Could a railgun work in space?

According to Space, the electromagnetic railgun peaked at Mach 6, which means six times the speed of sound. If astronauts can station at the moon and mine resources, the said speed is just a fraction “slower” than the escape velocity. Thereafter, the electromagnetic railgun can toss the material into space.

Will Railguns ever be practical?

For a similar projectile, the range of railguns may exceed that of conventional guns. Notwithstanding the above advantages, railguns are still very much at the research stage after decades of R&D, and it remains to be seen whether or not they will ever be deployed as practical military weapons.

How far can a railgun shoot in space?

The system calls for a two-mile- long rail gun that will launch a scramjet, which will then fly to 200,000 feet. The scramjet will then fire a payload into orbit and return to Earth. The process is more complex than a rocket launch, but engineers say it’s also more flexible.

What is a rail gun in space?

The electric rail gun for space propulsion An analytic feasibility investigation of an electric propulsion concept for space application is described. In this concept, quasistatic thrust due to inertial reaction to repetitively accelerated pellets by an electric rail gun is used to propel a spacecraft.

Could rail guns be used to launch objects into space?

The idea for using rail guns to launch objects to space has been around for years – even Isaac Newton considered the concept.

Can We lob payloads from the Moon with a railgun?

In 1974, Princeton professor and space visionary Gerard O’Neill first proposed using an electromagnetic railgun to lob payloads from the moon.

What happened to the railgun?

The Navy’s Railgun Is Finally Dead 1 The U.S. Navy is finally canceling its electromagnetic railgun development program. 2 The railgun appears to be the victim of the service’s new emphasis on great power competition. 3 Although impressive, the railgun has been overshadowed by other weapons, particularly hypersonics.

Could a rail gun be the next giant leap to the stars?

But now a group of NASA engineers is seriously studying the possibility of using a rail gun as a potential launch system to the stars, and they are looking for a system that turns a host of existing cutting-edge technologies into the next giant leap spaceward.