From: mgcbo@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Charles B. Owen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
Subject: Re: Potential Launch Technologies (was Re: Wrecking a Planet)
Date: 21 Jan 1993 15:49:35 -0600
Organization: Educational Computing Network
NNTP-Posting-Host: uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

>>	One of the sci.military folks could give a detailed description,
>>but as I understand it, a light gas gun uses (I think) hydrogen as the
>>propellant, to get fairly gross muzzle velocities. Using Big Guns to lob
>>material to orbit is an old, if usually ignored idea. Back in the 60s,
>>Gerald Bull worked on the HARP project, whose goal was to build a gun
>>which  could fire shells into orbit (Where their orbit would be circularised
>>using on-board rockets). At the time, Bull claimed he could cut launch
>>costs to  15% of the rockets then used.
>
>Bull also started working on a supergun for George Bush's favorite
>person in the whole world, Saddam Hussein.  He wanted to rain chemical
>weapons on Israel while sitting in Baghdad.
>
It is interesting to discuss the Bull gun projects, but they have been
so exagerated in news coverage that its hard to tell the facts.  But,
thing of one thing.  How long must the shuttle maintain 3G's to reach
orbit.  So, how many G's will it take to accelerate an object to a
velocity that can leave the atmosphere and reach orbig for correction in
only a few hundred meters?  I think those comments about delicate
equipment are quite impossible.  Bull's gun would crush just about
anything launched.  That's the reason the project was deemed impractical
by the US.  

As for Saddam Hussein, he tried all kinds of weapons.  If they made
sense was not a factor for him.  I don't think anyone took that gun
seriously from a military standpoint except the press.  A large, fixed
emplacement gun?  What an ideal bombing target.  One cruise missle and
that huge weapon is useless.  So, what was the big deal?

>Before you can really start building habitats, you've got to have a
>launch system which is capable of putting payloads into earth orbit
>cheaply, regularly and safely.  Not that you're going to haul the
>building materials up from the ground, but by the time you're
>seriously thinking about building huge space colonies, you're going to
>have a very large and well-established space industry.  And you won't
>achieve that until you've got a relatively cheap earth-to-orbit launch
>system. 

You won't do that until free enterprise builds and flys spacecraft.  If
the government was running the airlines, we would pay $100,000 for a
coast to coast ticket and there would be 7 planes to fly in.  They would
have been designed in the 60's and there would be no serious plans on
the boards for a replacement, only magazine covers for Popular
Mechanics.  Were I Clinton, I would have a standing order for 100
spacecraft that meet certain specifications at 100million each.  I'm
sure $10B would get someones attention, and the volume would make all
the difference.  Specs would have to be MANNED FLIGHT, payload to orbit,
etc.  Until then we'll be stuck with a government run program and tell
me one government that has managed to do that well.  (Remeber Rolls-Royce?)

Just my opinion!

-- 
| Charles B. Owen                            Internet: mgcbo@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu |
| Western Illinois University                            Phone: 309-837-4292 |
| 1002 E. Murray                                                             |
| Macomb, IL  61455                                                          |