Mining the Sky & Space Tethers to achieve LEO

>
> Tom - exactly what is a coil gun and who is working on it? Saddam?
>
> Bill
>
Actually the American military have a working prototype of a coilgun
used as a weapon.

A coil gun is a what O'neil called a mass launcher.

Given a coil gun 1500 km long, and an aceleration of 5 g while in it,
will produce escape velocity. You would have to have the top of the
gun above most of the atmosphere to keep the capsule being shot from
slowing down too much.

To get above the atmosphere. Build a mountain 10km high. This sounds
ludicrous, but it is feasible. The second method is the one Mike Combs
came up with. Use Buckministers giant balloons as support. I like that
method myself, but its a lot of ballons (over 3000).

Bill