Longshot Space, based in Oakland, aims to build a huge ball by leaving the rockets aside for objects to be thrown into space. Among the investors of the company, Sam Altman from OpenAI.
Longshot Space’s goal may seem very simple, but that’s not that easy. Mike Grace, CEO of the company, said in a video on YouTube, “If you have the opportunity to do something wonderful and beautiful, you should. This is part of what lifted me out of bed in the morning. The other part is that what I’m working on on a daily basis is noisy and fun. ”
In the last few years, an incredible satellite has been sent to orbit. Now the low -world orbit is home to an enormous crowd. However, in order to send these satellites to orbit, rockets need to be developed and launched. Billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos spent billions of dollars to realize these rocket launches. Although Musk’s reusable rockets have made a relatively cheaper sending satellite, it is still a very expensive initiative.
However, Grace thinks that we can get rid of these rockets completely and for this purpose, he sets up a team to build a gigantic ball. Nathan Saichek of Longshot Space said, “We are building a giant spaceball to help colonize the solar system Story Co, the Youtube channel, and continued:” Building a large ball, just one million times easier than building a fancy rocket. This is really easy to make a big infrastructure. “
Longshot plans to use pressure gas to gradually push objects to a long wholesale, and to ensure that these objects reach MACH 25 (25 times the sound speed). As the object moves on the ball, the barrel holes increase the speed by injecting more gas. To send satellites into space, you will need a miles long weapons.
Previous tests on small versions of the concept were successful. According to Sfgate, Longshot managed to launch apple -sized objects at speeds up to Mach 4.6. Although it is far from its goals, it can be said that it is a good concept proof. It is also worth noting that it creates a big boom.
However, Longshot needs a larger space to produce larger weapons. Currently, in Nevada deserts, foundations are laid for the next stage of the project. The new weapon will be about 75 centimeters in diameter and about 550 meters long. It is estimated that such a long weapon can increase an object weighing 100 kg to Mach 5. Longshot’s latest version will probably need a ball longer than 10 kilometers to send something to space.
