This must have been just east of Jarvis Island(154 deg W). Years ago I thought that would be ideal site for an EMSL cannon, esp the quenched superconducting ring design.
It would be a cannon 300' to 500' long at a 45 deg angle pointing east. With 20 kg projectiles at say one/10 sec in continuous firing mode, that's 172,800 kg/day reaching LEO. That's about 19 shuttle loads at 20,000#/payload.
One pound in LEO is worth(mv^2/2 + mgh)4 KWH, or about 40 cents at 10 cents/KWH. That's cheaper than 39 cents/oz postage(16:1). At a 10% system efficiency that's $4/#, vs $20,000/# to LEO on the shuttle.
The recent railgun demo for the navy shows what's possible with a superconducting cannon. Too bad boeing has to lose so many millions on the CHEMICAL ROCKET when for the same money they could be shooting BULLETS into LEO for a tiny fraction of the energy cost. Ah well, archaic thinking and VESTED INTERESTS....
Atmospheric losses at these velocities are astronomical. Even solid iron meteorites at these speeds melt, evaporate and fracture in dense air. And to push the remnants of your projectile into low orbit, you'd have to shoot it not at 8km/sec but more like at 15.
Imagine launching the ISS, 20kg at a time. That is only good for things like raw materials for space maunfacturing. And then, we'll probably see something like that on the moon.
I do not understand why it was not pursued.
Politics probably.
The rocket meisters just had too much to lose.
bump ... interesting idea.