Giant launchers

Abstract

In ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ Jules Verne has three people shot into space with a truly enormous cannon, vertically installed in a 900-foot deep (270 m), 60-foot wide (18 m) hole in Stone’s Hill in Florida. Verne wrote his book in 1865, when the only way to get people into the air was by balloon. Rockets in those days were still small affairs, and not considered as a means of travelling through space. In Verne’s time, the heaviest things that flew any distance and at great speed were in fact artillery shells. Verne had an inkling that shooting people out of a gun might involve an uncomfortable acceleration, so in his story, he devised a means to cushion the shock by using an internal platform on a volume of water. Upon launch, the force of acceleration would squeeze the water out through holes in the base of the projectile, effectively spreading out the sudden increase in velocity over a longer time and thereby smoothing the kick felt by the intrepid Moon voyagers.