Mankind has more than half a century sends a rocket into space, but it costs a lot of money. Therefore, there is a new idea that should simplify things.
Company HyperV Technologies Corp. Virginia through Kickstarter hopes to raise money to build a high-speed mechanical accelerator masspod name Slingatron.
Invented by Derek Tidmenom in the 1990s, Slingatron replaces the rocket to more sophisticated version of a sling, made famous in the story of David and Goliath, and is still used by enthusiasts to fling pumpkins across the field.
Sling works by rotation of a circle over the user's head. Strap sling holds the stone in place, the user increases and strengthens the circular motion and in the moment of greatest maha releases one end of the sling. The limiting factors are the speed and strength of the belt. Slingatron uses a slightly different principle.
If the entire structure was trying to spin fast enough to shoot a projectile into orbit arising Slingatron forces would have torn to pieces. Instead, it acts more like a cyclotron - a very simple particle accelerator.
The project idea Slingatron theoretically functions can quite simply, the easiest way to achieve high speed without unnecessary power consumption such object rotation around a fixed point. There are several ways classic construction slingatrona: by varying the rotational speed, while keeping the same path length or path length changes while maintaining a constant speed. Slingatron concept is to unwind the entire site to run.
The purpose of the project - the construction of a sufficiently large Slingatron, to fire a projectile at 7km/sek (15,600 miles / hour, 25,000 km / h), which will be enough to achieve orbit. A lot of this project cannot be expected, because in contrast to the rocket ships, he cannot run people into orbit, but the fit to sending goods, materials and supplies.
The company hopes to raise the sum of $ 250,000 for the construction of Slingatron 5, the diameter of which is 5 meters (160.4 feet). It is intended to launch the projectile weighing 0.25 pounds (113 g) at speed 1 km / s (0.62 m / s), then one pound (453 g) load at a speed of 2 km / s (1.24 miles / c). In the end, the developers are hoping that this will lead to a full-scale version Slingatron, capable of launching cargo into orbit.