Forget rockets — Longshot wants to fire cargo into space from a gun. See it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 — SkimNews
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- Longshot Space Technology is building a gun-based launch system using multi-injection gun technology dating to WWII and 1960s research programs, aiming to fire cargo directly into orbit.
- The Alameda, California startup, co-founded by CEO Mike Grace and CTO Nato Saichek, has raised about $20 million from venture investors.
- Longshot currently fires a 70-foot, six-inch diameter gun near Barstow, California, accelerating projectiles to near-hypersonic speeds, and envisions scaling to a 3,000-foot version it calls "the largest gun on the planet" — capable of sending 220-pound projectiles to Mach 8.
- The startup has secured multiple U.S. military contracts, with Grace proposing gun installations for shooting down mock Chinese or Russian hypersonic missiles at roughly a quarter-million dollars per test versus $30 million alternatives.
- Grace projects orbital launch costs as low as $50 per kilogram ($22 per pound) — far below the $300/kg threshold the orbital data center industry says it needs — though achieving that scale requires a roughly 10-kilometer-long barrel.
- Longshot is presenting its gun-launched orbital concept at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco this week.
Why it matters: Grace's $50/kg projection sits one-sixth below the $300/kg threshold orbital data center operators cite as viable — if Longshot can site and build a 10-kilometer gun, satellite operators and traditional launch providers face a fundamentally different cost curve, while U.S. military hypersonic test contracts already provide paying work in the near term.
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