Rethinking the Rocket
The story of spaceflight has always been a story of rockets. From the first satellites to modern mega-constellations, the fundamental principle has remained the same: burn massive amounts of chemical propellant to overcome Earth's gravity. While companies
like SpaceX have made incredible strides in reducing costs with reusable boosters, the process is still inherently expensive and complex. Oakland-based startup Longshot Space is pursuing a radically different path, one that leaves the rocket—or at least most of it—on the ground. Founded in 2020 by CEO Mike Grace and CTO Nathan Saichek, the company is developing a kinetic launch system, a concept often dubbed a "space gun". The goal is to use immense ground-based energy to hurl payloads to hypersonic speeds, providing the initial velocity needed to reach space without a first-stage rocket booster.
A Giant Pneumatic Cannon
So, how does it work? Imagine a colossal potato gun. Longshot's system is a multi-injection pneumatic cannon. Instead of a single, violent explosion, it uses a series of timed, high-pressure gas injections along the length of a very long barrel to steadily accelerate a projectile. As the payload speeds down the tube, it passes multiple gas ports, each delivering a precisely timed push that adds to its velocity. This method of distributed acceleration, which has historical roots in concepts like the German V-3 cannon from World War II, allows the payload to reach incredible speeds without being instantly destroyed by a single, massive G-force spike. The company has already built and tested smaller prototypes, using inert gases like nitrogen and helium to fire projectiles at over Mach 4, or four times the speed of sound. The ultimate vision involves a barrel potentially up to 15 kilometers long, capable of accelerating payloads to Mach 23 for orbital insertion.
The Business of Hypersonics
While shooting satellites into orbit is the ultimate prize, Longshot has a clever, nearer-term business plan: hypersonic testing. The U.S. military and its allies are in a race to develop hypersonic weapons, and testing components at speeds above Mach 5 is both critical and extremely expensive, often costing millions of dollars per test. Longshot believes it can provide a testing platform for a fraction of that cost, potentially around $150,000 to $250,000 per launch. This provides a crucial revenue stream and a way to prove its technology at scale. The company has already secured millions in funding from venture capitalists and U.S. Air Force contracts, signaling serious interest from both commercial investors and the defense sector. Recent funding rounds in 2026 brought their total raised to $20 million, intended to help build a larger test facility in Nevada.
The Hurdles to Orbit
Despite the promise, the technical challenges are immense. First, any satellite launched this way must be hardened to survive the intense acceleration, though Longshot argues the G-forces of its multi-injection system are manageable for modern electronics, which can already survive hundreds of G's. Then there is the problem of atmospheric transit. A projectile leaving a barrel at hypersonic speeds will encounter tremendous heat and pressure. Longshot plans to use robust projectiles, some even made of concrete, that act as a shell or aeroshell for the delicate satellite inside. Finally, the cannon only provides the initial boost. Once the projectile is above the thickest part of the atmosphere, a small, efficient upper-stage rocket would still be needed to perform the final burn to circularize its orbit. Getting all these pieces to work in perfect concert is the engineering mountain Longshot must climb.
