r/BeAmazed • u/Wooden-Journalist902 • Nov 15 '25

Technology Hypersonic railgun round goes through metal plates like they are made of paper.

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u/Useful_Instruction86 Nov 15 '25

Could we use this tech to shoot satellites into space?

1

u/GogurtFiend Nov 16 '25

It's possible to shoot projectiles into space without railguns. Shells capable of achieving orbit under their own power were planned but never actually constructed.

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u/alexandruhh Nov 18 '25

satellites would probably disintegrate from the speed.. it's extremely high speed in an extremely short period of time.

I've no clue what I'm talking about, but seems way too violent for complex machinery to survive. the bullet is just a piece of metal.

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u/fireduck Nov 19 '25

For space launches, railguns or coilguns are potentially doable. However in order to not have an extremely high acceleration (which breaks things) you need a long "barrel". I've heard of sci-fi sort of proposals of having such a gun built into the side of a mountain in order to give a multiple mile launch path in a generally spaceward direction.