Mr. Space Gun @LongshotSpace
Alameda, CA
Joined January 2024
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John Gowan interviewing our very own @natosaichek on the largest technical challenges we face transiting the lower atmosphere at orbital speeds.
Space-gun space-fun!
youtu.be/knBC4KsAmdU?si=ar04…
Great article.
Can Longshot Beat Starship on Launch Costs? starbench.substack.com/p/can…
There are two audiences / PMF’s for space guns: defense needs affordable hypersonic tests, and launch demand is climbing.
Longshot built the world's largest light-gas gun near SF to serve both.
Hypersonics now, orbit at $100/kg next.
longshotspace.com
featured in Techcrunch!
Longshot is trying to build a gun big enough to make space data centers a reality.
spr.ly/6016BH1M48
excited to pitch at TC Disrupt this morning!
Longshot is in the Top 20 at @TechCrunch Disrupt!
We’re first at 10am PT sharp today. Watch live: youtube.com/live/SqkhdhuN6OU…
In 1992, John Hunter’s SHARP light-gas gun at Lawrence Livermore fired 5 kg projectiles at 3 km/s using compressed hydrogen.
The gun worked, but the follow-on satellite launcher needed ~$1B, and in the post-Cold War ’90s, nobody was buying. Funding ended in 1995.
In 1966, Gerald Bull’s Project HARP fired a Martlet 2 projectile to an altitude of 180 km from a 16-inch gun, setting a gun-launch record that still stands. Each shot cost about $3,000.
The gun worked, but the satellite market it needed didn’t exist yet. Caught in the crossfire of political opposition and shifting government priorities, the project lost its funding in 1967.
"They hated him, for he spoke the truth."
Amos 5:10
@_mikegrace on why deep tech founders should stop reaching for new technology:
"I'm an economist. I see the world change through incentives and markets."
"There is nothing about the Falcon nine, the reusable rocket that they built, that could not have been built in the 1970s."
"You get a hard problem or you get technical novelty. You can't do both. You won't succeed."
mike grace retweeted
@_mikegrace started @LongshotSpace at 35, broke, after asking his wife for six months of no income:
"I was borrowing money from the bank of my wife. So just living off of my wife, super uncool."
"I was paying myself $1,000 a month, and the rest of it was going into plastic for supergun."
"Everybody at Longshot knows everybody's salary... Everybody knows my salary. Everybody knows how much of the company I own."
"I can't pay you like Google... But I can be open with you. And that in itself is a kind of compensation." – at San Francisco, CA
"If you have a very small probability of owning the solar system, it's worth it."
@_mikegrace is building giant Space Guns that throw things to space, no rocket.
In this episode of ODDS, we went inside @LongshotSpace for a test fire and hear how Mike went from backyard potato guns to Air Force funding, nearly going bankrupt three times along the way.
0:00 Throwing things into space
3:49 The "everyone else is wrong" mindset
5:36 Why we really use rockets
10:36 Why you should build a bad prototype first
11:33 The first 60 pitches
12:46 Almost bankrupt, three times
14:22 Why everyone knows everyone's salary
21:13 The test fire
23:55 Think like an economist, not an engineer
25:36 Launching a Tesla, and what success means
mike grace retweeted
"If you have a very small probability of owning the solar system, it's worth it."
@_mikegrace is building giant Space Guns that throw things to space, no rocket.
In this episode of ODDS, we went inside @LongshotSpace for a test fire and hear how Mike went from backyard potato guns to Air Force funding, nearly going bankrupt three times along the way.
0:00 Throwing things into space
3:49 The "everyone else is wrong" mindset
5:36 Why we really use rockets
10:36 Why you should build a bad prototype first
11:33 The first 60 pitches
12:46 Almost bankrupt, three times
14:22 Why everyone knows everyone's salary
21:13 The test fire
23:55 Think like an economist, not an engineer
25:36 Launching a Tesla, and what success means – at San Francisco, CA
I had a lot of fun with these guys allowing me to jaw-jack while sitting on top of my hardware.
"If you have a very small probability of owning the solar system, it's worth it."
@_mikegrace is building giant Space Guns that throw things to space, no rocket.
In this episode of ODDS, we went inside @LongshotSpace for a test fire and hear how Mike went from backyard potato guns to Air Force funding, nearly going bankrupt three times along the way.
0:00 Throwing things into space
3:49 The "everyone else is wrong" mindset
5:36 Why we really use rockets
10:36 Why you should build a bad prototype first
11:33 The first 60 pitches
12:46 Almost bankrupt, three times
14:22 Why everyone knows everyone's salary
21:13 The test fire
23:55 Think like an economist, not an engineer
25:36 Launching a Tesla, and what success means
mike grace retweeted
Why @_mikegrace builds the worst possible version of a thing first:
"I'm a very strong believer in bad prototypes. Build something, build the worst version of the possible thing."
"The black ABS that I made the thing out of, I got out of a dumpster from behind Home Depot."
"My co-founder wanted to wait. He was embarrassed by the PVC prototype. He didn't think it was a real prototype... What it proved is that we're people who build things." – at San Francisco, CA
"If you have a very small probability of owning the solar system, it's worth it."
@_mikegrace is building giant Space Guns that throw things to space, no rocket.
In this episode of ODDS, we went inside @LongshotSpace for a test fire and hear how Mike went from backyard potato guns to Air Force funding, nearly going bankrupt three times along the way.
0:00 Throwing things into space
3:49 The "everyone else is wrong" mindset
5:36 Why we really use rockets
10:36 Why you should build a bad prototype first
11:33 The first 60 pitches
12:46 Almost bankrupt, three times
14:22 Why everyone knows everyone's salary
21:13 The test fire
23:55 Think like an economist, not an engineer
25:36 Launching a Tesla, and what success means
mike grace retweeted
"I'll give @elonmusk Mars. I just want the rest."
@_mikegrace is building a giant space gun that throws things to space. No rocket.
@LongshotSpace has fired their test accelerator 150 times and failed every imaginable way.
They also have about $8M in contracts and bookings with the Department of War.
ODDS Ep 1 — Longshot Space. Tomorrow. – at San Francisco, CA
