/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12557488
>Post your insane ideas
Dyson Trebuchet - High mass anchor station in orbit around a star with a long armature connecting it to another, low mass station in higher orbit. Ships dock with the anchor station, attach to the armature, are ferried out to a particular distance from the anchor and released during their launch window at near-relativistic velocities.

Same physical concept as using space elevators on moons and shit for unfueled launches, but on a solar-scale.

>>12527732
Dyson Trebuchet - Massive anchor station in a circular orbit with a comparatively low-mass launch station held in the radial direction at the end of an armature several hundred thousand/million kilometers long

Back of the envelop calculation, if the anchor station has an orbital radius, R and the armature has a length L, then the tangential velocity of an object leaving the launch station is of order
v ~ sqrt(GM/R)*(1+L/R) ~ c*sqrt(rs/2R)*(1+L/R)

So your ship makes a typical transfer to rendezvous with the anchor station, is locked onto a guide-rail of sorts running the length of the armature, and then simply drifts to the end of the line via centripetal forces until it reaches the end and is released at near-relativistic velocities.