Navy Tests Mach 8 Electromagnetic Railgun 440
hargrand writes "Wired magazine has a story and publicly released video of the Navy test firing of a 32 megajoule electromagnetic railgun: 'Reporters were invited to watch the test at the Dalghren Naval Surface Warfare Center. A tangle of two-inch thick coaxial cables hooked up to stacks of refrigerator-sized capacitors took five minutes to power juice into a gun the size of a schoolbus built in a warehouse. With a 1.5-million-ampere spark of light and a boom audible in a room 50 feet away, the bullet left the gun at a speed of Mach 8.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've heard that before (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as the development of said supergun is in the US, you are doing it right.
Problem starts when mass production starts ordering equipment overseas - development and production of military equipment = jobs which help the economy, where ever it takes place, trick is to make sure you build it in your own garden.
50 feet away? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've heard that before (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, is that the depth of your economic thinking, whoever has the biggest guns rules? I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union never outsourced the production of its weapons either.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Insightful)
Y'know, if we hired a little kid to start throwing rocks through windows all over the city, so many that we'd have to open another glass production plant to meet up with the demand for new windows, we'd also help the economy. Especially if we built it here in America.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I am all for world peace. I really want us all go just get along. But we are humans. Some of us are passive. Some of us are not. Turns out, the passive end up serving the non-passive and we end up fighting over "stuff." This will never end so long as we are human. No one is "equal" so long as I think I am better than you and the resources you have should be mine.
So while the USSR failed, Russia and the remnants of the USSR's resources still exist. Also, China is showing itself to be a much larger threat than the USSR ever was. (Plus they "look different from us" and so it's much easier to make them an enemy!) There WILL be some serious conflict with China in the near future. Whether it is cold or not remains to be seen, but it is clear that things are changing much faster than we know in Asia. China's influence is moving at an amazing pace and we had better be prepared to defend ourselves. Using powerful, non-nuclear weapons is an important way to prepare.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:3, Insightful)
Overheard somewhere in Europe 9000BC
"Bejeebus mister Grok. We're out here starvin' and you're trying to fix a piece of string on a flimsy rod so you can what? Shoot projectiles at things?!? We already have a spear and it's worked so well for us. All those animals don't have spears! The best they have are horns! Harharhar Now come help me kill this stupid turkey."
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're forgetting the obvious explanation: that ever since WWII, we don't know how to run an economy that isn't propped up by military spending.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've heard that before (Score:4, Insightful)
"Launching stuff into orbit is a bit weird - You're still going to use a comparable amount of energy in order to do so."
As the motor, the tank, the fuel, the cooling etc doesn't have to be lifted with the orbiter, actually the energy is not at all comparable.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention that the energy can be generated with far cheaper and incredibly more environmentally sound methods.
Re:I've heard that before (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets see - in your list of possible uses - Launching stuff into orbit is a bit weird - You're still going to use a comparable amount of energy in order to do so. And I'm pretty sure accelerating humans that quickly will kill them. Fusion reactions - I have no idea.
They are launching only the payload. They are not launching two or more rocket motors and the fuel necessary to make them work and yet you think they are going to use a comparable amount of energy. I am sure the rate of launches and success rate would be much better. We need to launch automated factories into space and than launch the raw material for them. They could than manufacture huge solar collectors which could provide the world with all its energy needs many times over. You call it a bit weird. I call it one of the greatest advancement in human history.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
That word "most" is dispensable here. You in the US spend more on military than the rest of the world combined.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.
Yet that top 1% control 99% of the capital. It looks like that 37% is a fucking good deal. For them.
And think how much tax the government could be bringing in if that narrow section of society didn't expend massive efforts in hiding their income and assets in tax havens?
Whilst those at the bottom might not be paying income tax, they still have to pay the other taxes that exist, and generally those taxes are much more of a burden than they are on the rich. A rich person can easily afford a couple of extra percent on purchases, but it is much more of a poor person's income, so relatively those taxes are higher.
If an something has a dollar of tax on it, for someone earning 15kUSD a year that tax is 0.0067% of their annual income. For someone earning a million a year, it is 0.0001% of their income, 67 times less!
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
The rich, say the top 1% of the pop. pay approx 37 % of all the income tax in the country. The top 20% pay about 85% of the income taxes. The bottom 50% of the pop. pay no income tax.
