There have been a couple of proposals earlier that said something on the lines of firing things into space using giant cannons, but they have more or less never gone through the proposal stage. Well, the latest proposal just might get through....
There have been a couple of proposals earlier that said something on the lines of firing things into space using giant cannons, but they have more or less never gone through the proposal stage. Well, the latest proposal just might get through. Physicist John Hunter has proposed a ludicrously large 1.1 kilometer cannon that will throw things into orbit.
The cannon will be capable of firing 990 pound payloads into orbit with a speed of 6 kilometers per second. A small rocket engine would then come into play to get the load to low-earth orbit. While the $500 million cannon cannot be used to launch satellites due to the huge forces involved it could send cargo into space at comparatively lower costs. This giant cannon is based on John Hunters previous design, a 47-meter long cannon that is placed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, and uses hydrogen to fire projectiles.
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Via: New Scienist
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