From: "Rich Gauszka" 

slinging highly stressed objects into space?

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/1bd68e2d3fb9f010vgnvcm1000004eecbccd
rcrd.html
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. Powerful electromagnetic
motors inside the tunnel will accelerate the unit, strapped to a magnetic
sled, in circles until it reaches a velocity of six miles per second and
then will eject the projectile from a launch ramp into space.

The system is still just an idea on paper, but the U.S. Air Force has
awarded Launchpoint a two-year, $500,000 grant to prove it can work.
Project leader Jim Fiske, an expert in magnetic levitation, believes that
the magnetic forces would counteract the pulverizing G-forces generated by
radial acceleration and prevent the sled from touching the tunnel wall.

As for the system's cost, its low power requirements would allow spy
micro-satellites to be slung into orbit for $50,000, a small fraction of
the current $5-million launch cost. That explains the Air Force's interest,
but the system could also be a boon for space exploration. An inexpensive
magnet-propelled pipeline could toss construction materials, food and other
basic resources into orbit to supply tomorrow's space colonies. "You
could send a block of aluminum, water or even frozen mashed potatoes,"
Fiske suggests-anything durable enough to handle the stress.

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