Could US Navy's Railgun Help Tap Moon's Resources?

Very interesting article from Leonard David on space.com:
https://www.space.com/navy-railgun-tests-moon-exploration.html

The gist: The proposed lunar mass-driver would need to achieve 2.4 km/sec for payloads to ascend the lunar gravity well. Navy is currently installing a rail-gun which can achieve a bit over 2 km/sec.

Seems like I've seen High Frontier-friendly articles out of Leonard David before. It's great that space.com has a writer sufficiently attuned to these older ideas to put two and two together like that.

I find this very uplifting. I remember once engaging in an online debate with several people who were trying to explain to me why the proposed lunar mass-driver would never have been able to work as advertised. (I detailed that debate in an article here - "Building Dreams from Moon Dust https://space.nss.org/settlement/MikeCombs/moondust.htm") Honesty compels me to add that discussion was specific to coil guns. I don't know if rail guns would be a practical substitute for a lunar catapult. They are sufficiently different that whenever someone refers to the lunar catapult as a "rail gun" I do tend to correct them.

I'll have to admit that I pretty much stopped keeping up with rail gun development entirely after I heard someone say that a rail gun essentially destroys itself when fired. That can't literally be true, or at least true any longer, if the Navy is installing one on a warship.

Is anyone knowledgeable on this topic?

Regards,
Mike Combs

Very interesting article from Leonard David on space.com:
https://www.space.com/navy-railgun-tests-moon-exploration.html
The gist: The proposed lunar mass-driver would need to achieve 2.4 km/sec for payloads to ascend the lunar gravity well. Navy is currently installing a rail-gun which can achieve a bit over 2 km/sec.
Seems like I've seen High Frontier-friendly articles out of Leonard David before. It's great that space.com has a writer sufficiently attuned to these older ideas to put two and two together like that.
I find this very uplifting. I remember once engaging in an online debate with several people who were trying to explain to me why the proposed lunar mass-driver would never have been able to work as advertised. (I detailed that debate in an article here - "Building Dreams from Moon Dust
https://space.nss.org/settlement/MikeCombs/moondust.htm
") Honesty compels me to add that discussion was specific to coil guns. I don't know if rail guns would be a practical substitute for a lunar catapult. They are sufficiently different that whenever someone refers to the lunar catapult as a "rail gun" I do tend to correct them.
I'll have to admit that I pretty much stopped keeping up with rail gun development entirely after I heard someone say that a rail gun essentially destroys itself when fired. That can't literally be true, or at least true any longer, if the Navy is installing one on a warship.
Is anyone knowledgeable on this topic?
Regards,
Mike Combs