Longshot Space Technology, a startup based in Alameda, California, is working on a very old idea getting a new look: using a giant gun to fire cargo into space. The company has raised about $20 million from venture investors and is testing scaled-down versions of the system at a site near Barstow, California, with plans to build what it says would be the largest gun on the planet.
Longshot's approach draws on multi-injection guns, designs that give a projectile extra boosts as it moves down the barrel, built for World War II and during 1960s research programs. The idea is to take the work done by the first stage of a launch vehicle and collapse it into a reusable accelerator on the ground: a steel pipe mounted horizontally, with tanks of high-pressure gas attached at ports along its length, firing at precise times as the projectile passes.
The company is currently firing a 70-foot gun with a six-inch diameter at a test site near Barstow, California, and says it has reached speeds as high as Mach 4. Soon it expects to begin firing a 140-foot gun with a 30-inch diameter at its Alameda test site. After that, Longshot plans to build a 30-inch diameter gun that is 328 feet long, with plans to extend it to about 3,000 feet, which the team says would be the largest gun on the planet. The full-scale system is intended to launch 220-pound payloads at speeds up to Mach 8.
Co-founder and CEO Mike Grace said the goal is to avoid novelty in favour of doing something genuinely hard with proven technology. "You can build something that has a lot of novelty, or you can do something really hard. You don't get to do both," he said. He pointed to SpaceX as a model, saying it took classically de-risked NASA rocket research and scaled it aggressively.
Longshot will present its plans at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
Analysis
Why This Matters
- Longshot is betting it can replace the most expensive part of a rocket launch, the first stage, with a reusable ground-based accelerator that could lower costs and increase launch tempo.
- The idea of launching payloads from a gun has been explored for decades but never commercialised; a working system would add a new route to orbit for small cargo.
- The extreme acceleration involved means the technology is aimed at freight, not people, potentially changing how small satellites and supplies reach space.
Background
The concept of launching objects from a gun has deep roots, dating to Jules Verne's fiction, and mid-20th century research programs explored multi-injection guns for high-velocity projectiles. The physics is unforgiving: reaching orbit requires enormous energy, and accelerating an object through a barrel in seconds subjects it to forces far beyond what people or most electronics can tolerate. That has kept rockets, despite their complexity, as the standard route to orbit. Longshot is trying to commercialise the concept for cargo, arguing that a technology already proven in earlier eras can be scaled aggressively with modern engineering.
Key Perspectives
Longshot Space Technology: The founders say they are deliberately avoiding novelty and focusing on something hard but classically de-risked. Co-founder and CEO Mike Grace compares the strategy to SpaceX scaling NASA rocket research, taking proven technology and scaling it aggressively.
Venture backers: Investors have put about $20 million into the company to test whether a ground-based accelerator can take over the first-stage workload for small payloads.
Skeptics of gun launch: The concept has a long history of technical hurdles. Payloads must survive extreme acceleration inside the barrel, and the company's stated Mach 8 target is well below orbital velocity, leaving questions about how a payload would complete the journey to orbit. The cost and engineering of building and operating a 3,000-foot gun also remain unproven.
What to Watch
- The first firings of the 140-foot, 30-inch gun at Alameda, which will show whether the company can scale up its approach.
- Longshot's progress on the 328-foot gun and any move toward the roughly 3,000-foot configuration it says would be the largest gun on the planet.
- Whether the company demonstrates a payload surviving the launch intact and signs up its first customers.