Re: [Phys-L] SpinLaunch

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 12/17/22 8:59 AM, Timothy Folkerts via Phys-l asked:

>   As the projectile spins up to speed, it is also rotating about its own
> axis at the same rate. 

Not necessarily.

You could put the projectile on a swivel, so that it has
angular momentum about the center of the centrifuge but
no angular momentum about its on center-of-mass.

Example: Each basket on a Ferris wheel circulates around
the center of the wheel but has no angular momentum
around its own center.

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I have a different question about the project: Why bother?

The centrifuge contributes at most a few percent of the
energy required to reach orbit, and introduces a host of
problems. For starters, shortly after launch the projectile
is doing Mach 7 at low altitude, which is gonna cause huge
amounts of drag and huge amounts of heating.