Originally published at: Like engineers fleeing a phallic-shaped rocket… | Boing Boing
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Space is so unforgiving, somebody tell them.
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In space, nobody can hear you scream.
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“After being forced to ensure his safe return I have realised I can no longer work here in good faith.”
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Are you implying the Moon landing was faked?
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On the subject of jobs in rocketry there’s a local rocket launch company near me that’s been hiring a lot of folks. Their launch design is a bit… different from others. They are trying to build a huge centrifuge that would spin the rocket around super fast and then fling it towards space like Superman doing the hammer throw.
They’re asking applicants to submit videos of home projects to demonstrate their creativity, etc. I’m not looking for a new job but I’m tempted to apply anyway just because I have the perfect video. I basically already built their launch system:
Just needs a release mechanism and a bit more speed…
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Have they tried the burbs of Phoenix, Az?
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Launching via centrifuge seems like a terrible idea
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That noise was his joke being launched by centrifuge over your head…
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Now I’m having a flashback about a kid who got sick on a ride like that at the shore. He was on the opposite side from me, and there was enough force to ruin his own shirt instead of the kids nearby. 
Wonder how they’ll handle that possibility?
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Hope my visual adds to the amusement! 
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Well at 10,000 g’s vomiting would be the least of your concerns.
(It’s not meant for launching manned spacecraft, but there’s obviously a lot of skepticism that even extremely robust satellites could survive those kinds of forces.)
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Phallic-shaped rocket? It’s so like Dr Flexi Jerkoff’s rocket from the 1974 film ‘Flesh Gordon’ that I am surprised there aren’t copyright issues. Maybe that’s what NASA is afraid of?
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Those are bonkers huge g-forces. People have survived 100g deceleration, and anti-aircraft WW2 proximity fuses survived 500g at launch. This is much bigger than that, because it is travelling in a relatively small circle; you could drop the forces a bit by making the circle larger. But what happens when you let go? Either your whirly thing is going to be massively unbalanced, or it will have to release an equal mass going in the opposite direction.
I would have thought firing from a cannon had to be a better option. See… Project HARP - Wikipedia
Correct, releasing a counterweight at the same instant is part of their plan. Not sure where the counterweight will go, exactly. I guess into a deep hole with a big area for absorbing huge kinetic impacts?
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Um, the first half of Otherbrother’s post cited a real not-joke company trying to build a real not-joke centrifuge to launch things into space…
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Which was why he made a post about his obviously spaceworthy launch system?
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He cited the real company before making a joke about his DIY thingamajig. The response was not about the joke DIY thingamajig, it was about the idea of using a centrifuge to launch stuff into space. Which is what the real company wants to do.
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