Ryaja Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 I think In KSP 2 we should be able to launch rockets to space with parts made to spin at extremely high speeds, It would be fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ember12 Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 It would be fun, but the physics would be problematic; with a launcher 100 meters in radius, just getting to Minmus orbital velocity (150 m/s) would mean that before release, whatever you're firing would be under 225 m/s^2 of centripetal force, or about 23 g's, which is certainly more than a human can handle for a reasonable time, and probably beyond the ability of many (human-made) rocket parts as well. Launching from the Mun with the same 100-meter spin launcher would exert 308 g's, and something like that on Kerbin would exert over five thousand g's. Right now KSP is okay with absurdly high g-forces on many parts, but that's a big hit to realism which I hope will be addressed in the second game. This force could be reduced by increasing the radius of the launcher, but 100 meters is already pretty big for something that has to spin so fast. While these would be workable on tiny worlds like Gilly, producing a mere 2.9 g's with 100m radius, given how easy it is to orbit tiny worlds like that by conventional means, I don't think that spin-launchers would be worth the effort of including. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryaja Posted September 10, 2022 Author Share Posted September 10, 2022 6 hours ago, Ember12 said: It would be fun, but the physics would be problematic; with a launcher 100 meters in radius, just getting to Minmus orbital velocity (150 m/s) would mean that before release, whatever you're firing would be under 225 m/s^2 of centripetal force, or about 23 g's, which is certainly more than a human can handle for a reasonable time, and probably beyond the ability of many (human-made) rocket parts as well. Launching from the Mun with the same 100-meter spin launcher would exert 308 g's, and something like that on Kerbin would exert over five thousand g's. Right now KSP is okay with absurdly high g-forces on many parts, but that's a big hit to realism which I hope will be addressed in the second game. This force could be reduced by increasing the radius of the launcher, but 100 meters is already pretty big for something that has to spin so fast. While these would be workable on tiny worlds like Gilly, producing a mere 2.9 g's with 100m radius, given how easy it is to orbit tiny worlds like that by conventional means, I don't think that spin-launchers would be worth the effort of including. It would not have to be orbital velocity, you can put separate engines on the rocket for when it is in space Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kspnerd122 Posted September 25, 2022 Share Posted September 25, 2022 Spin launchers are kinda bad for launching to orbit, its a LOT more simple to just use a mass driver for low G planets and then for higher G planets its easier to just use a nuclear jet + fusion engine system, and no, we arent using skyhooks, because they arent as useful as they seem, mass drivers on the other hand are electrical, and the thing is, with a nuclear jet, most of the energy to climb out of the gravity well is effectively free to you, you dont need fuel to do it, and also, with KSPs smaller scale, a nuclear jet can reach 2 km/s and then you have such a tiny orbital insertion that its not worth it to use and maintain a skyhook. Even on planets like mars, building a mass driver would work alright, since the air is so thin ya may as well just stick a railgun on top of olympus mons and fire bulk cargo into orbit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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