Alphabet, Airbus lead $40 million investment in a space catapult

Flying cars. Cures for death. And now ... space catapults. Bless you, California, for not letting reality get you down.

On Thursday, a Silicon Valley start-up called SpinLaunch Inc. will reveal the first details of its plans to build a machine meant to hurl rockets into space. To achieve that goal, SpinLaunch has secured $40 million from some top technology investors, said Jonathan Yaney, the founder.

The firm remains tight-lipped about exactly how this contraption will work, although its name gives away the basic idea. Rather than using propellants like kerosene and liquid oxygen to ignite a fire under a rocket, SpinLaunch plans to get a rocket spinning in a circle at up to 5,000 miles per hour and then let it go—more or less throwing the rocket to the edge of space, at which point it can light up and deliver objects like satellites into orbit.

An impressive group of investors have signed on to support Yaney’s vision. The bulk of the $40 million came from Alphabet Inc.’s GV (formerly Google Ventures), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Airbus Ventures.

Over the past few years, the rocket industry has become quite crowded.

Following in the footsteps of Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., dozens of companies have appeared, trying to make small, cheap rockets that can be launched every week or perhaps even every day. These smaller rockets have been built to carry a new breed of shoeboxsized satellites—dubbed smallsats—that are packed full of imaging, telecommunications and scientific equipment.

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