Re: Orbital Cannon

Corey Burger wrote:

> Just before the Iraqi war in 1990,  a fairly famous Canadian weapons
maker
> who had worked for the Iraqis got himself offed, probably by the
Mossad.
> One of his things was orbital launch using super guns.
>
> Also, I don't know how scientifically feasible this is, but the book
> Firestar by Michael Flynn, one of the companies in it uses a big tube
> filled with rocket fuel and then sticks a shell, with a satellite in
it and
> lights the match.

That would be Gerald Bull.  Bull was so enamored with the potential cost
savings of using a gun that he would go to just about any length to get
more
funding for the idea.  He agreed to help the Iraqis extend the range and
accuracy of their scud missiles, and in return, the Iraqi's agreed to
build a
1000mm gun.  The Israelis were sufficiently distressed about longer
ranged,
accurate scuds, that they were probably the ones that murdered Gerald
Bull.
The barrel sections for the supergun were held up before being exported
to Iraq
from the UK, because someone noticed that the "pipeline" sections were
much
stronger than needed for just about anything besides a supergun barrel.

The supergun got around the multiple chamber problem by having multiple
charges
seperated by wooden (?) disks.	Firing the charges sequentially allowed
the
overall pressure in the barrel to be maximised without increasing the
initial
pressure spike.  Nowadays, I suspect that they would use a variable
burn-rate
charge that maintains a constant barrel pressure for much of the
projectile's
time in the barrel. [Fire, Fusion, and Steel has a marvelous diagram
showing
the advangtage of that scheme]

Much earlier in his career, he used a surplus USN experimental 14" gun
to fire
instrumented projectiles to great heights (High Altitude Research
Project).  He
also wrote a well regarded book on railroad artillery, that I have not
had the
opportunity to read.  His basebleed technology is what gave the
coalition
forces such a headache in Desert Storm.  A gas generator (not to be
confused
with a solid fuel rocket motor) filled in the partial vacuum behind the
shell
as it flew, reducing drag.  Basebleed shells are almost as long ranged
as
rocket assisted munitions, but are much more accurate.	Basically, the
Iraqi
artillery park was much longer ranged than anything the coalition had,
except