Blowing things up from far away
Everyone knows spaceships will have laser guns that go “pew, pew” and kill the fat guy in the x-wing. But until then, we’ll have to make do with blowing the crap out of stuff at 220 miles with the most powerful rail gun ever. The 32-megajoule Electric Laboratory Rail Gun (a name only a military bureaucrat could love) is four times more powerful than the previously-most-powerful rail gun, capable of accelerating steel slugs to Mach 7.
The scary thing is, this model is only half as powerful as the specifications given by the Navy - they want a 64 megajoule weapon. BAE’s got a ways to go, the current model only lasts a few shots before blowing itself out of alignment.
(story and image via DailyTech)
