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The year is 2019. The destroyer U.S.S. Mason patrols enemy waters, and is suddenly faced with a barrage of incoming missiles. Almost instantly, dozens of brightly colored lasers beam out of the Mason, intercepting the missiles and destroying them harmlessly in the air. Then a massive deck-mounted gun turns and takes aim at an onshore target 70 miles inland. The ship's lights dim for a moment, and the magnetic railgun fires a projectile at roughly Mach 7. The impact is audible as a dull, subsonic thud. Want to find out what else the Navy's researchers are cooking up? More »
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Here are some photos of the Navy testing its new electromagnetic railgun at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. The railgun fires at 10.44 megajoules, with a muzzle velocity of 2520 meters per second. Click through for more details and a gallery of splodey pics. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=351830&view=rss&microfeed=true Rockets may be a thing of the past one of these days. Instead, we may use huge electromagnetic "rail guns" to escape from the gravity of a body such as Earth or the Moon. But this concept hasn't appeared much in movies or TV yet. Hence this new short film (which is still in development, hence the unfinished test footage, just posted last night.) More »
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