This so reminds me to the high altitude research project that was dreamt up by Gerald Bull. Bull had this idea that he could build the gigantic gun that would shoot satellites into space like something out of a Jules Vern book. He came close, he was able to loft a 330 pound round about 60 miles off the Earth. He was assassinated in 1990 after making some rather poor choices in the countries that he dealt with. Ah, he would have loved this concept. LaunchPoint Technologies has this idea would utilize a 1-1/4 mile superconducting ring to, over the course of several hours, accelerate a sled with a 22lb payload to a speed of 5 miles a second. The payload would then separate from the sled and be ‘fired’ through a tunnel that is angled 30 degrees up. The projectile would be moving at over 23 times the speed of sound at this point and the next stop would be low Earth orbit. The payload would only have to survive around 2000G but it’s pointed out that laser guided artillery rounds routinely survive forces of over 20,000G. So far it’s just a theoretical design but if it works it could bring the cost per pound to launch hardware into space down to Earth.
[via jwz]
Huge ‘launch ring’ to fling satellites into orbit