Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right

[Sabre]

Article

If John Hunter—a former physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—is successful, the International Space Station may start receiving their supplies from a cannon. No, it's no joke.
...
At the cannon's bottom there is a combustion chamber, which uses natural gas to heat hydrogen up to 2,600ºF, increasing the pressure 500%. When released, the gas will launch a capsule with half a ton of material into space, at a swooshing 13,000mph.

Now that there is some acceleration!

[ElZorro]

Hey, even NASA nerds love spud-guns.

This isn't the first time this idea has come up. Do some reading on Gerald Bull (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull). Pretty standard reading for engineering students (good example of a highly technical person with compromised morals, Mossad assassinated him in the street for working on a project for Saddam Hussein). He wanted to launch all sorts of stuff into space with large canons.

[zaxrex]

Yeah, but the poster on Gizmodo was right, atmospheric friction will mean this thing will have to be a sabot round or something to sacrifice as a thermal shield.

I wonder what the list of things are that you would need in sapce that could withstand that G-loading?

Yeah, there was an HBO movie on building the "Doomsday Gun". Pretty informative and entertaining.

[Sabre]

I remember talking about Gerald Bull in my Dynamics class. It's sad he was... misguided.

[Mr Kleen]

I remember talking about Gerald Bull in my Dynamics class. It's sad he was... misguided.

it's sad he was willing to compromise his morals to get funding for his projects. how can you get involved with a project like that, in that part of the world, with that government and not know the repercussions?

[zaxrex]

PHd's:
Educated, but not smart.

[complacent]

PHd's:
Educated, but not smrt.

phikst.

[Sabre]

[scheherazade]

Keep in mind when things happened.
Invasion of Kuwait and Desert shield was 1990, 5 months after Gerald Bull was assasinated.
Can't blame a man for working with a government that had yet to turn against western interests.

-scheherazade

[Mr Kleen]

Keep in mind when things happened.
Invasion of Kuwait and Desert shield was 1990, 5 months after Gerald Bull was assasinated.
Can't blame a man for working with a government that had yet to turn against western interests.

-scheherazade

he should have known that assisting an Arab government with a long range weapon project would generate a LOT of interest from Israel. I'm not saying that his assassination was right, just sayin'...