railguns and normal chemically propelled guns are essentially the same, except that the momentum transfer is near 100% efficient in the railgun whilst some of the energy is imparted into the combustion gases in normal guns. The limiting factor of all such weaponry is limited to mass and thrust of the spacecraft so to limit the affect firing the weapon has on the attitude and trajectory of the spacecraft. Conventional aircraft's autocannon is feasible space weapon as the thrust generated by firing is insignificant compared to that of the engine (although slowing down when firing is a greatly noticeable effect in aircraft with powerful guns like the A10 Warthog). Unguided projectile weaponry will most likely be impracticable in space due to the complex calculations to plot an intercept over large distances compared to the relative ease of making an evasive manoeuvre. Missiles too require complex firing solutions if engagements occur in orbital space where changing orbital trajectories and height require vast amounts of propellant and even more if the firing solution is inefficient (consider the complications of current ASAT weapons and the difficulty in hitting stable orbiting objects). Nuclear weapons become more feasible in space and indeed, more important as low attainable accuracy of weapons will have to be compensated with large area of effect weapons. Lack of significant radiological threat is also a bonus. This might bring in turn nuclear-antimissiles or the obsolescence of "warships (platform centric warefare)" and more emphasis on individual self guided munition vehicles. Space warfare will be nothing like naval warfare, or any warfare fought on earth or simulated in any videogame on the market (because such a game is too complex to be fun, btw are there even space flight simulators like ms flight simulator apart from the ones NASA owns?). Battles and wars are most likely to be fought over planetary orbits instead of empty space because there are no choke points in space terrain and contested territories will most likely be planets (who wants to own empty space?) and it is near impossible to intercept a ship/fleet in open space. War in space without FTL capability will take years for a ship/fleet to get to where its meant to be (like a certain planet) and wars will most likely take decades to even be won over a spread out galaxy and the time form declaration of war to the initial clash might be years (its hard to be at war without actual fighting for so long, and chances are whatever caused the conflict will have been resolved).

You can also check out this video of the US Navy testing a prototype railgun (to be used on a new destroyer class.)


WWW Link

Seriously... the Georgia Guidestones? Of all the conspiracies out there you pick THIS ONE to be our future. Heck, I prefer the doomsday moon colonization plan. Sustained Development is such a silly idea - using environmentalism to destroy humanity... pshaw!

Bring on the Mega-Cities and Judge Dredd!!

The REAL reason is because they simply want to believe in it and imagine. It make them feel cozy and important.

I'm not a physesist, but i do think that involves recoil, as you are in a sence propelling somthing fowards. which, in space, would send you flying backwards.
They are quite impressive though, i agree.
But i could be wrong, we just have to wait 1000 years or so and see what kind of stuff we start putting on our ships. lol. unless we reincarnate to another planet, in another galaxy.

The rail gun does cause recoil, in fact even worse then standard guns, the magnetic force forces the two rails in the gun (that conduct electricity) in opposite directions, in space that could cause the ship to begin spinning at the same speed the progectile is fired from the ship. which would make it highly ineffective as a weapon, until prouper gravity and anti gravity technology is invented, if ever.
Basicly you would need either beam weapons (which are rather complicated to make useful as weapons) and self guided missles, which propell themselvs, as they wouldn't directly effect the ship itself.

Actually both the Crusades and Jihads were a product of economics pressures.

Spacepony you replied a while ago. the myans were primitive and confused about the future. the world will not end in december of 2012 just becouse our solor system passes thru the center of the Milky way. i do apolijize if i offend you but it is illogical to assume a primitive civ could predict the future so accuratly

Sorry for the double post, but...

For those of you interested in the probability of extraterrestrial life (that we can contact), read up on Drake's Equation. It makes some simplifying assumptions but the statistics turn out interesting!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Haha. Yea lets blow up the universe! Life sucks anyways, we'll be doing the universe a favor!

Here's some of the possible futures for a united Earth, assuming we don't destroy ourselves first.

At one end of the spectrum is the entire planet united under a democratic world state, which isn't exactly on the horizon right now.

Second is a loose coalition of nations/superpowers united under a democracy leading the rest of the world, sort of like my Earth Federation.

Third is a aristocratic republic with somewhat tight governmental control on the population.

Fourth is a monarchy, a la the Terran Empire.

At the other end of the spectrum is a facist dictatorship.

Note: this was just speculation, don't over-anylise it.