How is the payload going to survive the enormous centrifugal force that would unavoidably accompany the process of achieving escape velocity prior to launch via trebuchet?
A shoulder held version of this would be legal to own in New Jersey... for about 10 minutes.
Not only are the forces enormous, this thing will take hours to get up to speed.
“How is the payload going to survive the enormous centrifugal force that would unavoidably accompany the process of achieving escape velocity prior to launch via trebuchet?”
The G forces aren’t the obstacle some seem to think for many payloads. Spinlaunch has done a lot of testing, and even cell phones have survived 10,000 Gs when suitably supported.
Also, this concept is extremely well suited for use in a vacuum...say on the lunar surface. It is a low power, low cost, high volume system.
I do agree that without very careful engineering the full-scale Mach 7 system has the potential for spectacular accidents...
BTW, to address a few other comments, this isn’t intended for full orbital velocity. It replaces the first stage, there’s still a second stage motor on the projectile.