Because space rockets are expensive, damaging to the environment, and sometimes just explode on launch or in flight, humanity is looking for more efficient alternatives. In addition to “kinetic gun» SpinLaunch, which spins the object to tremendous speed before launching into space, has another option – a huge gas gun from Green Launch.
Image Source: Green Launch
CEO Dr. John W. Hunter 30 years ago led the Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP) at Livermore National Laboratory, where they were developing the world’s largest and most powerful “hydrogen pulse launcher.”
In fact, this is a long pipe filled with hydrogen with the addition of helium and oxygen. Gases serve as an alternative to gunpowder or other pyrotechnic charges, accelerating the payload to tremendous speeds. In 1992, Mach 9 was achieved on a 122 mm mount. The company claims that the solution scales much better than the one proposed by SpinLaunch.
In order to launch payloads into orbit, launched projectiles must have an additional stage with a rocket engine that provides acceleration and the ability to maneuver in space to enter the desired orbit.
Green Launch believes that the cost of launches will be minimal, regarding an order of magnitude lower than the cost of launching a cargo of comparable mass in the traditional way. In addition, the lack of a first stage in rockets will protect nature from harmful effects, since the combustion of hydrogen in the gun itself leaves no emissions other than water. And operators of constellations of satellites will be able to launch them one at a time, which will avoid the risk of losing a couple of hundred objects at once in the event of an unsuccessful rocket launch.
You can launch every 60-90 minutes. In other words, it is possible to launch objects into space into low Earth orbit with an altitude of 300-1000 km in less than two hours, and the projectile itself will reach its destination following firing in just 10 minutes.
The company has already built a test facility 16.5 m high and tested it at a site in Arizona at the end of last year, achieving speeds of more than Mach 3 and sending a projectile into the stratosphere. This year, the company intends to provide the object with a speed sufficient to overcome the so-called. “Karman Lines” – a height of 100 km, on which the border with space lies.
Among the partners and clients are the University of California at San Diego and Harvard, the sponsor is the US National Science Foundation. In particular, the project is able to provide valuable data to climatologists by taking atmospheric samples from an altitude of 30-100 km – here it is too high for balloons and too low for satellites, and conventional rockets can pollute the samples with their own exhaust.
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