Question

In 1865, jules verne proposed sending men to the moon by firing a space capsule from a 220-m-long cannon with final speed of 10.97 km/s. what would have been the unrealistically large acceleration experienced by the space travelers during their launch? (a human can stand an acceleration of 15g for a short time.)

Answer 1

I'm going to assume that the 10.97 km/s is the velocity at the end of the cannon.

vi = 0
d = 220m
vf = 10.97 km/s = 10970 m/s
a = ???

vf^2 = vi^2 + 2*a*d
10970^2 = 0 + 2*a*220
10970^2 / 440 = a You are right this is a pretty big number.
2.73 * 10^5 = a