• superkret@feddit.org
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    23 days ago

    This is just investor bait.

    Remarkably, this process eliminates the need for rocket fuel

    No, it doesn’t. It’s physically impossible to fling something into orbit from earth.
    You can fling it into space, but you need a circularization burn or it will just fall back down.
    And since you can’t accelerate anything past Mach 5 or so inside the atmosphere, the circularization burn will need to be 90% of the delta V.

    • arandomthought@sh.itjust.works
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      23 days ago

      Thanks for the detail! I thought it should definitely be possible in theory to throw something into orbit. But you’re right, I didn’t think of the atmosphere and its friction. You would also have to throw at a very flat angle so theres a lot of atmosphere for your projectile to pass through.

      • superkret@feddit.org
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        23 days ago

        Even without air friction, and no matter how flat you throw it, you’d always throw it into an elliptical “orbit”. But the lowest point of the ellipse would still be on the surface, no matter how high the upper end is.
        So it would always come back down, unless you give it another push at the highest point (in space).

        If you just throw it even faster, you’ll hit escape velocity and it would leave earth entirely.

        • arandomthought@sh.itjust.works
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          23 days ago

          Makes sense as well. So the projectiles they throw not only have to be able to withstand the launch and release the payload, but they also have to be functioning rockets to allow for a circulation burn…

          Well good luck to them.

          Edit: I think I had that animation in mind where the canon shoots a canon-ball into a circular orbit (don’t remember where I saw it), but I guess that’s impossible, too, then. >.<