Sorry for broken english I hope you understand me 🙂
I was wondering if its possible to shoot a handheld weapon or something “easy to get” and shoot it from Earth to get the bullet to hit the oxygen free space.
Is it even possible in any way or is it near impossible?
If so can this bullet become a high risk object that could damage or even destroy satellites once its in space?
Did we ever launch something to space without propelling it all the way up there? (once propelled on earth it doesnt get any more help flying up there)
In: Physics
Not likely.
A conventional handgun can’t do it. The projectiles just don’t go fast enough. Shooting a bullet vertically is a really, really, *really* bad idea. They won’t make it into space, but they will come back down with considerable speed. This kills people occasionally.
But *could* we build a really stupid big gun and make it work? Maybe.
The big problem is that the projectile would have to move at hypersonic velocities. Assuming you could make a projectile go this fast, it would encounter considerable air resistance. You know how a space-ship gets really crazy super hot as it re-enters the atmosphere? That’s what would happen in reverse. But worse. A space-ship orbits at ridiculously fast speeds, and then slows down on re-entry. A projectile shot into orbit would have to FINISH at that ridiculous speed, which means it would have to be going even faster when it leaves the gun. There is a good chance the projectile would just be destroyed on the way up.
Someone actually tried this in the 1960’s. The projectile got up to 110 miles, which is pretty damned high but not high enough to be in ‘space.’
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