SD45T-2
Senior Jr.
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A Startup Just Launched A Rocket By Spinning It Really Fast And Then Letting Go
Why carry tons of fuel to launch out of the earth's atmosphere when you can just be flung?
jalopnik.com
One of the brutal truths about getting things off the Earth and into space is contained in something called The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, which, to put it absurdly simply, means that most of the volume of a rocket leaving Earth will be needed for fuel. That’s why the rockets you see are huge towers of fuel and oxidizer with just a little area up top for the payload. A startup company called SpinLaunch is hoping to work around this grim equation by spinning rockets really, really fast in a circle.
I'm pretty curious about how they plan to keep the rotating assembly balanced both before and after releasing the payload.