Author Topic: Rocket launches from Canadian soil  (Read 22090 times)

Offline dcsugeek

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Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« on: February 16, 2006, 09:31:16 PM »
Question? Not sure if this question was ever brought up prior but has there ever been a rocket launch from Canada that has delivered a satellite into to orbit?

Offline DonPMitchell

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2006, 01:39:01 AM »
I've been poking around, but it looks like only sub-orbital sounding rockets have been launched from Canada, from Fort Churchill for example.

Canada was the third nation to have a satellite in orbit, but they were launched by NASA.

Gerald Bull did pioneering work on super-long-range artillary, and there was talk of launching a satellite in this manner -- but I don't see how a cannon shell could perform the necessary pitch program to go into orbit.
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Offline sparkmaster

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2006, 01:09:41 PM »
Is that the dude that Saddam hired to build hus supergun?

Offline DonPMitchell

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2006, 03:33:44 PM »
Yes, he's the supergun guy.  Killed by Israeli secret police in Europe.  He was involved with a lot of illegal arms trade too.  A brilliant man, but probably a sociopath.

Intercontinental artillary is a real possibility, but I do not believe you can place an object into orbit with a gun.  The orbit will always intersect the Earth, make one loop and crash.  You have to be able to execute a pitch program and add horizontal velocity after launch.
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Offline Bob B.

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2006, 04:32:41 PM »
Intercontinental artillary is a real possibility, but I do not believe you can place an object into orbit with a gun. The orbit will always intersect the Earth, make one loop and crash. You have to be able to execute a pitch program and add horizontal velocity after launch.

The muzzle velocity needed to get something into orbit would be so great that the drag would probably completely destroy the projectile.  It would be like a meteor burning up but from the ground up.

Offline DonPMitchell

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2006, 03:14:56 AM »
I suppose you would need ablative shielding.  A PBS special about him claimed that he built a gun for the Canadians that was theoretically capable of firing a shell from Montreal to Mexico City.

But maybe it's a crock and the idea is unworkable.  Air friction certainly seems like a problem, I agree.
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Offline Johno

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2006, 07:09:04 AM »
I could be way off base here, but I believe that he was working on multiple chamber guns.  Can anyone confirm or deny this one?

Multiple chamber guns have great promise but never deliver on it because of fundamental flaws in the principle.  They always burst barrels due to the action of hot gas on the barrel from oblique chambers.

They were comprehensively tried during WW2, and Hitler's scientists gave up on them.  if so, what an irony . . .

Offline DonPMitchell

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2006, 09:49:54 AM »
There's a pretty good article on Bull on Wikipedia (with the usual caveat that it could be full of mistakes):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull

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Offline Nik

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Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2006, 12:31:26 PM »
Hi, IIRC, Bull went his own way after developing gun-assisted sounding rockets. In effect, he'd replaced the first stage with a ruddy big blow-pipe...

Provide upper stage(s) could do course correction(s), you could --in theory-- make orbit. In practice, you make your neighbours *very* nervous, as your payloads are potential precision warheads.

Offline DonPMitchell

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2006, 01:30:13 PM »
There was a story about him a long time ago, before the Iraqi supergun controversy, done by PBS "Frontline".  Bull was a smart guy, but he was also a serious crook.  He used is Space Research Corporation as a cover to sell arms to South Africa during the anti-apartheid embargoes, and verious other dark deeds.

I have mixed feelings about the Israelis killing him.  It was an illegal act, but also probably a measure of justice.  Live by the sword...
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Offline Bob B.

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2006, 03:26:41 PM »
Hi, IIRC, Bull went his own way after developing gun-assisted sounding rockets. In effect, he'd replaced the first stage with a ruddy big blow-pipe...

Provide upper stage(s) could do course correction(s), you could --in theory-- make orbit. In practice, you make your neighbours *very* nervous, as your payloads are potential precision warheads.

I agree it is theoretically possible to replace the first stage of a rocket with a gun-type launch system, but you'd definitely need a second stage that would be ignited after leaving the gun.  I don't see any way you could use a gun all by itself to put something into orbit.  It has also been proposed that the first stage could be replaced by a maglev rail system.

Offline Johno

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2006, 04:17:09 AM »
. . Which would be a better system than a gun, assuming you could work it without wasting the entire energy needs of the USA, but would suffer from the same basic problem; you'd need either a) A second stage or b) a damn powerful maglev that could get something where it needs to go by direct ascent.  :shock: Boggle  :shock:

Offline win98

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Re: Rocket launches from Canadian soil
« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2006, 12:55:47 AM »
Exactly,