The first vertical test shot of Green Launch's hydrogen-powered impulse launch cannon, in Arizona last DecemberGreen Launch
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Posted on 04/15/2022 7:18:57 AM PDT by Red Badger
Rockets are expensive, complex, bad for the environment and prone to occasionally exploding – so alternative launch technologies are popping up to reduce their use. We wrote about SpinLaunch's remarkable kinetic launch system earlier this week, which spins a rocket up to incredible speeds on the end of a long, carbon-fiber arm in a vacuum chamber, then releases it skyward at speeds up to and over Mach 6.
Then another company dropped us a line, to show us a far simpler approach it says can get launch vehicles and ruggedized electronic cargo off the ground at nearly three times that velocity, with a quicker turnaround time. This time, it's basically a huge gas cannon.
Green Launch COO and Chief Science officer Dr. John W. Hunter directed the Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP) program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory some 30 years ago, and in the process led the development of the world's largest and most powerful "hydrogen impulse launcher."
This is effectively a long tube, filled with hydrogen, with helium and oxygen mixed in, and a projectile in front of it. When this gas cannon is fired, the gases expand extremely rapidly, and the projectile gets an enormous kick in the backside. The SHARP program built and tested a 400-foot (122-m) impulse launcher in 1992, breaking all railgun-style electric launcher records for energy and velocity, and launching payloads (including hypersonic scramjet test engines) with muzzle velocities up to Mach 9.
(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...
The first vertical test shot of Green Launch's hydrogen-powered impulse launch cannon, in Arizona last DecemberGreen Launch
VIDEOS & PICS AT LINK.......................
Ping!.................
Now that’s an barrage
Orbit.
So it can hit any target on the face of the Earth.
Paris Gun?
I wonder how far it can shoot a pumpkin.
Pullin’ a few G’s there.
Looks like a spin on one of Gerald Bull’s long range cannon.
3,200.....................
Similar..................
As a kid I did something similar with a pipe from a chain-link fence and a tennis ball.
Filled it with something and an M80, and set it off. I still don’t know if the tennis ball returned to earth.
I know I lost sight of it almost immediately while it was still on it’s way up.
I did something similar. It’s a wonder I survived childhood with both eyes and all my fingers................
You know your engineering history.
“Ruggedized” electronics?
Nothing of real value will survive hundreds of gees. Now, if you wanted to shoot something down, this’ll do it.
Article says 30,000g. Maybe a little much for humans to withstand.
I was ahead of the American military.
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