Alameda Startup Aims to Shoot Cargo to Orbit Using Massive Ground-Based Gun

Longshot Space Technology, founded by Mike Grace and Nato Saichek in Alameda, California, is building a series of progressively larger guns to accelerate payloads into orbit, funded by roughly $20 million in venture capital. Its current test platform is a 70-foot, 6-inch-diameter gun near Barstow that can reach near-hypersonic speeds, with plans for a 140-foot, 30-inch model in Alameda and a 328-foot, 30-inch gun that could be extended to 3,000 feet.

The firm intends to monetize the technology by providing cheap hypersonic testing for the US military, possibly installing a gun at a base such as Fort Bliss. By using a lifting-body projectile, the system does not need an upward barrel angle and could eventually launch 220-pound payloads at Mach 8, achieving velocities of about 5 km/s. If a 10-km gun were built, Longshot claims launch costs could drop to roughly $50 per kilogram, making orbital services competitive for emerging data-center satellites. The company will showcase its progress at one outlet Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco.