Phyics - Railguns

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Both are technically magnetic guns, they just go about the principle differently. Railguns use conductive rails that channels the current through the armature (think of it as the part of a slingshot that holds the shot until released), which is built into the shot itself, to propel the projectile. A coilgun (also called Gauss/Gaussian gun) uses pulsing electromagnetic field(s) to pull and accelerate the shot. Granted, a railgun is more about current driving the shot as opposed to a strict magnetic field.

it would probably be a good idea to start out with a smaller interval that grows larger, gradually. as the projectile goes faster there would be less need to accelerate it. From the object's perspective it could be outracing the sine wave intended to propell it, kind of an analogue to the doppler effect. French Reactors are the best for power sources, they use liquid Sodium to conduct the head from the Uranium to the water. The result is the water reaches higher temperatures and generates more electrical energy.

Last edited by AspiInLV on 30 Jan 2010, 11:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Speed of light? *cough*. They go fast, but not that fast. And there have been ones built on both large scale (see navy) and small scale (see DYI railguns). The cool thing about a RG is the fact that the projectile fired will go in a straight line as opposed to a curve or arc. That also presents problems though. The Nava already has some Railguns on certain ships.

Railguns would be perfect for launching cargo from the Moon to the Earth. The Moon has 1/6 the gravitational pull as the Earth.

ruveyn

Gotta worry about the burn-in from the cargo entering the atmosphere and ensuring the contents arent destroyed on arrival. Then again, those issues have been addressed, but it just seems kinda shaky to use it for launches when it would be best as a probe launcher (or weapon system, which is of higher interest given human nature).

if it is true that thigs entering the atmosphere ionize the air around themselves, then my only question is what kind of charges do those ions have? and would it be possible to use electromagnetism to either increase the air resistance for braking, either/or move the ionized air around and away from the control surfaces to reduce the friction. this idea is courtesy of star trek: voyager

It is no wonder NASA wants to keep some SR-71's

the aircraft is powered by ramjets, that depend upon velocity to get the necessary compression in the engines. being able to launch that kind of aircraft would mean cheaper launches of the once planned "space plane" .

The Sanger space plane was dependent upon many V-2 rockets to provide initial thrust. railguns are a cheaper and safer alternative.

Pointcarre was dealing with sub c speeds

he was dealing with locomotives and how to get them to arrive on time

when he laid the basis for e=mc^2

stellar objects obnly go at sppeds 220 meters per second, yet they produce red shifts, and blue shifts

I understand your skepticism