Cannons to the Planets

Google Tech Talk
December 15, 2009

ABSTRACT

Presented by Dr. John Hunter, President of Quicklaunch, Inc.

Quicklaunch is dedicated to launching rocket propellant and other consumables into orbit using a hydrogen gas gun. Quicklaunchers are related to the SHARP launcher, originally at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. More than 90% of the mass required for manned Mars and Lunar exploration is propellant. The Quicklaunch breakthrough will result in costs less than $250/lb to propellant depots in Low Earth Orbit. These low costs will enable manned space exploration of the solar system in our lifetime. Johns talk will include the history of gun launch to space, from the popularizers to the practitioners. A brief physics overview will be given on hydrogen gas guns as well as electric guns. An animation will portray a Quicklauncher delivering propellant to a depot in Low Earth Orbit. There will be plenty of time for questions and answers.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• google
• tech
• talks
• space

[hemojr]

An ocean location also will absorb the shock from the recoil. However a mountain location is usually proposed for canon, catapults and rail guns to shoot things into orbit. It might be cost effective to create a man made lake or reservoir at altitude (in say, the Andes) to avoid the thickest part of the atmosphere. Lakes are not typically deep enough, but with the right engineering, this actually might be a workable modification.

[Qulopuaa]

Informative

[apex02001]

Why not use an electromagnetic mass driver gun?

[twdarkflame]

@tabalitigi We do live in a age of waste. But this idea wastes far,far less because you dont need to speed a load of fuel merely to carry fuel! This design could make huge savings and increase access to space within a decade. I'm all for research into space-elivators and other more efficiant designs. But this is "now" tech, a space elivator at best is 50 years away.

[iLOVENATURE2011]

im not that technical when it comes to combustion based technology, but i find this video informative though...

[eggaweb]

@9ff70f96 I don't know much about this but I would suspect that most of the sound would come from the rip of the barrel (like with normal guns).

[eggaweb]

@9ff70f96 I don't know much about this but I would suspect that most of the sound would come from the rip of the barrel (like with normal guns).

[tabalitigi]

@whohasgottenit :because we are in an age of waste...We are stuck in the mindset from the industrial age, and combustion based technology is NO WAY to travel/send supplies efficiently LONG TERM...We are thinking in the "NOW", and that now is VERY archaic...The "modern" technology just needs to die off, and let the quantum age move in. I am not advocating "stopping" space travel. These "projectile based" concepts are just archaic to be nice. We are too eager to go space without a REAL plan...

[whohasgottenit]

@tabalitigi I understood what you said, but why? If, for small projectiles, this way of launching things is way more efficient, why not use it? The fact that it's an old concept doesn't mean anything.. We have been using launchers(rockets) for 50 years or so now so that's not really new either. It's been a trend in the last couple of years to make smaller satellites and such, and those could easily be shot into space with a projectile rather than being launched with a huge rocket.

[tabalitigi]

@whohasgottenit

I'm saying we need to start thinking beyond projectiles and combustion...

[whohasgottenit]

@tabalitigi This is meant to be a launching system, not an interplanetary traveling system. The current launchers are VERY havy compared to the payload they're shipping. Every kilogram you take up to space needs a lot of kilograms of fuel and launcher to take to space. If you could use this "gun"-system for small and light satalites, or for example the solar sail you're referring to, you would eliminate a large fraction of mission cost.

[tabalitigi]

it's sad to see such smart people conceptualizing such dumb concepts...

we need to think "sailboats", not "guns" for intergalactic travel or any sort of new age interstellar travel...

This whole "projectile" fixation is fucking archaic...