Space gun
A Space Gun is a method of launching an object into outer space using a large gun, or cannon. Though it is the earliest envisioned method of space launch, a space gun has never been succesfully used to launch an object into orbit or even just space. If succesfully developed, a space gun would offer access to space at an unprecedented low cost. However, the large accelerations experienced by a ballistic projectile would likely mean that a space gun would be incapable of safely launching humans or delicate instruments, rather being restricted to freight.
Perhaps the most famous representation of a space gun is Jules Verne's novel, From the Earth to the Moon (made into a silent movie, Le Voyage dans la Lune), in which astronauts fly to the moon aboard a ship launched from a cannon. Isaac Newton once used as an example a cannon placed on top of a mountain and fired with the correct velocity as a demonstration of his law of universal gravity, and the concept was featured in films as late as 1967 in films like Rocket to the Moon.
On the practical side, the most prominent and succesful attempt to make a space gun was ballistics and cannon genius Gerald Bull's Project Babylon. During Project Babylon, Bull used his experience from Project HARP to build a massive cannon for Saddam Hussein of Iraq. This gun, had it been completed, would have been the first true space gun capable of launching objects into orbit. However, it appears that Israeli Mossad agents assassinated him to prevent Iraq from obtaining such a long distance weapon which could target Israel in a future war.
Since Bull's death, few have seriously attempted to build a space gun. Perhaps most promisingly, the US Ballistic Missile Defense programme sponsored the Super High Altitude Research Project in the 1980s. Developed at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, it is a Light Gas Gun and has been used to test fire object at Mach 9. One of the lead devlopers John Hunter has since founded the Jules Verne Launcher Company in 1996, though has as yet been unable to find funding for the multi-billion dollar project.
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Categories: Rocket and spacecraft stubs | Spaceguns