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The fact that this has obvious military applications suggests to me that if it was practical, militaries would have already done it.
by cabalamat 13y ago
The fact that this has obvious military applications suggests to me that if it was practical, militaries would have already done it.
- rbanffy 13y agoIndeed. It looks like an obvious ship killer. What can you do to a one ton steel brick travelling in your direction at Mach 10?
- jtheory 13y agoIt's hard to imagine scaling this up to be able to throw a ton at a time. If you want to throw something that heavy, you'll have a much easier time using explosives to do it -- and we've been able to do that for quite a long time now (multi-ton shells were fired in WWI).
- Tloewald 13y agoGiven the spin-up time and the fact it's a giant gyro (and thus can't be aimed) the ability of a 15" gun to fire payloads at enemy ships seems far more useful.
- chrischen 13y agoYea but you can shoot things into space. So now you can shoot things into space so that it lands on the other side of the planet.
- swalsh 13y agoThere's no proof they haven't.
- rjd 13y agoOr are just about to start testing it ;)
- Moto7451 13y agoThe Navy is working on a railgun[1]. Probably a bit more pragmatic than something this large. [1] http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/navy-gets-another-hypersonic-railgun-fires-test-shots/3317 http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/navy-gets-another-h...