Launching Ramp

> Cannons don't achieve speeds any where near the mach 25 needed for orbit.
A
> "Army 45" fires at less than mach 1, as does any gun that can be silenced,
> else the sonic boom would make the silencer useless. Guns are ultimately
> limited by the speed of the gas particles, which must bounce off the back
of
> the projectile to give it momentum. Powder burning at 3000 K, considering
> (1/2) m v (squared) equals (3/2)k T (which is kinetic theory of gases),
> gives its gas (or plasma) particles only a few thousand miles per hour
> (perhaps mach 4 or 5). So there is no hope for a gun to shoot from Earth
to
> space.

Keizer was proposing a maglauncher as a "first stage" for a satellite, and I
replied suggesting a canon-like launcher not as a "SSTO", but also as a
first stage. I'm sorry that I did not make that clear in my post.

[snikt]
Lucio Coelho