On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 2:57 PM, Craig Berry <cdberry@gmail.com> wrote:

The thing is, spin-stabilization of the sort being discussed depends on an atmosphere. What happens is:

If that were true, you couldn't stabilize anything with a gyroscope :)

And that's all a spin-stabilized projectile is: a gyroscope.

Remember the spinning bicycle wheel demonstration in you physics class? No air flow across the bicycle wheel to push it back upright when it started to topple over.

And if you spin a top in a vacuum, it doesn't just fall over immediately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTt_hoWtMIc (He turns on the vacuum pump around :30--the top stays upright.