Renaistre

Rail guns have long been a favorite weapon of sci-fi fans. The ability to use electromagnetic pulses in place of traditional explosive propellants to lob projectiles over hundreds of miles with high precision and little warning is a tantalizing idea, though still mostly limited to the realm of fantasy. But reality has a track record of catching up with fantasy these days, and the U.S. Navy has begun testing a 32 Megajoule specimen developed by the U.K.’s BAE Systems. (That’s enough energy to lift the three thousand ton Saturn V rocket about 1 meter off of the launch pad, if my calculations are correct.) This prototype can supposedly launch projectiles at up to eight times the speed of sound, however there are still many technical hurdles to overcome before rail guns can be put into active service.