sled

11.25.09

Sweating in a Winter Wonderland

Whether you bike, sled, ski, skate, or surf, here´s the best gear for frolicking in the cold

By Mark Anders Posted 01.11.2007 at 2:00 am 1 Comment

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READ MORE ABOUT > gear, goggles, sled, snow bike, winter

Spin Me Up, Scotty

Forget rockets. All you need to launch a satellite is a sled and a giant magnetic slingshot

By Stephen Handelman Posted 12.19.2006 at 2:00 am 1 Comment

Astronauts are trained to withstand as much as nine times the force of gravity. (Three Gs, by comparison, could make the average guy pass out.) But even the toughest among them fall out of the running when it comes to a launch concept from a small civilian company in Goleta, California. To survive the ride on Launchpoint Technologies´s invention, the payload has to be able to survive a brain-splattering 10,000 Gs.

The design calls for a high-speed accelerator that whips a projectile as heavy as 220 pounds around a circular 1.5-mile-radius vacuum tunnel.

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