In attempt to help lower costs of the development of MIRV nuclear weapons for the US military, famous artillery designer & physicists Gerald Bull worked with the Department Defense during the 1960's in the development of system that could launch MIRV vehicles into space, thus allowing for a much cheaper form of technology to test and design these weapons. Additional research was done on the ability for a large caliber artillery system to launch a satellite into orbit.
The ultimate tool of the testing was a retired 16in/50 cal Naval cannon refurbished into 16in/100 cal test cannon. This system allowed a 180kg slug to be fire to 3,600 m/s to an altitude of 180km.
Bull was later assassinated by Mossad in 1990 after spending a number of years designing and building Iraq's "Babylon Gun."
RF wrote:Has the idea of a super gun to fire satellites into space been researched any further?
I imagine the difficulty is designing satellite components that can withstand the tremendous G forces involved. The USN gave up (as least for now) on a powered and guided shell for it's 5"/62 cal gun for that reason.
Karl Heidenreich wrote:That gun look like the German Leopold gun.
I was thinking the same thing. Though it isn't surprising the Leopold gun since it was the first device capable of propelling an object outside earths atmosphere.
"It was a perfect attack, Right Height, Right Range, Right cloud cover, Right speed,
Wrong f@%king ship!" Commander Stewart-Moore (HMS Ark Royal)
WOW! That is one MASSIVE piece of artillery! What was the propulsive used? I imagine they crammed as much into there was possible to launch the thing into near orbit!
AND THE SEA SHALL GRANT EACH MAN NEW HOPE, AS SLEEP BRINGS DREAMS.
Legend wrote: WOW! That is one MASSIVE piece of artillery! What was the propulsive used? I imagine they crammed as much into there was possible to launch the thing into near orbit!
The articles I read did mention some type of special propellant, but no indication of what was used.
"It was a perfect attack, Right Height, Right Range, Right cloud cover, Right speed,
Wrong f@%king ship!" Commander Stewart-Moore (HMS Ark Royal)
WOW! That is one MASSIVE piece of artillery! What was the propulsive used? I imagine they crammed as much into there was possible to launch the thing into near orbit!
