Longshot wants to fire cargo into space using a massive gun

Rockets have long been the primary vehicle for reaching space, but they present significant engineering challenges. Physics dictates that rockets must be built with almost no room for error, yet only a tiny fraction of their total weight actually reaches orbit. Because of these inherent limitations, engineers and visionaries have long explored alternative methods for reaching space. Concepts ranging from space elevators and centrifuges to orbital skyhooks have all been proposed, though few have ever moved beyond the realm of science fiction.

Among the oldest and most radical ideas is one dating back to Jules Verne: using a massive gun to physically shoot a projectile out of the atmosphere. Longshot Space Technology, a startup headquartered in Alameda, California, is actively working to turn this fictional concept into physical reality. Co-founded by CEO Mike Grace and CTO Nato Saichek, the company sees a major opportunity to apply established kinetic technology to the modern, pressing demand for affordable space launch capabilities. To date, the startup has raised approximately $20 million from venture investors to advance its mission.

When discussing the philosophy behind their hardware, CEO Mike Grace emphasizes a pragmatic approach to frontier innovation. In his view, developers generally have to choose between building something entirely novel or tackling a problem that is fundamentally difficult, but rarely both at the same time. He points to companies like SpaceX as successful examples of organizations that took classically de-risked technology and scaled it aggressively. Following a similar logic, Longshot is taking multi-injection gun designs originally explored during World War II and 1960s research programs and modernizing them for commercial space applications.

The core concept behind Longshot's system is to take all the heavy lifting performed by the first stage of a conventional launch vehicle and collapse it into a reusable ground-based accelerator. The setup features a long steel pipe mounted horizontally across the ground, equipped with tanks of high-pressure gas positioned at precise intervals along its length. As a projectile travels down the barrel, these gas tanks fire off in rapid succession to provide continuous acceleration, pushing the payload to speeds as high as Mach 4 in current tests.

The company is currently operating a 70-foot gun with a six-inch diameter at its test site near Barstow, California, achieving near-hypersonic velocities. The team is preparing to transition testing to a larger 140-foot-long gun with a 30-inch diameter at its Alameda facility. Looking further ahead, Longshot plans to construct a massive 30-inch diameter gun stretching 328 feet, with eventual designs to extend the barrel to roughly 3,000 feet. This would make it the largest gun on the planet, theoretically capable of launching 220-pound payloads at speeds reaching Mach 8.

By replacing traditional rocket boosters with a ground-based firing mechanism, Longshot hopes to slash the cost of getting materials into orbit. This reduction in cost could unlock new commercial possibilities, including the realization of space-based data centers and other heavy orbital infrastructure that remain economically impractical under current launch paradigms. As the company prepares to showcase its progress, the aerospace industry watches closely to see if century-old artillery concepts can finally conquer the final frontier.