That's how the term "mass driver" was used in Babylon 5, but generally you talk about mass drivers as coilguns propelling loads that combine a magnetic component that the coilgun acts on with the actual payload, usually either for propulsion or transport. In Heinlein's novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress the mass drivers sending products from the Moon to the Earth were re-purposed as weapons, which is probably where a lot of people first ran into the idea of electromagnetic projectile weapons, making it the default term for those some people use. Of course, to quote Niven "A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."
So yes, a railgun is sort of like a mass driver. Except that railguns[1] rely on current flowing through the projectile between two rails and coilguns[2] rely on the current flowing through a loop around the projectile. And mass drivers are a sort of railgun where the projectile isn't a specially designed bullet but a spaceship or hunt of rock or pretty much anything combined with a magnetic sabot, where as this fire specially designed projectiles.
Symmetry|12 years ago
So yes, a railgun is sort of like a mass driver. Except that railguns[1] rely on current flowing through the projectile between two rails and coilguns[2] rely on the current flowing through a loop around the projectile. And mass drivers are a sort of railgun where the projectile isn't a specially designed bullet but a spaceship or hunt of rock or pretty much anything combined with a magnetic sabot, where as this fire specially designed projectiles.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun
unknown|12 years ago
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