Spinlaunch... Can it succeed?

[DougSpindler]

I agree, a meteor hitting a large city would kill a lot of people, but at the same time it would create enormous opportunities for others.  When the dinosaurs were almost wiped out, it created an environment in lead to human life. Who’s knows, the next meteorite to strike Earth my create an environment in which super humans will evolve.  Would that be a bad thing?

It's interesting to postulate what the societal response would be to say New York getting wiped out completely.
Just watched Don't Look Up last night, it's a satirical take on it.

With the cliff hanger Elizebeth Holmes trail on holiday i need something to watch.  Thanks for the suggestion.

[kjpye]

When watching Don't Look Up, make sure you watch to the very end. There's a scene in the middle of the credits, and another right at the very end.

[PlainName]

Isn't that what covid was designed to do?

Seems to have been a slip twixt design and implementation.

... although bumping off the experienced older folk to leave the woke snowflakes in charge might be quite cunning.

[thinkfat]

The planet could probably do with weaker humans, more easily killed off, rather than super ones!
Or, perhaps better, longer lasting but less fertile ones.

Isn't that what covid was designed to do? 

A fatal-enough threat to get everyone vaccinated, as it is well known that the vaccination is a "kick in the groin" with a severe impact on masculinity.

[CatalinaWOW]

The planet could probably do with weaker humans, more easily killed off, rather than super ones!
Or, perhaps better, longer lasting but less fertile ones.

Isn't that what covid was designed to do? 

A fatal-enough threat to get everyone vaccinated, as it is well known that the vaccination is a "kick in the groin" with a severe impact on masculinity.

In a world of man buns, metrosexuals and man purses how would you detect such an impact?

[Nusa]

I agree, a meteor hitting a large city would kill a lot of people, but at the same time it would create enormous opportunities for others.  When the dinosaurs were almost wiped out, it created an environment in lead to human life. Who’s knows, the next meteorite to strike Earth my create an environment in which super humans will evolve.  Would that be a bad thing?

It's interesting to postulate what the societal response would be to say New York getting wiped out completely.
Just watched Don't Look Up last night, it's a satirical take on it.

Even more interesting would be Washington, DC, while congress was in session. The power vacuum alone would probably overwhelm the actual tragedy.

[PlainName]

It would be worse if somewhere likke Moscow or London was taken out. Remove the feds and the states just won't have anyone to answer to, but they will still be in charge and used to doing their own thing. Take out HMG and there is no-one, although currently we'd probably be better off in that situation. Hmmm. Wonder if the aliens take requests.

[DougSpindler]

An interesting question, what group of people should nature eliminate.  Humans have had limited success in wiping out populations of people but who would we want nature to eliminate?  Americans, Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Africans,  Australians, South Americans.  Or would about politicians, super powers?  Would the world be better if we lived off the land like the Native Americans, Aborigines or African tribes?  Or are the Americans, Europeans, Chinese or Russian super powers better?   

[PlainName]

who would we want nature to eliminate?

Two possible questions in that one, and I'm not sure which you're asking (or maybe both):

1. Who do WE want to have eliminated so things get better for US.

2. Who do we think NATURE should eliminate to be shot of us.

It's tempting to pick the same result for each, but I'm not sure out choice would have the result nature might prefer.

[DougSpindler]

who would we want nature to eliminate?

Two possible questions in that one, and I'm not sure which you're asking (or maybe both):

1. Who do WE want to have eliminated so things get better for US.

2. Who do we think NATURE should eliminate to be shot of us.

It's tempting to pick the same result for each, but I'm not sure out choice would have the result nature might prefer.

Do you mean the US or “us”?
I guess what I’m asking is would the world be a better place if we were living off off the land as the Native Americans, Africans and Aboriginal people have.  Or is the world a better place with world powers such as the British Empire, and super powers like US, China, Russia which have rapped, murdered, pillaged and substantially changed the world.
     

[PlainName]

Emphasised 'us', but feel free to target a specific subset of the population

[PlainName]

world be a better place if we were living off off the land as the Native Americans, Africans and Aboriginal people have

They only managed because there were relatively few of them. There is no way the current world population could exist living off the land in the same way.

