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Interesting. In the SciFi series (and books) The Expanse the rail gun projectiles were tungsten. I thought it was just due to the heat resistance of tungsten bu
by HankB99 9y ago
Interesting. In the SciFi series (and books) The Expanse the rail gun projectiles were tungsten. I thought it was just due to the heat resistance of tungsten but it might have been chosen by the authors for the additional property of density. I wonder if the electrical properties make it suitable for the mechanisms used for rail gun propulsion.
- hwillis 9y agoIt's almost always chosen for density in scifi- most early railguns used tungsten because the density means you can have a very small cross section per unit mass, meaning low wind resistance which is important at super and hypervelocity. Of course it's irrelevant in space, but it carried over to sci-fi anyway.
- major505 9y agoI think the actual railgun that the navy is developing also use thungsten projectiles.