Whipcrack satellite launcher

This is an ill-conceived idea. I suggest you skip the next four paragraphs if you're in a hurry.

So. A problem with launching satellites is that, even if you can get them close to orbital height, you have to turn left and get them up to orbital velocity, which is (for low orbit) about 18,000 mph, or something like Mach 24. Ideally, you need to do this without crushingly large accelerations.

So. A whip works by transferring momentum gradually from the long, heavy body of the whip into the small, light tip. At ground level, the tip of a hand- cracked whip will allegedly reach supersonic speeds. (Yes, I know, there are all kinds of arguments about where whip cracks come from, but the tip is certainly accelerated hugely relative to the input motion.)

So. Get your launch vehicle up to near- orbital altitude, and release a long (maybe very long, or possibly extremely long) tapering, flexible strap shortly before apogee. The tip of the strap carries a very small thruster, and also the satellite to be launched. The thruster extends the strap away from, and slightly downward from, the launch vechicle, just as the main rocket angles over at the top of its flight and starts to point downward.

At a cunningly chosen moment, the main rocket fires its final booster, this time aiming downwards and parallel to the extended strap. Soon, it passes the tethered satellite, leaving a loop of tether behind it. In a twinkling of an eye, it reaches the limit of the tether and, in the same twinkling, the satellite-carrying tether-tip flicks the satellite deftly skyward [EDIT spaceward. Definitely spaceward. Not skyward.], at a speed many times that of the now-descending rocket.