[DougSpindler]

world be a better place if we were living off off the land as the Native Americans, Africans and Aboriginal people have

They only managed because there were relatively few of them. There is no way the current world population could exist living off the land in the same way.

That is thanks to Fritz Haber and the Haber Bosch process.  Thanks to Fritz over half the world has food.  Fritz should be just as well known if not better known than Einstein had he not introduced chemical warfare in WWI and developed Zyklon gas pellets.  And yes he was Jewish.  He was an incredible chemist, as was his wife who short herself in protest over gassing soldiers.  Fritz is the one who was trying to extract gold from sea water to pay Germany’s WWI war reparations.  Sad the guy who is feeding half the world today isn’t remember for his contributions to the world.
   

[fourfathom]

On this New Year's Eve, can we all make a resolution to not be the one who aims that asteroid at the Earth?  I'm in.

[SiliconWizard]

The planet could probably do with weaker humans, more easily killed off, rather than super ones!
Or, perhaps better, longer lasting but less fertile ones.

Isn't that what covid was designed to do? 

A fatal-enough threat to get everyone vaccinated, as it is well known that the vaccination is a "kick in the groin" with a severe impact on masculinity.

In a world of man buns, metrosexuals and man purses how would you detect such an impact?

AHah, it's getting a bit out of hand - at least for an EE forum - but, believe me or not, this can get much worse than it's already is.

[Rick Law]

world be a better place if we were living off off the land as the Native Americans, Africans and Aboriginal people have

They only managed because there were relatively few of them. There is no way the current world population could exist living off the land in the same way.

In agreement to dunkemhigh's reply above, I would add: these days we have more who use single variable thinking instead of thinking dynamically with multiple variables.

A simple illustration of single variable thinking: Just prior to 2000, there was an increase in tax large luxury yachts.  Politicians were thinking, well, we are collecting 2% tax and we are getting X, if we increase it to 6%, we have 3X the income...  They never consider the fact that at 6%, far fewer people would buy luxury yachts.  The luxury yacht business was dead in a year.  Took years for that business to recover.  Single variable thinking at work.

The whole thing about living off the land is another such single variable thinking.  A recent example being former Zimbabwe, in around 1990's, the commercial farms were destroyed, broken up and turned into family farms eating what you grow.  The productivity just isn't the same^[1].  Before that, they were a food exporter to other nations, after the land redistribution, they became a net food importer with food shortages.  To their credit, they saw the light - in 2006, they started inviting the commercial farmers back with free 99 years land leases to rebuilt a commercial farming industry.  But of course with the infrastructure already destroyed, it will take them a while to debug the process and make it work.  Just back in March 2021, banks refused to accept leases as collateral, arguing that land still belongs to the State^[2].  Businesses can't work well when bank wont make loan.  So, the process debugging continues.

Reference:
[1] CNN: How Robert Mugabe killed one of Africa's richest economies
^{https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/15/news/economy/zimbabwe-economy-robert-mugabe-history/index.html}
[2] Commercial Farmers’ Union of Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe banks declare 99-year leases worthless
^{http://www.cfuzim.com/2021/03/19/zimbabwe-banks-declare-99-year-leases-worthless/}


Spinlauch is exactly the same "single variable thinking" is at work.   This faulty thinking was pointed out by CatalinaWOW in this earlier reply:

There are tons of second order problems to solve also.  You can get a glimpse with a much simpler concept.  Large rockets burn huge amounts of fuel in the first few meters of flight.  The Saturn V burned roughly 35,000 kg of fuel in the first 10 meters of motion and is still only going roughly 20 meters/second at that time.  If you just mounted the whole rocket on a hydraulic piston and shoved it the first ten meters you would save all that mass with corresponding improvements in downstream performance.

BUT, to save that fuel you have to light the fires after the piston initiates it's motion.  And in the case of a misfire you have a giant rocket heading into the air and at least partially on fire with an impact zone a few meters from the launch platform.  Space flight is exciting enough without problems like that.

Spin launches are an approach to taking the weight of initial velocity production out of the rocket, but this one seems most efficient at rearranging the location of cash.

As long as we do not think about the other variables, a lot of things seem to make sense, but once we put those other variables in play, the whole thing collapsed.  I am afraid Spinlaunch, and many other fads of day such as "we can all bike to work to save the environment", are merely a black hole for money and productivity leaving us worst off, and disfunctional.

