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b_b · 623 days ago · link · · parent · post: Am_u is too much of a pussy to directly link to this spectacular 42-minute puff piece on the glory that is Spinlaunch
I'm more struggling with the design of the vacuum chamber than all the other things (or at least as much, I guess). The model has a max distance of 15 m from the central axis to the edge, and if I'm not mistaken, they didn't run the big test at full vacuum, though I don't think they said what it was. The total force on the structure will scale with the square of the length, so at 45 m, it's 9x the force, while also having 3x the length in which there can be no internal supports--the max deflection in the middle is going to get saggy. Maybe they're going to put buttresses on the outside like a gothic cathedral? That could be feasible, right?