Practical Attempts
One of the first engineering descriptions of an "Electric Gun" appears in the technical supplement of "Zero to Eighty" by "Akkad Pseudoman", a pen name for the Princeton physicist and electrical entrepreneur Edwin Fitch Northrup. Dr. Northrup built prototype coil guns powered by kHz-frequency three phase electrical generators, and the book contains photographs of some of these prototypes. The book describes a fictional circumnavigation of the moon by a two-person vehicle launched by a Northrup electric gun.
Later prototype mass drivers have been built since 1976 (Mass Driver 1), some constructed by the U.S. Space Studies Institute in order to prove their properties and practicality. Military R&D on coilguns is related, as are also maglev trains.
Read more about this topic: Mass Driver
Famous quotes containing the words practical and/or attempts:
“To the men of this world, to the animal strength and spirits, to the men of practical power, whilst immersed in it, the man of ideas appears out of his reason. They alone gave reason.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“[Allegory] is a flight by which the human wit attempts at one and the same time to investigate two objects, and consequently is fitted only to the most exalted geniuses.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)