America's new race into space with spin launch the problem with getting things into orbit has always been the rocket equation that is the vast majority of what it takes to get a rocket beyond our atmosphere is fuel more than 90 percent of it but what if in fact most of that fuel is not actually needed I think it's gonna be 105 today welcome to the high desert of New Mexico in a remote Valley of New Mexico Beyond Gates that look like they're straight out of a science fiction movie an object that seems like alien technology Towers above the terrain 2.2 million tons of steel and a little bit taller than the Statue of Liberty that's right this is a33 short for accelerator 33 and it's the world's largest diameter vacuum chamber it's the brainchild of Jonathan Yaney founder and CEO of spin launch so we're standing here underneath the vacuum chamber this is the main launch vehicle loading door okay one of the really interesting features about this particular system is that it's on Hydraulics and the entire system can rotate yani's company has been at it since 2014 but most of the construction on this project took place during the coveted years it's an idea designed for a new space age that relies in a concept that dates back to the Stone Age the sling this is essentially a sling launch system which you know we were using to hunt with 50 000 years ago it's it's simply using modern materials and encased in in a large vacuum chamber so what you have is you have an arm that you know slowly rotates around and around driven by an electric motor and once the tip velocity is sufficient for it to be able to carry a spacecraft into space we simply let go and it travels outside of the vacuum chamber through the atmosphere in about 30 seconds into space the sling in this case is a carbon fiber tether which spins the launch vehicle or projectile until it hits 5 000 miles an hour sending it through an airtight membrane hurtling towards space and eliminating the need to lift all that fuel used in traditional Rockets launching in three two one all new forms of transportation usually seem kind of crazy whether it's a suspension bridge a train an airplane you know even the automobile and we arrive at these new Innovative methods through the process of experimentation to reach the necessary speed the tether has to operate in a vacuum over here you have a bank of low vacuum mechanical pumps which extract the sort of first amount of air and then you have the very very large High vacuum pump which uses an entirely different type of non-mechanical process to extract the remaining molecules of air out of the chamber allowing you to achieve High vacuum which allows us to go Hypersonic speeds here at sea level so you have zero air in there when it's launched about one one thousandth of atmosphere correct Yani was inspired in part by a 1960s U.S military program that tried using very large guns to send projectiles into space the program was eventually abandoned but yani's been obsessed with all things Aeronautics since he was a kid including flying I was sitting on my mom's lap when I was like three years old holding the controls like learning how to fly so I've kind of been flying sessions my whole life on some level you know applying in the sky you look up to space there and I think it always brought to me that we went to the Moon but then we like stopped we just sort of never went back it's like we were you know as a civilization we're promised that we're gonna have you know we're gonna have all this expansion of space and that's just it just proved to be astronomically expensive I would love it if we could just give them some win maybe I mean you can knock them over that's fine too if you want to welcome to the belly of the Beast yayni took us inside the launcher from here we climbed to see the motor that provides the circulating force or Torque so this entire shaft is spinning into the vacuum chamber and there's a seal around it which prevents the air the passage of air around it so it is a relatively straightforward Industrial Systems that combine relatively straightforward to create something truly truly unique team Jonathan here go ahead and begin the test rotation now how fast is this shaft spinning yeah this shaft will spin at about 1200 RPM here in this test facility so again fast but quite a bit slower than your automobile for example which brings us back to the projectiles which will eventually be used to transport satellites and much needed equipment into space well you want it to be heavy in the front and then you want it to be light in the back so that it is it is essentially passively stabilized it's like a dart and so you just simply throw it out at a velocity and itself guides its way on its own trajectory these are some of the projectiles they've been using a third the size of the one they hope will eventually travel nearly 40 miles above the Earth where a gas engine will engage and help complete its journey into orbit this is all about really retiring the risk around the core technology so I liken it to our Wright brothers moment you know when they flew the the very first aircraft they were you know able to fly a few thousand feet or you know then a few a few miles they certainly weren't carrying passengers across the Atlantic but it was a very very pivotal moment because you proved that the technology could work and from there you then scale and expand an added advantage this Transportation device is completely reusable making the launch system a heck of a lot easier on the planet it represents really the electrification of the space Transportation industry you know we're seeing so many of these Transportation Industries becoming electrified right now yet rockets in their inherent nature rely upon simply pushing massive amounts of combusted products out the back of the rocket it's really the only way historically to get to space so you have to employ a system like spin launch if you want to reduce the carbon footprint of space access which is incredibly important with every phase the centrifuge has gotten bigger after 10 successful launches here in New Mexico spin launch is already looking at what's next a centrifuge three times as large as a33 the spin launch Final Phase location to be determined when do you think spin launch is going to actually be putting things into orbit we're going to see spin launch putting things in orbit certainly in in the next five years is that a promise hold me to it it's hard to imagine a centrifuge being three times as large as the one that they have now since starting as tall as the Statue of Liberty they spent 150 million dollars so far to put together what they have they're talking about another 250 million they would need if they're going to build this even bigger one that would then finish the project that sounds astronomically expensive but it's probably a lot less than the old-fashioned way and part of it's a lot less yeah because of the way they're doing it also because you're not sending humans in I mean this is sending equipment and satellites right humans can't withstand tens of thousands of Genesis very cool you could have could try but Maverick and he did like he pulled like 10 G's and top gun Maverick you could do that
