John Hunter (born November 14, 1955) is a projectile researcher, who developed the 1994 "supergun" Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The ultimate aim of his research is to shoot payloads into space, at less than one tenth of the cost of unmanned rockets.
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John Hunter is the director of Quicklaunch, a company hoping to use a type of space gun to launch payloads into space.
A light gas gun uses hydrogen as working gas, and natural gas as fuel for heating the hydrogen, which takes 10 minutes before the shot. Most of the hydrogen is recovered after the shot, to be used again.
The 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) long gun is for the most part submerged in the ocean. Its horizontal and vertical direction (inclination and elevation) can be adjusted.
It gives a projectile an initial speed of 6 km/s (3.7 mi/s). The projectile has a one-stage rocket which ignites some time after launch. The planned payload is a container with fuel to supply a fuel depot in orbit.[1][2]
The first phase is a one-year 2 million dollar project to break the record height of 180 kilometres (110 mi) for a projectile fired from a space gun, which was achieved in Project HARP. The second phase is a two-year 10 million dollar project to launch to orbit a 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) payload each time. The third phase is a two-year 50 million dollar project to launch to orbit a 45 kilograms (99 lb) payload each time. The fourth phase is a three-year 500 million dollar project to launch to orbit a 450 kilograms (990 lb) payload each time.
He also mentioned being the inventor of the Zyclone Zing Ring Blaster toy.[3][4]
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