Space Cannon

[furie]

http://gizmodo.com/5449133/jules-verne-was-almost-right

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2010/01/500x_spacecannon2-1.jpg

[Gritty]

http://gizmodo.com/5449133/jules-verne-was-almost-right

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2010/01/500x_spacecannon2-1.jpg

Just read about this in PopSci. Amazingly it brings the cost of putting something in orbit from $5000 a pound to $250. Or at least it will once they come up with the $500 million they need to build it.

[STC-Dub]

Very interesting. Not sure NASA would be all that happy about that, it could lead to some major budget cuts. I guess since it cannot be used for people they would be OK.

[Chigworthy]

Very interesting. Not sure NASA would be all that happy about that, it could lead to some major budget cuts. I guess since it cannot be used for people they would be OK.

They're so coked up, they wouldn't care.

[sr71blackbird]

I had proposed a similar idea based upon a the construction of a large tube that extended from the surface to the top of Earths atmosphere, with the vacuum of space drawing air up through the tube in a similar way that a smoke stack works, and you could have launched satellites with a parachute. However, it was determined that if the vacuum of space was sufficient to draw air up through the tube, the atmosphere of the Earth would have been drawn off long ago. It turns out that the gravity of the Earth keeps the atmosphere from being drawn off into the vacuum. Very interesting!
This concept would use the increasing pressure created by the sheer weight of the water of the ocean to pressurize a tube and propel an item placed within the tube in a similar way that a cannon launches a projectile by the expanding gasses resulting from the ignition of gun powder.

[hanso]

You could use a road runner, coyote and a catapult.

[Judge Smails]

You call it the space cannon. I call it Maurice.

[disneyspy]

You call it the space cannon. I call it Maurice.

you call it maurice,i call it the gangster of love

[sailor]

Just read about this in PopSci. Amazingly it brings the cost of putting something in orbit from $5000 a pound to $250. Or at least it will once they come up with the $500 million they need to build it.

hey, it pays for itself after the first 106,000 pounds!

[Furtherman]

I thought this thread was about Marvin the Martian.

And Chigworthy, I got that and that's hilarious!