The rich earn most of the money, so of course they pay most of the income tax. And the bottom 47% (not 50) still pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, certain state and local income taxes, sales tax, and excise taxes on things like gasoline and alcohol.
The utility of wealth is not linear. Progressive taxation makes economic and psychological sense, and it was supported by, among others, Benjamin Franklin."the most equal of all Taxes...is generally in proportion to Mens Wealth." (Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Ruston, October 9, 1780).
Re:Yay! (Score:2, Insightful)
That word "most" is dispensable here. You in the US spend more on military than the rest of the world combined.
Not to worry, we probably also spend more on pizza than the rest of the world combined...
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
And the bottom 47% (not 50) still pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes, certain state and local income taxes, sales tax, and excise taxes on things like gasoline and alcohol.
And? Questions about the programs aside, those Medicare and SS taxes are nothing compared to what they'll actually get from those programs. Historically, we've received more money from Medicare and SS than we've actually put into it. So that's a net gain. And those state and local taxes and alchohol and gas taxes go for things like police departments and roads... stuff that they benefit from directly. You make it sound like not paying an income tax is OK because they pay those other things, when they come out ahead even without paying an income tax. In fact, most people under the 50K line (with families) end up being paid by other taxpayers when January rolls around. Most tax "refunds" aren't refunds at all, but are cash bonuses, courtesy of richer taxpayers. The "Earned Income Tax Credit" may be the most misnamed tax statute on the books. You get extra cash, gratis, if you fall below a certain income and have kids. How is that "earned"?
The utility of wealth is not linear. Progressive taxation makes economic and psychological sense, and it was supported by, among others, Benjamin Franklin."the most equal of all Taxes...is generally in proportion to Mens Wealth." (Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Ruston, October 9, 1780).
Your mistake is in assuming that "proportion" has to be your so-called progressive taxation scheme. With a flat tax, ALL taxation would be in proportion to wealth. You make more, you pay more. You make less, you pay less. But everybody actually pays taxes in that system, which is important in a Democratic Republic, lest a significant portion of the public comes to see those richer than them as their meal ticket, and develop an entitlement to what others have earned. Which is exactly what has happened. That chunk of the populace has discovered that they can vote themselves other people's money. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, in a kind of way.
Re:Yay!(income is not wealth) (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can look at those charts and see any trendline I applaud you. To me it appears the numbers are statistically brownian noise.
Your first paragraph is ok, but then you dive into the deep end... You give no basis for why para 1 is "poison to democracy". Speaking of which, what is this Democracy to which you refer? People like you, with no basis in economics, or civics, are what make the long term prospects of the US "not good".
Re:I've heard that before (Score:4, Insightful)
And the military spending is redistributive. Unless you had some unstated adjectives in there you were implying that you'll only reveal when called wrong, in which case you would be the only liar here. As saying something with the intention of deceiving others is a lie, and purposefully hiding constraints on your vile and incorrect spew to make it sound like you were right all along is something the greater internet fuckwads like to do.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Only the kind of fuckin' unempathetic eedjit who's never had to worry about where his next meal is coming from and doesn't recognise this as an extraordinary piece of luck compared with the situation of 99% of humanity throughout history and far too many people in the US today writes this kind of garbage.
If it was that fucking great to be poor -- if you got to receive so many privileges without having to work for them -- then rich people would be giving up their earned income for the plentiful largesse of the state. Funnily enough, those rubbing along on the $250k+ that earns them the major benefit from the Bush tax cut (now perpetuated by the pusillanimous Obama administration) aren't rushing to give up 90% of their income and live on $25k p.a. instead. That's cos they've recognised that life earning that much money is shit shit shit. Shit food, early death, violence, just shit.
You need to get a fucking grip, mate, and see what the real world is like. That 1% of people paying 37% of income tax are doing so because they are richer than fucking Croesus and are, practically speaking, living in a completely different world to the rest of their "fellow" Americans, who have practically no assets to their name, no discretionary income, and virtually no life chances. They are born in poverty, will live in poverty and will die in poverty. But that statistical truth will be ignored while the other statistical truth -- normal distribution -- will throw up enough who do escape to allow people to keep pointing to rags-to-riches stories as endorsements of this setup as "the American way".