Volcanoes have a strong eruptive force that is directional (up and outwards). Could humans replicate this in order to launch payloads into space?<p>I'm thinking this could be a space elevator.
Space elevators involve climbing up a 30,000 mile long tether with electric motors, not being fired out of a gun. Volcanic gas eruption velocities are much slower than what it takes to go into orbit. The fastest large-payload HARP shot was 3.6 km/s, but it takes more than 9 km/s to launch to low earth orbit. If we could build a gun barrel out of magic handwavium it might work, but unfortunately we only have steel, titanium and cobalt to work with.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rocket_spacelaunch" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rocket_spacelaunch</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verneshot" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verneshot</a>