top | item 42901832

(no title)

fcq | 1 year ago

I wonder what would be the technical challenges of a railgun powered rocket/capsule to launch small payloads to space, technically the remaining concern would be the G force from the acceleration.

discuss

order

XorNot|1 year ago

Railguns have always suffered from rail degradation.

Basically even if you build a suitably large one, you might get as few as 1 shots from the structure before having to replace the entire rail.

domoregood|1 year ago

The railgun "solution" occurred to me too. Is the rail degradation a failure of materials science? Or are the materials that would be required for this so theoretical at this point to be science fiction rather than science?