   La voyage dans la lune
  I've seen the movie "La voyage dans la lune" (the trip to the moon) from 1902, based on the story from Jules Verne.In this story, people are shot to the moon, in a spacecraft that is actaully a giant projectile shot by a gun.This made me wonder: we shoot projectiles from guns through a barrel because of the huge advantage the barrel gives to the speed of the projectile. Why aren't the rockets we send to space, also shot from a large cannon?   
  Related:Nuclear ArtilleryGerald Bull;  I'm guessing that the acceleration would kill everyone in the space ship. [wink]   ;  Why does this translate to 'to the moon' as opposed to 'in the moon'?   ;Quote:Original post by smart_idiotWhy does this translate to 'to the moon' as opposed to 'in the moon'?It was my own faulty translation, it should be "in" the moon indeed, they really go inside it, where they find giant mushrooms and some alien people.   ;Quote:Original post by Will FI'm guessing that the acceleration would kill everyone in the space ship. [wink]that would be one of the main reasons.There are however hybrid cannon-rockets that use a slower starting aceleration, and increase it over time, rather than the common gun where it starts out high, and lowers as the projectile travels along. (Speed is still increasing the whole time, but its rate of increase lowers)I've seen proposals that use maglevs to speed a shuttle like craft along level rails, and then a gentle rise where the engines would be turned on while it was already traveling close to 200mph. This apparently was suppose to be enough to cut fuel needs nearly in half for the same amount of payload. (How true that math is, I have no idea)   ;Hmmmmmm...