this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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I wonder how much more energy it took to accomplish that compared to just shooting a rocket. Last I had heard railguns weren't really feasible because of the absurd amount of energy they would require even with perfect efficiency.
It's not the absurd amount of energy that's the problem. It's the absurd amount of energy that has to be STORED AND RELEASED within a fraction of a second in a controlled fashion.
If you wanna go electric, you would need a stupendous amount of capacitors and a gun that won't get destroyed due to the immense energy release.
If u wanna go chemical (like an actual gun), u r faced with the same problem of the gun exploding.
The only approach that MIGHT work is the Spinlaunch thing, where u essentially store this energy as angular momentum in a THICCC carbon fibre rod. Spinlaunch is still yet to demonstrate anything remarkable, so there's that.
Yea, which is nothing. Plus altitude means nothing when u want to put stuff in orbit. It's the initial velocity that matters for an apparatus like this.