hmmm ... by Type44Q · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Might be sure your payload doesn't get any sudden G-forces it's not built for

      Can't be any worse than UPS. :p

  7. Cargo is expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Everything astronauts need is currently either on board or was put into orbit using expensive heavy lift rockets.

    Imagine a low cost way of getting things into space, it would be an instant game changer.

    1. Re:Cargo is expensive by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unlimited pudding rations for all ISS crew members!

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      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    2. Re:Cargo is expensive by nojayuk · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Cargo is expensive by Andrio · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah.

      Taking stuff into space requires a huge amount of energy. Right now, the stuff we sent into space has to carry its own energy, stored in fuel. Because so much energy is needed, lots of fuel is needed. But fuel is heavy, so even more energy is needed.

      Externalizing the energy source for what gets sent into space can severely lower costs of getting stuff up there. I don't know if a slingshot is the best way to do it, but at least it's thinking in the right direction.

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    4. Re:Cargo is expensive by meerling · · Score: 3, Funny

      Soylent Astropudding, just what they need. :(=

  8. Mass Drivers as Alternatives? by fuzzybunny · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Out of curiosity, why aren't mass drivers feasible for this sort of thing? You could build one up a mountainside near the equator - something like Mt. Chimborazo (6200+ meters) and drastically reduce the amount of fuel needed to get anything into space. By making the thing several kilometers long, you'd also massively lower the material strains on any craft (you probably still couldn't send humans up, but you'd have far less limits on how sensitive your cargo could be.)

    The slingshot sounds like an extremely limited tool - you'd still need a high degree of complexity for things like guidance systems and engines, because of drag you probably couldn't launch anything right into space without at least a partial boost. A mass driver would only get your cargo up to equivalent speeds once it got to the "muzzle", which would ideally be located at very high altitudes with thin air...

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    1. Re:Mass Drivers as Alternatives? by delt0r · · Score: 3, Informative

      Lets assume orbital velocity is enough and there are no loses to the atmosphere. So we need about 7500m/s. Now we can see what acceleration we need for a track "several ks long". a=v*v/(2s) =14062m/s^2. Or 1433 g's. Best not to be a fragile meat bag. Lets assume we can make a 20km track. Well that is 10x longer so we get one tenth the acceleration. Or only 140g's. 200km seems a better 14g's. Of course this 14 g's last for 53 secs. One hell of a ride.

      Real numbers would be much worse. For a muzzle V of 10km/s they are 77% worse.

      The slingshot is in fact a far less realistic approach, we could build a mag train with these specs if we were so inclined to sink the billions it would cost to do so. But the slingshot has very large forces between the "track" and the projectile while still requiring a massive track that all moves!

      Personally if we are going to dream then a launch loop is my preferred "rockets suck" alternative.

      By the way Rockets don't suck. They do what they do well. Far better than anything else at this point. There is no reason they have to be as expensive as they currently are.

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  9. If it's cheaper it's still good by Firethorn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just because you can't put astronauts or unhardened electronic/mechanical bits up with it doesn't really reduce it's value.

    If it can reduce launch costs for the stuff it can launch to around $100/pound vs $2k, it changes the dynamics even if it's just launching oxygen, water, and such to the station.

    "One true solution" arguments (it doesn't replace every use so it's useless!) don't help solve problems.

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    1. Re:If it's cheaper it's still good by mmcxii · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "One true solution" arguments (it doesn't replace every use so it's useless!) don't help solve problems.

      True but pointing out how a solution doesn't solve every aspect of every problem is what gets a post modded up around here. This reinforcement of short-sightedness keeps rearing it's ugly head with nearly every article. Thus even people who know better are still prone to postings such as this just because they know it'll be modded up. The cycle continues and we help to breed a new generation of cynics who don't think that things getting a little better today is a worthwhile goal if it's not the future promised to them by the most optimistic sci-fi stories.

      Welcome to Slashdot.

    2. Re:If it's cheaper it's still good by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Payload on a ballistic arc is worthless (**) unless you can do a subsequent burn at apogee to raise the perigee above the atmosphere. They are unlikely to be able to build a rocket that is hardened enough to survive launch, but is large enough and has enough thrust to raise perigee before it and the payload reenter and burn up.

      (** Outside of lobbing nukes at people.)

      That said, this might be more useful on a low-gravity, atmosphere-free body like the moon, where you can build the spinner much larger, and launch at a much more horizontal trajectory (improving efficiency, and making interception easier, via an orbital tether). So as long as these guys aren't wasting my money, I'm happy for them to waste their own time and money to develop and prove version 0.01a of the technology.

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      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    3. Re:If it's cheaper it's still good by cusco · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They are unlikely to be able to build a rocket that is hardened enough to survive launch, but is large enough and has enough thrust to raise perigee before it and the payload reenter and burn up.

      Why would you assume that? They built nuclear weapons in the 1950s that could survive being launched from a howitzer, there were (are?) missiles that were launched from naval 5 inch guns. The advances in engineering and materials science in the last half century would imply (to me anyway) that this shouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle.

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  10. Re:60,000Gs ? by wjh31 · · Score: 4, Informative

    did you even look? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(acceleration) its basicly the sort of acceleration a bullet undergoes, and artillery shells exist with electronics in them that are designed to survive launch.

  11. Have they studied physics? by Cyberax · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  12. Punkin Chunkin by kmahan · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wonder how far it can throw a pumpkin?

    http://www.punkinchunkin.com/

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  13. See? Pumpkin chuckin' is useful. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Funny

    How many people laughed at all the rednecks creating weird contraptions to hurl pumpkins down a harvested field in Discovery channel? Now who is laughing, eh? When space travel is commercialized and you are crammed into the economy class seat of the commuter plane to mars, you may have to thank Bill "1 gallon" Schwarzenhammer, winner of Pumkin Chunkin 2021, who was the first one to hurl a pumpkin all the way to Moon, more known for his ability to gulp down 1 gallon of beer without pausing for breath.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  14. I see an obvious problem with this concept: heat by Ihlosi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The payload heats up quite a bit through friction - and then ends up in space, where basically the only way of getting rid of excess heat is radiating it away (slowly).

    This is quite unlike atmospheric braking and descent, where the heat can easily be dissipated by convection once the payload has slowed down enough.