From 22 October, da man Zim points to SpinLaunch. This is Jules Verne's notion to defeat Tsiolkovsky: blast the cargo from Earth's surface (or maybe from a balloon; single-use highflying ramjet is never going to be a thing) on a ballistic trajectory toward something higher-up which can catch it. Also a notion of, er... Saddam Hussein.
That's 981 km/s2 at the surface, 200 kg at a time, to be fired up at 2235 m/s. That is not full Escape Velocity as I recall exploring here a couple years ago, but it is good enough for LEO.
Of course most organics and, for that matter, electronics won't survive a 981 km/s2 pounding; Rocket Lab (e.g.) ain't dead yet. And I'd be leery of nuclear material near the critical-mass. But SpinLaunch claim some <200 kg satellites can handle this. If from a balloon, SpinLaunch can hire Rocket Lab to retrieve said balloon and the launcher.
For the future, as Zim points out, initial "jerk" won't matter for nonfragile material like chemical fuel if said fuel is sequestered from anything as might react with it. As for nuclear, we're only sending HALEU from our gravity-well.
I could envision, also, stations in orbit rocketing supplies 200 kg at a time into higher orbital tiers. The issue is in how to dispose of the lowest tier.
UH OH 12/3: It's run by the Yaney brothers.
No comments:
Post a Comment