Could US Navy's Railgun Help Tap Moon's Resources? Forum: SSI-List
Thread: Could US Navy's Railgun Help Tap Moon's Resources?
# 23183 byCombs, Mike on June 6, 2019, 8:16 a.m.
Member since 2022-08-22
Very interesting article from Leonard David on space.com:
https://www.space.com/navy-railgun-tests-moon-exploration.html
Seems like Ive seen High Frontier-friendly articles out of Leonard David before. Its 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 dont 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.
Ill 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 cant 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