QuickLaunch's Spacegun

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DarkenedOne

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John Hunter and his QuickLaunch proposal I think is one of the best and novel idea to come around to the space community. For those who have not heard of it the idea is that of a Spacegun. Space guns have been studied as a means of providing low cost access to space. The idea has been around ever since Newton envisioned a cannon on top of a mountain shooting a cannonball into orbit. It has been studied more recently by NASA, but they believed that the delta-v required was too great. Great thing about John Hunter and his fellow founders of Quicklaunch is that they were the designers and operators of Super HARP, which was the Airforce's platform for studying Scramjets, so if anyone has the experience and knowledge to build a gun that powerful it is them. What they are proposing is a kilometer long hydrogen gas gun capable of launching a 1000kg payload at 6 km/s. A rocket would then accelerate the payload another 3-4 km/s as well as circularize the orbit. The benefit is that the gun itself acts as a first stage for the rocket except unlike regular rockets it is not lost each time in the process. It can be fired multiple times a day, and far less fuel is used up. The downside of course is the high-G forces that would kill a human as well as destroy sensitive equipment, thus it is only suitable for launching things like propellant, water, oxygen, and other materials, but that is ok because as Hunter said propellant represents 90% of the mass needed to go to the moon.

You guys should really see his presentation. He does a fairly good job of explaining the concept.
https://www.miroguide.com/items/2784141
 
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EarthlingX

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Looks interesting and well, they seam to have idea where to get money..

Here are some pictures from that movie, which is about an hour long ...
SunkSpaceGun.jpg

FiringMechanism.jpg

GunExit.jpg

HeatShieldAway.jpg

RocketStage.jpg

ModularSpaceDepot.jpg
 
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DarkenedOne

Guest
Thanks for the pics.

I really believe this technology has the potential to radically reduce the cost of access to space. The current chemical rocket technology is reaching its limits. I do not expect chemical rockets will be able to radically reduce the cost to space.

This technology on the other hand replaces the first stage of a rocket, which is usually discarded, with a giant gas gun. Since the gun is not going anywhere it acts as a completely reusable first stage. Thus one does not have to completely fabricate the first stage for every launch. In addition since the hydrogen is recovered there is little propellant used up in the process.
 
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