麻豆传媒

A GIGANTIC gun could launch cargo into space more cheaply than conventional rockets.

So says physicist John Hunter of Quicklaunch, who has designed a 1.1-kilometre-long compressed-gas gun, based on a smaller gun he helped to build while at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. At the , Hunter said the gun would be able to fire a 450-kilogram payload at 6 kilometres per second. A small rocket would then boost the projectile into orbit.

While humans would clearly be killed by its huge g-forces, the gun could lift cargo more cheaply than current methods, says Hunter. 鈥淲e think it鈥檚 at least a factor of 10 cheaper than anything else.鈥�

of the Ad Astra Rocket Company based in Texas says the gun would work best on the moon, where there is no atmosphere to cause drag.