[DougSpindler]

I am still waiting for one of the bike to work enthusiasts who are willing to have their mother of grandmother do it.  Especially if they live in one of the northern states in the winter or southwest states in the summer.

[Nusa]

I am still waiting for one of the bike to work enthusiasts who are willing to have their mother of grandmother do it.  Especially if they live in one of the northern states in the winter or southwest states in the summer.

I'm sure there are thousands of examples that meet that criteria; you just aren't looking for them so you can claim they don't exist.

My father was an avid cyclist for the last 35 years of his life. His health slowed him down at age 87, but until then a 10+ mile bike ride was something he did all the time. Plenty of hills, too.

[fourfathom]

I am still waiting for one of the bike to work enthusiasts who are willing to have their mother of grandmother do it.  Especially if they live in one of the northern states in the winter or southwest states in the summer.

Nobody is demanding that *everybody* ride bikes to work.  Why do we try to apply binary "all or none" thinking to these problems?  Improvements are usually made at the margins, and the best ones slowly work their way to towards the center.

And I drive an internal combustion car.

[DougSpindler]

I am still waiting for one of the bike to work enthusiasts who are willing to have their mother of grandmother do it.  Especially if they live in one of the northern states in the winter or southwest states in the summer.

Nobody is demanding that *everybody* ride bikes to work.  Why do we try to apply binary "all or none" thinking to these problems?  Improvements are usually made at the margins, and the best ones slowly work their way to towards the center.

And I drive an internal combustion car.

Something is telling me you are are a 20-35 year old.  These snowflakes can only think in binary…. We need to go what’s good for the planet.  As in everyone should be driving EVs.  Everyone should be riding bikes.  Everyone should be eating vegan.  We need to rid the world of plastics. 

[fourfathom]

Something is telling me you are are a 20-35 year old.  These snowflakes can only think in binary…. We need to go what’s good for the planet.  As in everyone should be driving EVs.  Everyone should be riding bikes.  Everyone should be eating vegan.  We need to rid the world of plastics.

Actually, I recently turned 68.  But emotionally I'm about 14, so on average you're pretty close.

[DougSpindler]

Something is telling me you are are a 20-35 year old.  These snowflakes can only think in binary…. We need to go what’s good for the planet.  As in everyone should be driving EVs.  Everyone should be riding bikes.  Everyone should be eating vegan.  We need to rid the world of plastics.

Actually, I recently turned 68.  But emotionally I'm about 14, so on average you're pretty close.

So you are an analog person trapped in the body of a binary person.

[bdunham7]

https://bgr.com/science/nasa-will-test-spinlaunchs-suborbital-accelerator-which-flings-satellites-into-orbit/

[PlainName]

Revisiting this, my second thought on seeing the photo was: shouldn't the tube be at an angle? You don't want the payload to go straight up because it'll come straight down again (or disappear forever).

Then I noticed the discussion of needing less fuel, which implies that they still need some fuel and having rocket fuel slosh around at 10Kg doesn't sound ultra-safe to me (I am not a rocket scientist so happy to be told it's 'normal').

But then I got back to the launch angle. If they go straight up they will need significant fuel to get moving in an orbital direction at speed, so an angled launch would still be beneficial. OTOH, they would encounter more drag (or drag for longer) which may outweigh that benefit.

Perhaps the real thing would be angled and with this one they just don't want to coming down outside their park.

[DougSpindler]

Revisiting this, my second thought on seeing the photo was: shouldn't the tube be at an angle? You don't want the payload to go straight up because it'll come straight down again (or disappear forever).

Then I noticed the discussion of needing less fuel, which implies that they still need some fuel and having rocket fuel slosh around at 10Kg doesn't sound ultra-safe to me (I am not a rocket scientist so happy to be told it's 'normal').

But then I got back to the launch angle. If they go straight up they will need significant fuel to get moving in an orbital direction at speed, so an angled launch would still be beneficial. OTOH, they would encounter more drag (or drag for longer) which may outweigh that benefit.

Perhaps the real thing would be angled and with this one they just don't want to coming down outside their park.

In reality it doesn’t matter as the people at Spinlaunch “think” the laws of physics do not apply to them.



And if that’s not enough proof,, here’s more.