Quicklaunch is a currently inactive company attempting to use a type of

space gun Space Gun may refer to: *Space gun, a method of launching an object into space * ''Space Gun'' (album), a 2018 album by Guided by Voices * ''Space Gun'' (video game), a 1990 arcade game *Ljutic Space Gun, a 12 gauge single-shot shotgun See also * ...

to launch payloads into

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

. It is a

university spin-off University spin-offs (also known as university spin-outs) are companies that transform technological inventions developed from university research that are likely to remain unexploited otherwise. They are a subcategory of research spin-offs. Promi ...

of the

SHARP Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 199 ...

project which ended 2005.

Quicklauncher

The Quicklaunch proposed firing apparatus was a

light-gas gun The light-gas gun is an apparatus for physics experiments. It is a highly specialized gun designed to generate extremely high velocities. It is usually used to study high-speed impact phenomena (hypervelocity research), such as the formation of ...

using

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...

as the working gas and natural gas as the explosive heat source. Heating and pre-pressurizing the hydrogen working gas takes 10 minutes before the shot and most of the hydrogen is recovered by a muzzle muffler at the end of the launch tube to be reused for subsequent launches. The gun would be, for the most part, submerged in the ocean. Its horizontal and vertical direction (

azimuth An azimuth (; from ar, اَلسُّمُوت, as-sumūt, the directions) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. More specifically, it is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north. Mathematicall ...

and

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

) could be adjusted based on customer launch requirements. The proposed launcher was designed to give projectiles an initial speed of while the Earth

orbital speed In gravitationally bound systems, the orbital speed of an astronomical body or object (e.g. planet, moon, artificial satellite, spacecraft, or star) is the speed at which it orbits around either the barycenter or, if one body is much more massi ...

is 6.9 to 7.8 km/s. The projectile design therefore included a one-stage rocket which ignites some time after launch. The designed payloads could include spacecraft, satellites, consumable, water or fuel to supply a

propellant depot An orbital propellant depot is a cache of propellant that is placed in orbit around Earth or another body to allow spacecraft or the transfer stage of the spacecraft to be fueled in space. It is one of the types of space resource depots that ha ...

in orbit. Projected costs to orbit were .

Project phases

# A one-year 2 million dollar project to break the record height of for a projectile fired from a space gun, which was achieved in

Project HARP Project HARP, short for High Altitude Research Project, was a joint venture of the United States Department of Defense and Canada's Department of National Defence created with the goal of studying ballistics of re-entry vehicles and collecting ...

. # A two-year 10 million dollar project to launch to orbit a payload each time. # A two-year 50 million dollar project to launch to orbit a payload each time. # A three-year 500 million dollar project to build and operate multiple 1,100 meter long Quicklaunchers called the QL-1000 that are capable of launching propellant payloads to orbit. The goal is to supply of fuel to orbital propellant depots yearly.

Hiatus

In a 2016 article, Hunter remarked that the work had been put in stasis due in part to

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...

's company,

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

, taking up the challenge of reducing costs to orbit. Hunter however invited someone with a similar level of money and motivation, to take a fresh look at the approach. Later, Hunter ran a new start-up called Green Launch that is also developing a space light-gas gun.

References

External links

Shooting right for the stars with one gargantuan gas gun
- Excerpt from 1996 Smithsonian Magazine on Hunter's work with SHARP. The final paragraph contains the financial assessment. *SHARP Gun Accelerates Scramjets to Mach 9", by William B Scott, Aviation Week and Space Technology, September 9, 1996, page 63.
Video Interview of John Hunter - Gas Station In Space
moonandback 2011
Audio Interview of John Hunter
on The space show * detailed PDF of a land based version {{Non-rocket spacelaunch Space guns Aerospace companies of the United States Private spaceflight companies Space access