this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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I wonder how much more energy it took to accomplish that compared to just shooting a rocket. Last I had heard railguns weren't really feasible because of the absurd amount of energy they would require even with perfect efficiency.
It's not the absurd amount of energy that's the problem. It's the absurd amount of energy that has to be STORED AND RELEASED within a fraction of a second in a controlled fashion.
If you wanna go electric, you would need a stupendous amount of capacitors and a gun that won't get destroyed due to the immense energy release.
If u wanna go chemical (like an actual gun), u r faced with the same problem of the gun exploding.
The only approach that MIGHT work is the Spinlaunch thing, where u essentially store this energy as angular momentum in a THICCC carbon fibre rod. Spinlaunch is still yet to demonstrate anything remarkable, so there's that.
They replaced the CEO last week from the original founder. I'm not hopeful it isn't all just a big cash grab that made a bunch of board members rich. Capitalism is ruining everything.
Yea, which is nothing. Plus altitude means nothing when u want to put stuff in orbit. It's the initial velocity that matters for an apparatus like this.
I'm no expert, but I could imagine rail-guns would be a huge advantage on nuclear powered vessels. For one the ammo doesn't explode if hit by enemy fire, and I'm guessing the ammo would be super cheap. In theory you could shoot bars of iron.
They might also have a much smaller launch signature, meaning harder response to a first-strike launch. But I’m not a physicist or nuclear deterrence expert or anything.
When it's not an experiment:
This is the military we're talking about.
They'll turn a metal ring into a million dollar thing making sure it has 0 flaws on the surface that might cause 1 in a million shots to go off course.
If you have the opportunity to involve a giant rail gun in something, you do it.
They're not feasible because of the erosion of the barrel with our current level of materials science.