Bugetary needs...
Rcmodel--You are obviously propounding a LOT of scientific testing here. You'll need me as a consultant to help you write up a request for government and foundation funding to support your research.
Gummint will probably have to let us use the White Sands Proving Ground for the outdoor range work, and at least a couple of Cray supercomputers to analyze the data. Not to mention a staff and some office space.
I imagine that for no more than a trifling $10 to 15 million, we'd be able to come up with some tentative, preliminary results, and a progress report.
Oh, and doctorates all 'round.
BTW, you forgot "nothing" as a hole plug; that's our control--we have to keep this scientific, y'know!
For pounding sand in a rat hole, send that off to MIT--we'll have some graduate engineering student design a computer-controlled, hydraulic ram powered, rat-hole-sand-pounder. And the Michigan Tech geologists will want to chime in with the differences in grades and sources of sand, and their differing behaviors under load.
The research possibilities boggle...