The Trebuchet In Action - Continued

...and even human beings for short distances. The trouble with trebuchets (this size, anyway) and throwing people isn't the launch, really; it's the landing. In this scenario, typically the person is pitched into a deep body of water, or they quickly become one with Mother Earth.

Even larger and more powerful ones are on the way. In Houston, Texas, a group of trebuchet enthusiasts are building a trebuchet dubbed "Thor" which, when completed, will be able to hurl a large American automobile several hundred yards. (They also bought 80 acres of land surrounding the trebuchet so that the flung cars would have something safe to land on.) And it's very simple physics to scale these things upward.