A New Player in the Space Race
In a field defined by the spectacle of rocket launches from companies like SpaceX, Longshot Space is making a bold bet on a much older concept, reimagined for the modern era. Founded in 2020 by CEO Mike Grace and CTO Nato Saichek, the Oakland-based company
is developing a ground-based kinetic launch system. In simpler terms, it's a massive, high-tech "space gun." The company has attracted millions in funding from investors like OpenAI's Sam Altman and the US Air Force. The goal is to provide a dramatically cheaper and more frequent way to access space, sidestepping the immense costs and complexities of traditional chemical rockets. Longshot's stated aim is to reduce launch costs to as low as $10 per kilogram, a staggering drop from the roughly $3,000 per kilogram charged for a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9.
From Gunpowder to the Cosmos
The idea of a space gun isn't new; it traces its lineage back to concepts like the V-3 cannon developed in World War II. Longshot's system, however, replaces combustion with something more controlled: compressed gas. Their technology is called a multi-injection pneumatic cannon. Imagine a very long tube with a projectile inside. Instead of a single, massive explosion at the start, Longshot's cannon uses a series of precisely timed bursts of compressed gas injected from ports along the barrel. As the payload travels down the tube, each injection gives it another push, steadily building its velocity. This sequential acceleration is the key to their design, allowing them to achieve hypersonic speeds without the single, violent jolt of a traditional cannon.
The Physics of a Cannon Launch
Longshot has already built and tested several prototypes. A 120-foot demonstrator in Alameda, California, has successfully accelerated 100-kilogram payloads to over Mach 4, or four times the speed of sound. The timing of the gas injections is critical, requiring sub-millisecond precision managed by custom electronics. However, reaching orbit requires speeds closer to Mach 25. To achieve this, the company plans to build a much larger accelerator, potentially 10 to 15 kilometers (about six to nine miles) long, in a remote location like the Nevada desert or northern Australia. Even at that speed, the projectile wouldn't go straight to a stable orbit. The plan is for the cannon to provide the initial, powerful boost to get the payload out of the dense lower atmosphere. From there, a small, attached rocket engine would ignite for the final push into a stable orbit.
Redefining 'Affordable' Access to Space
The primary argument for Longshot's system is economic. By keeping the most complex and expensive hardware—the accelerator itself—on the ground, it can be reused thousands of times with minimal refurbishment. Traditional rockets, even reusable ones, are incredibly expensive to build and operate. Longshot's approach eliminates the need for massive first-stage boosters, which account for the majority of a rocket's cost and complexity. In the near term, the company is targeting the hypersonic testing market, offering the Department of Defense and other clients a way to test materials at speeds above Mach 5 for a fraction of the cost of a dedicated rocket launch. This provides a path to revenue while it develops its full-scale orbital system.
Hurdles on the Path to Orbit
Despite the promise, Longshot faces immense technical and practical challenges. The primary concern is the incredible g-forces created during acceleration. While their multi-injection system is gentler than a conventional cannon, the forces would still be too extreme for humans or delicate, off-the-shelf electronics. Satellites would need to be specifically designed and hardened to survive the launch, a significant hurdle for potential customers. Furthermore, building a precision-engineered steel tube several miles long is a monumental civil engineering project. Competitors like SpinLaunch, which uses a giant centrifuge, face similar challenges with g-forces and payload design. Longshot is betting that as its accelerator gets longer, the launch will become gentler, and the extreme cost savings will incentivize satellite makers to adapt.
