In a development that perfectly encapsulates 2025 American ingenuity, a tech entrepreneur has decided the problem with space travel is that we're simply not shooting things hard enough.

🎯 REFINED SATIRICAL GEMS FROM THE ABYSS:

1. The "We're In The Balloon Popping Business" Business Model - Mike Grace's company Longshot Space describes its revolutionary technology as systematically exploding pressurized containers to yeet satellites spaceward at Mach 23, because apparently "disruption" now means "making things go boom real good."
2. The German Engineering Pipeline - Grace's stated business strategy: "Find something a German dude worked on in the 1930s and steal it." Finally, someone's being honest about Silicon Valley's innovation process.
3. The Three Bears Approach to Orbital Mechanics - The company plans three gun sizes: "Baby Bear, Momma Bear, and Pappa Bear," because nothing says "serious aerospace engineering" like nursery rhyme nomenclature for weapons that could accidentally declare war on neighboring states.
4. 3,000 Degrees of Nope - The technical specification for how hot things get at Mach 23, measured in units of "absolutely not" and "why would anyone do this."
5. The Cocaine Island Contingency - Grace's backup plan if the space cannon fails: "Sell all the defense applications to Raytheon and cry my little eyes out from the cocaine island that I've built... lighting Fabergé eggs on fire every morning." Finally, a CEO with realistic exit strategy expectations.
6. Mach 4.5 "If You Squint" - The company's current test results, measured in the same scientific units as "technically still married" and "essentially vegan."
7. The Alameda Permit Problem - The world's longest operational gun sits idle because local bureaucrats are weirdly hesitant about approving permits to fire multi-ton projectiles at escape velocity through residential airspace.
8. Space Uber via Steamboat Willie - Grace's vision for satellite delivery involves cartoon tugboats, because when you're already building a 6-mile cannon, why not get weird with the metaphors?
9. The $10/Kilo Flex - Plans to undercut Elon Musk's SpaceX costs by 98% using "concrete, steel and hydrogen," essentially promising to revolutionize space travel with Home Depot supplies.
10. Cracking The Solar System Like A F***ing Egg - Grace's articulated vision for humanity's cosmic future, which sounds less like a mission statement and more like a threat.

Meet Mike Grace, CEO of Longshot Space, who looked at Elon Musk's reusable rockets and thought: "That's cute, but what if potato gun... but REALLY big?"

Grace's pitch is beautifully simple: Build a 6-mile-long cannon in the Nevada desert and shoot satellites into orbit at speeds that turn ordinary air into plasma. The company has secured funding from OpenAI's Sam Altman and the U.S. Air Force, proving that having too much money definitely makes people say "yes" to things they probably shouldn't.

The technology relies on what Grace calls "shock-impingement thrust," which is apparently the scientific term for "hitting things really hard from the side repeatedly." The projectile features a special skirt designed to catch pressure waves as it zooms through the barrel past exploding gas canisters. It's essentially the world's most expensive game of Plinko, except the prize is either orbital velocity or a very expensive fireworks display.

Currently, Longshot's proof-of-concept 6-inch gun in an Oakland auto body shop has achieved Mach 4.2, or "4.5 if you squint" - a measurement methodology that will surely inspire confidence in insurance underwriters. The company's new 120-foot beast at the Alameda Naval Shipyard remains untested, held hostage by city officials who are apparently squeamish about firing what is technically a weapon of mass acceleration within city limits.

The plan is to eventually build in Tonopah, Nevada - a town so remote that residents presumably won't notice or care about routine Mach 23 launches rattling their windows. "We can test it here in the Bay Area where all the eggheads live, and then we go out to Nevada to do the work," Grace explained, in what local Tonopah residents should probably interpret as ominous.

Grace's proposed solution to the "things vaporize at Mach 23" problem? Just wrap the payload in 3,000 pounds of sacrificial material that you don't mind turning into plasma. It's the engineering equivalent of wearing 47 jackets because you don't want to check a bag at the airport.

The company name "Longshot" works as both a description of the barrel length and a realistic assessment of success probability - the kind of savvy double-meaning that makes marketing executives weep with joy.

When asked about potential failure, Grace's response demonstrated the kind of healthy perspective we've come to expect from Bay Area tech founders: complete and total commitment to either changing humanity's relationship with the cosmos or retiring to a private island funded by selling cannon technology to defense contractors. No middle ground, no half measures, just space guns or Fabergé-egg bonfires.

The project draws inspiration from Gerald Bull, a Canadian engineer who built giant cannons in the 1960s and later worked for Saddam Hussein before being assassinated by Mossad - a career trajectory Grace presumably hopes to avoid by keeping his LinkedIn very, very private.

SpaceX currently charges around $3,000 per kilogram to reach orbit, with promises to drop that to $500. Grace claims his cannon could hit $10 per kilo, undercutting Musk by using the business strategy of "what if we just shot it really hard instead?" It's unclear whether this pricing includes the cost of scraping your satellite off the upper atmosphere after it becomes an accidental meteor.

"Nothing screams 'America!' more than a really, really big gun," noted one company promotional photo caption, finally making explicit what we've all been thinking about the national psyche.

As of press time, Grace was still waiting for Alameda city permits while simultaneously planning a 25-mile cannon that could theoretically achieve 100-150 g-forces - still far too many to launch humans, but perfect for electronics that enjoy being treated like they're in a cement mixer full of hammers.