Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

A cylindrical 220 pound (100 kilogram) launch package is shown after emerging from the end of a lunar electromagnetic launcher.
Image credit: General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems

In 1974, Princeton University professor and space visionary, the late Gerard O’Neill, proposed use of an electromagnetic rail gun to lob payloads from the moon.

“Mass drivers” based on a coil gun design were adapted to accelerate a non-magnetic object. One application for mass drivers was tossing into space lunar-derived materials for building space colonies, as well as solar power satellites.

O’Neill also worked at MIT on mass drivers, along with colleague Henry H. Kolm, and a group of farsighted student volunteers, to fabricate their first mass driver prototype. Backed by grants from the Space Studies Institute, later prototypes improved on the mass driver concept.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet flies over USS Gerald R. Ford.
Image credit: US Navy/Erik Hildebrandt

That was five decades ago.

Now catapult yourself to the then and now and ask this question: what’s the U.S. Navy’s Gerald R. Ford nuclear aircraft carrier got to do with the Moon?

To find out, go to my new Space.com story — Could we launch resources from the moon with electromagnetic railguns?” – at:

https://www.space.com/electromagnetic-launch-moon-mass-drive

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