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

[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

[HerbstPacania]

but will it blend?

[Manuel Barkhau]

Looking at their website, it doesn't seem that they ever got funding. I wonder how their pricing compares to SpaceX if they get reusable rockets working.

[fatjohn1408]

17:49 About the subtitles: I think "foadable tags" should be "photovoltaics" :)

[fubleduck]

Also, it preserves the low molecular weight that's good 4 converting pressure into velocity. Maybe a different way of saying the same thing

[Martin Kaufmann]

you just like to say "archaic" :-)