Comment on If you had a huge slingshot, how much rubber band would you need to send a spaceship into space?
SirActionSack@aussie.zone 2 days agoI vaguely recall a rule somewhere that elastic deformation cannot exceed the speed of sound, for reasons having to do with shockwave propagation or something like that.
Can’t exceed the speed of sound in the material, not speed of sound in the atmosphere.
But that nitpick probably doesn’t change your assertion that it’s not going to work.
Actually, the (vertical) velocity of the deflected center point of the rubber band is faster than the axial contraction of the rubber band itself (at that point) which is limited by the speed of sound of the material.
Derivation: Pythagoras, chain rule
Can’t exceed the speed of sound in the material, not speed of sound in the atmosphere.
Speed of sound in the air is a serious problem as well. It would probably break most rubber bands.
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I’ve added this clarification to my comment. Thanks!
It seems that common types of rubber have a propagation speed in the range of 1.5-1.8 km/s, so we’re still quite a bit away from 10.5 km/s.