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Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:36 am
by 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!
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:00 pm
by 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.
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:42 pm
by 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.
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:41 pm
by Sabre
I remember talking about Gerald Bull in my Dynamics class. It's sad he was... misguided.
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:02 pm
by Mr Kleen
Sabre wrote: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?
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:08 pm
by zaxrex
PHd's:
Educated, but not smart.
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:10 pm
by complacent
zaxrex wrote:PHd's:
Educated, but not smrt.
phikst.
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 3:18 pm
by Sabre
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 3:23 pm
by 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
Re: Jules Verne Was (Almost) Right
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:48 am
by Mr Kleen
scheherazade wrote: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'...
