[curtis]

I have wondered if it might be feasible to deliver certain kinds of supplies all the way to the lunar surface using a light gas gun. In fact, you could take the idea to absurd levels by using lithobraking [1] to "land" stuff on the surface. One way to do this might be to explode the shell just above the lunar surface so that the contents will embed only a few centimeters into the regolith, so it can easily be recovered using very simple technology. Kind of like mining really rich ore.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithobraking

[DanielBMarkham]

This entire line of thinking is very reminiscent of the Air Force's X-Plane program in the 50s.

The Air Force was heading down the road of airplane-to-orbit back in the 50s, but everybody decided that rockets were the way to go so the X-Plane (at least in terms of rocket-planes pushing the envelope of manned flight) program was abandoned.

Who knows where we would be had we kept going? If nothing else, we could have seen major improvements in heat management.