If you’ve ever had the fleeting notion that it would be easier just to shoot people into space in a huge cannon, fear not your sense of physics or your Sci-Fi addiction.

Real-life plans have been drawn up by physicists for a half-mile tall gun that could shoot cargo loads up to 990 lbs. into orbit.

But before you get excited about propelling yourself (or certain disagreeable relatives) into deep space, be aware that excessive G-forces during such high-speed travel makes human travel via giant guns impossible—though some may try anyway.

Plans for the giant gun were developed by former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists who have formed a company called Quicklaunch in an effort to carry through with the development, according to the New Scientist. 

The concept may still seem a bit nuts, but in fact a similar device was developed in the mid-1990s with U.S. funding, and successful tests were completed with a 47-meter gun barrel (roughly 150 ft.) delivering small objects into a sandbag pile at roughly Mach 9. Funding for that effort was cut before higher-powered tests could be completed with the gun pointed to the sky. But the leader of the original project, John Hunter, is back in action as the head of Quicklaunch.

Scientist Hunter sought to woo attendees of the Space Investment Summit in Boston on Sept. 30. Success of the $500 million gun would reduce the cost of putting objects into orbit massively, with the projected cost-per-pound of launch payload valued at fractions of the current costs.

Price tag aside, the planned device is remarkably simple compared with most of today’s physics ventures—perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the “huge space gun” idea came from Jules Verne over a century ago. A distant relative of bb guns and pneumatic pumpkin chunkers, the load is propelled by a rush of expanding hydrogen that has been compressed by a piston, the piston in turn fuelled by an initial methane explosion. The huge recoil, at least on the 1990s gun, was absorbed not with any esoteric procedure, but with weight sleds set on rails.

Aside from the pure “awesome factor” and cost efficiency, the gun has big-time potential for assisting the goal of increased human space presence by making it easier for supplies to be sent into orbit. President Obama indicated in comments Wednesday that increased NASA funding for the planning of a manned mission outside of Earth’s orbit will be approved, citing the importance of initiating scientific development despite the economic climate. Even if the gun project is not NASA-funded this time around, more federal money means good news for all things space-related. We’ll see how anti-gun the Obama administration is once this puppy gets fired up.