A Slingshot To Space

Rockets aren't the only way of getting payloads into space. Other methods that have been tried are balloons and giant guns. Some day maybe we'll have a space elevator. Now there's another method – a giant slingshot. 

A US company, SpinLaunch, has built a giant centrifuge that can fire a payload at more than the speed of sound. Their first test in October was successful. The idea is to give a small rocket enough velocity that a booster stage isn't required. 

SpinLaunch, a start-up that is building an alternative method of launching spacecraft to orbit, conducted last month a successful first test flight of a prototype in New Mexico.

The Long Beach, California-based company is developing a launch system that uses kinetic energy as its primary method to get off the ground – with a vacuum-sealed centrifuge spinning the rocket at several times the speed of sound before releasing.

“It’s a radically different way to accelerate projectiles and launch vehicles to hypersonic speeds using a ground-based system,” SpinLaunch CEO Jonathan Yaney told CNBC. “This is about building a company and a space launch system that is going to enter into the commercial markets with a very high cadence and launch at the lowest cost in the industry.”

It seems like a crazy idea - that centrifuge is 33 metres in diameter and spins at hundreds of revolutions per minute - but it looks like it might be a viable way of launching small payloads. Do look at the video below - it's quite amazing.