IEEE Spectrum July, 2007 - 29

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The tumultuous history of electromagnetic launch By CArolyN MEINEl
ne day in 1977, researchers at Australian
National University were putting the finishing touches on an experiment that they hoped
would cap nearly a decade's worth of groundbreaking research on electromagnetic guns.
Tantalized by the prospect of unleashing the
pure power of electromagnetism to accelerate projectiles
at rates never before achieved, countless researchers had
been pursuing the technology since the turn of the century. But without much success.
An engineer loaded a 3-gram Lexan cube into the
5-meter-long barrel of a contraption that looked like
a cross between a cannon and a particle accelerator.
He threw the switch on a huge 550-megajoule generator and then took a few steps back as the generator
hummed up to speed over several minutes, its giant
flywheel rotors spinning and singing as they stored
kinetic energy. He threw another switch, releasing the
generator's charge in a stupendous 2-million-ampere
pulse [see photo, "Ready to Launch"].
The Lexan cube flew from the barrel and across the
room "like a meteorite," the railgun's designer, Richard
Marshall, later recalled. Accelerated to half a million g's,
it had reached an astounding 5.9 kilometers per second.
At such a speed, if it could be sustained, a trip from
London to Los Angeles would take just 25 minutes.
Marshall's device had set a world record for electromagnetic guns, but what the inventive New Zealander

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couldn't have imagined then is that his record would still
stand today, 30 years later. It hasn't been for lack of trying:
he and a small cadre of true believers have spent much of
the past three decades struggling to advance this frustratingly elusive technology, for use as an advanced weapon
and even to launch satellites into orbit. Along the way,
they have encountered nearly every pitfall that can beset
the development of a promising new military technology:
poorly conceived projects and ill-informed politicians,
overreaching colleagues and overinflated results, and
funding booms that precipitously went bust. Compared
with the politicking and turf battles, the huge technical
hurdles that Marshall and other researchers faced seemed
quite tractable. Those challenges, at least, were subject to
the laws of physics and the craft of engineering.
Most of all, the recent history of railgun research is
a cautionary tale about military R&D. It's an enterprise
where the best technology doesn't always win, and
even when it does, it may very well have cost far more
to field than it should have.
This particular story may end in success. The persistence of electromagnetic-gun researchers seems to
be paying off at last. In recent years, interest in electromagnetic guns has soared, with the United States, China,
Russia, and 13 other countries now supporting robust
R&D programs. The U.S. Army and Navy envision EM
guns as a key component for the next generation of allelectric vehicles. The Chinese, meanwhile, have set up

July 2007 | IEEE Spectrum | NA 41

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum July, 2007