Are railguns i.e. magnetic based weaponry a reality or still science fiction?
To define: a railgun is not a magnetic based delivery system. A coil gun is. It is currently called an “EM gun”, for “electromagnetic”. It has been found that railguns, as they are traditional described, are quite possible — but proven to be infeasible. A rail gun propels an object (bomb, missile or space craft)along two rails that conduct electricity and produce plasma (which is super hot gas), sliding the object forward (and up along the trajectory). Unfortunately, the friction of the attempt usually destroys the rails, making them useless after one pass. The answer is the coil gun (also known as a mass driver). It uses magnetic fields to continually pull the object from weaker to stronger fields in a matter of a few seconds over great distances. This was accomplished in 1993 by Sandia National Laboratories. But it’s use for launching things into space is still questionable. Instead, Sandia (a division of Lockheed Martin) has focused on the development of a miniature version of the
