Vast Acquires Launcher In Quest To Build Artificial Gravity Space Stations (techcrunch.com) 48
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Vast Space, a company that emerged from stealth last September with the aim of building artificial gravity space stations in low Earth orbit, has acquired space tug startup Launcher, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The acquisition, a first for Vast, will give the company access to Launcher's Orbiter space tug and payload platform and its liquid rocket engine, E-2. Under the terms of the deal, Vast will also absorb all of Launcher's talent, including Launcher founder Max Haot, who will join as president. The two companies told TechCrunch that the deal has been in the works for months, with both signing a Letter of Intent to acquire back in November.
The deal could be a big accelerator for Vast; the company's founder, billionaire crypto pioneer Jed McCaleb, said Vast will use the Orbiter tug to test space station subsystems and components in orbit as soon as June of this year, and then again around October. Those two missions, which will be Orbiter's second and third flights, will also carry customer payloads. Vast will continue to operate Orbiter as a commercial product; Haot said they had more than five customer contracts and are signing more. Haot added that the space tug's abilities, like approaching and moving away from spacecraft and hosting payloads, as well as its technologies like flight software, avionics and guidance, navigation and control systems will complement development of the space station. "The two companies declined to provide much more detail about the upcoming missions using Orbiter, nor did they offer any detail about future timelines for development, partnerships or form factor of the station," notes TechCrunch. "But they did say that the first station the company sends to space will be zero G, with artificial gravity stations following."
More generally, McCaleb said that acquisitions are not part of Vast's larger strategy. "Acquisitions typically go pretty wrong," he said. "For the most part, the combined team now plus a few more folks, we'll be able to do quite a bit."
The deal could be a big accelerator for Vast; the company's founder, billionaire crypto pioneer Jed McCaleb, said Vast will use the Orbiter tug to test space station subsystems and components in orbit as soon as June of this year, and then again around October. Those two missions, which will be Orbiter's second and third flights, will also carry customer payloads. Vast will continue to operate Orbiter as a commercial product; Haot said they had more than five customer contracts and are signing more. Haot added that the space tug's abilities, like approaching and moving away from spacecraft and hosting payloads, as well as its technologies like flight software, avionics and guidance, navigation and control systems will complement development of the space station. "The two companies declined to provide much more detail about the upcoming missions using Orbiter, nor did they offer any detail about future timelines for development, partnerships or form factor of the station," notes TechCrunch. "But they did say that the first station the company sends to space will be zero G, with artificial gravity stations following."
More generally, McCaleb said that acquisitions are not part of Vast's larger strategy. "Acquisitions typically go pretty wrong," he said. "For the most part, the combined team now plus a few more folks, we'll be able to do quite a bit."
so 2001 is here (Score:2)
Will it be a large rotating cylinder? There have been reasons given why it has not been tried before but I can't think of any....
Re:so 2001 is here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: so 2001 is here (Score:1)
Re: so 2001 is here (Score:4, Funny)
Elon'll build the first one that doesn't suck but it'll require a couple hundred Starship flights.
He's busy with critically important things like Twitter. Making certain that people with his philosophy have a platform to share their philosophy of love and tolerance.
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Elon'll build the first one that doesn't suck but it'll require a couple hundred Starship flights.
He's busy with critically important things like Twitter. Making certain that people with his philosophy have a platform to share their philosophy of love and tolerance.
You better call SpaceX and give them this critically important information, because apparently they're getting ready to test launch Starship. https://spacenews.com/spacex-p... [spacenews.com]
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Elon'll build the first one that doesn't suck but it'll require a couple hundred Starship flights.
He's busy with critically important things like Twitter. Making certain that people with his philosophy have a platform to share their philosophy of love and tolerance.
You better call SpaceX and give them this critically important information, because apparently they're getting ready to test launch Starship. https://spacenews.com/spacex-p... [spacenews.com]
You better learn what a non sequitur is. And either laugh at my joke or visit your doctor for some blood pressure meds.
Because one of my favorite activities is trolling cult members.
Spacex is merely building on the century plus old modern rocket technology - not much that it does in the field of candles is just tweaking the V2 rocket design, and lately, building the N1 rocket reboot. Put a boatload of engines on a big can, whatever could go wrong. Single stage to orbit - stupid NASA couldn't figure that
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If Elon upsets you, it just means you were in need of it.
Think homeopathy.
Talk about getting it wrong. I do occasionally like to troll, and troll hard in some cases. And there is no cult member quick to go ree like a Muskovite. They don't like it when I make fun of the smartest man in any room. Hint - I'm more making fun of them.
It's not quite the same as my traditional Saturday Night CurbStomping, reserved for the dumestamungus, but it'll do, yes it'll do Elon does not upset me - he is grist for my mill, as are his sycophants.
