Magnetic Accelerators

Be it a good thing that the Airforce is building a mass accelerator?

Sure, they can launch 200 pound satellites in to space [if they can survive 10,000Gs of acceleration] but with a wittle re-direction, and lowering of power, they can launch 50 pound tungsten kinetic-energy-weapons coated with an ablative foam that let's them survive re-entry, and impact on the designated target travelling something like 15 miles per second [if launched on a sharply curving parabolla, the projectile could get several minutes of 9.8 M/S^2 acceleration]

That could be very, very bad. Let's hope the Republicans lose the rest of their power after 08.

Indeed.

Luckily though, it's going to be a pretty paltry magnetic accelerator, at only 3 miles in diameter.

hey ishman. whatever happened to terminal velocity? doesnt that affect all objects being pulled by gravity?

^ That only matters when something is falling (it is in this case), and when there's an atmosphere for it to fall in (to slow it down, in which case during much of the time it's probably not happening), and when it falls for long enough for the air to slow it to terminal velocity (in this case I would guess that it's not long enough).

Yeah...

The terminal velocity of a 50 pound tungsten slug, shaped like a needle, is probably in excess of 200 miles a second.

I read this artical in Pop Sci magazine.

Looks pretty crazy and the government is giving them 500,000 just to prove it works.

No duh.

America loves to waste money on high-tech toys.

Though, unfortunately, you'd have to screw up massively to make this not work -_-

The only thing it really needs is an assload of power, and some damn good electro-magnets.