Catapulte pour l’espace

SpaceX has brought down the price of delivering payloads to low earth orbit to under $3000 per kg, but even a small satellite still costs over $1 million. A company called SpinLaunch proposes to lower costs further by flinging the things into space on a giant centrifuge. At a certain altitude, a small booster engine would ignite, accelerating the payload to the 7 miles per second needed to achieve orbit. We don’t know how practical or realistic this proposal is, but this video is worth three minutes of your time.