Your reply in itself tickles my gizzard, my wizard
Re: so 2001 is here (Score:1)
dumestamungus
That's almost awesome; I'll have to plagiarize that one.
Elon does not upset me - he is grist for my mill, as are his sycophants.
I absolutely love how he's upset the launch industry; I've also been eagerly awaiting viable EV's since the days of the Tamiya Grasshopper/Hornet.
However, anyone pushing self-driving and/or rectangular steering yokes is letting their childhood experience watching Knight Rider affect their judgment.
I'm not political but what he's done for the DNC by yanking their pants down like that and revealing their censorship: fucking priceless. Considering that
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dumestamungus
That's almost awesome; I'll have to plagiarize that one.
You are quite welcome to it.
Elon does not upset me - he is grist for my mill, as are his sycophants.
I absolutely love how he's upset the launch industry; I've also been eagerly awaiting viable EV's since the days of the Tamiya Grasshopper/Hornet.
I'm picking up a new Jeep this week. I'm a bit annoyed they don't have EV's yet. They have hybrids, but just on the Grand Cherokee and one other big one. I don't want a big Jeep. I prefer smaller rides - if you ever are offroading, big is not better.
Anyone pushing self-driving and/or rectangular steering yokes is letting their childhood experience watching Knight Rider affect their judgment.
I like passive help. Lane assist is nice, and in my Wife's Jeep, the front radar is goo
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It affects the way objects behave when dropped or thrown too. On Earth everything takes a whole day to do one rotation. You might be able to minimize it by having a really, really big diameter. Maybe two hubs tethered together, but then you need more active stability control.
That said, even a small amount of gravity is helpful. Helps prevent muscles deteriorating, and makes all sorts of things easier. Stuff stays put for the most part, instead of floating off due to tiny vibrations in the vehicle.
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Essentially you are correct. Also the smaller the diameter the faster it must spin to create useful gravity. Anything over 2 RPM, and humans also start to get sick. The optimum diameter is 224m with a 2 RPM rate, to produce 1 G.
Re: so 2001 is here (Score:1)
Will it be a large rotating cylinder?
Remarkable prescience; how'd you know??
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Spin da Drum! [youtube.com]
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Which, as people have described below, seems like a bad idea. I get the issue with size, but this feels a bit too small. You'd be better off with a torus shape, where the center of the rotation is essentially a negative space, and the people experiencing rotational gravity are feeling a more consistent effect as they'd be further away from the rotational center. The first thing i thought of when I read this was getting dizzy just looking out the window and watching
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Larger would be better, whether a torus or barbell or whatever. But something substantially larger than about 100 m would be breaking new ground: the ISS is about the size of a football (US or world) field/pitch. I'm not sure that this small startup is in a position to make that new development.
I'm also willing to be pleasantly surprised if t
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Even if I didn't look outside the window, I wonder how my circulation system and sense of balance would adapt to a significant Coriolis force acting on my blood as it is pumped around my body.
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Coriolis acceleration goes as omega x v where omega is the angular velocity the cylinder is spinning at and v is the velocity of the object with respect to the rotating frame (and 'x' is cross product). So, if you're not moving (or moving along the axis) there is no Coriolis acceleration.
We know the centrifugal acceleration (yes, centrifugal since we are talking about a rotating frame and the 'apparent force' we feel because we're in such a frame): omega^2 * R. if we want earth gravity then omega = sqrt(9.8
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What you say is true regarding motion. But even if you are stationary, the Coriolis is acting on the blood flowing in your arteries and veins.
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ah, yes. I had not thought about blood circulating which then does have a velocity in the rotating frame. still, though, the acceleration goes at best as omega * v. What is the velocity of blood? Since it's a closed system, I'm guessing the net force is close to zero... unless one is asymmetrical ;)
Spaceflight? (Score:2)
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How so? Granted, it's not gravity in that it is a force produced by two masses attracting each other in a significant way, but gravity is just an accelerated frame of reference. A spinning object is also an accelerated frame of reference. By general relativity, both are indistinguishable from each other - you cannot tell if you're in a gravitational field or in some other form of accelerated frame of reference.
The only thing you can tell is that the for
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An accelerated frame of reference doesn't leave you with your head a significant fraction lighter than your feet or spin underneath you when you jump. You can throw a ball straight and exercise without getting dizzy.
But even when they make it on a scale where those effects are too small to notice, it's also simply not artificial gravity. Gravity is the attractive force between two objects caused by the curvature of spacetime as it is deformed by mass and energy. When they can actually bend spacetime to c
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"An accelerated frame of reference doesn't leave you with your head a significant fraction lighter than your feet or spin underneath you when you jump. You can throw a ball straight and exercise without getting dizzy."
It would be more accurate to say that a single accelerated frame of reference doesn't do these things. It's still accelerated frames of reference, but you get these effects because your head and feet are in different accelerated frames of reference. That's why a large radius of rotation is i
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Soy milk does not come from the teat of an animal, that is why they call it artificial milk
Similarly, artificial gravity does not need to exhibit all of the qualities of gravity, in tis case keeping your feet stuck to the floor and your muscles activated seem to be the main qualifiers.
I would support saying that centripetally generated artificial gravity is not a complete solution, rather than saying it is not artificial gravity at all
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"Similarly, artificial gravity does not need to exhibit all of the qualities of gravity, in tis case keeping your feet stuck to the floor and your muscles activated seem to be the main qualifiers."
You still don't understand. There is no difference between being in a gravity well and undergoing constant acceleration. They are both accelerated frames of reference. A person in a sealed room where things accelerate to the floor has absolutely no way to tell if this is happening because the room is being acce
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First thing, I think you missed that the poster you replied to seemed to pretty much agree with you. They were just also making the point that it does not even matter in the first place because the term "artificial gravity" is not wrong if the effect produced is not actually gravity, which is true even if the the effect produced really _is_ gravity.
You still don't understand. There is no difference between being in a gravity well and undergoing constant acceleration.
They are the same things from the point of view of the affected objects. Not when considered in total though. The effect is the same, the source is not.
It's sort
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Just to continue with the theme of being pedantic
Depending on the axis that is being used to generate the centripetal force, the subject _may_ feel some spin effect and even notice falling objects displaying sideways motion as they fall
thanks for playing
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You might want to tell Einstein about this. He will want to have a word [einstein-online.info] or two with you [youtube.com].
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No, you can have the same thing in a gravitational field as well. If you were outside the event horizon of a regular (not super massive) black hole, you too would feel the effects of differing amounts of gravity. (Inside the event horizon, well, that's what spaghettification is all about).
But if
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An accelerated frame of reference doesn't leave you with your head a significant fraction lighter than your feet or spin underneath you when you jump. You can throw a ball straight and exercise without getting dizzy.
I think you meant to say that gravity doesn't rather than accelerated frame of reference. Even if that is what you were saying, it's only true because you stuck significantly in there. Your head actually is lighter at head height than it would be on the ground. It's also even lighter at the top of a mountain. Measurably so.
Once again, you're nitpicking on the term "artificial gravity" as if people were saying "real gravity". It's not real gravity, and we all know it, and the term itself is not unreasonably
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We have the word "energy" which...
...is horribly misused by every charlatan, quack, and new-age nut job. Along with "toxin". I'd rather if "gravity" didn't start getting thrown under the bus for every quack little business venture that wants to sound futuristic. The future is now! We have artificial gravity! No thanks.
but is a currency for quantities that are fungible
Mmmm. The new hipspeak.
If you are going to toss around language like that, it's perhaps not a stretch to expect you not to misuse the word "gravity" because you don't want to work your mouth around the words "centripetal
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Emmy Noether showed that the time symmetry of various physical equations produced an invariant constant which is called energy. So, it many not exist in nature, but it is a consequence of the equations used to describe nature.
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If you have a conservative force, it also has a potential energy (mathematically the negative gradient of the potential will give you the force field). Potential energy is always measured relative to something. You currently have potential energy- from the earth, the moon, the sun, Milky Way, etc.... A non-conservative force would be friction.
Digging the hole does not 'imbue' it with potential energy. You've just given it a way for it to change it's potential energy into kinetic if you kick it into the hole
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Centripetal force is not artificial gravity. Full stop.
That's just a game of semantics and I think you're actually the one using the words wrong. It seems like you're defining "artificial gravity" as "real gravity, artificially created" which this is not. The thing is, I think you should more properly be reading is as more like "artificial strawberry flavoring", which is not "real strawberry flavoring, artificially created", it's just a simulation. Similarly, artificial gravity is just a simulation of gravity, otherwise it would be something more like "generate
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I've already replied to this, but adding another reply because I find this an interesting topic.
If the "artificial gravity" from centripetal force isn't good enough for you, then you can make a gravity machine pretty simply to make real gravity. Instead of spinning your station, build a weighted torus on the outside and spin that. Spinning it will increase its mass and you'll get real gravity inside the station. There are two problems. One is that, for the gravity to be even measurable, let alone useful, yo
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I will agree with your statement "Centripetal force is not artificial gravity" in that acceleration isn't artificial gravity. There is nothing artificial about it - acceleration and gravity are the same thing.
wrong link, experts don't care (Score:1)
Sure, the wrong link was an editor's error - but let's pretend it was a test to tell apart those who read the article (which includes at least checking the link).
So, at the time of writing this:
- seven failed
- one troll
- one passed
P.S. the link originally led to an article on Spotify, supposedly the editor will fix it
Re: wrong link, experts don't care (Score:1)
Synergy or pivot (Score:2)
It's only half Vast (Score:2)
Good news for jobs (Score:2)