Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Jun 8, 2005 1:01:01 GMT -6
Z Fires Objects Faster Than Earth Moves Through Space
Albuquerque NM (SPX) Jun 08, 2005
Sandia National Labs has accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second. The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia's Z Machine - sometimes referred to as the fastest gun in the West.
Actually the fastest in the world, it is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 km/sec that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the sun, 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth's gravitational field.
Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration lab.
The immediate purpose of these very rapid flights is to help understand the extreme conditions found within the interiors of the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter, hasten the achievement of virtually unlimited energy through peacetime atomic fusion, and provide more information about the condition of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without having to explode a nuclear weapon.
The plates are small - only 30 mm by 15 mm in cross-section, and 850 microns thick. The trick in accelerating the fragile aluminum plates at 10-to-the-10th Gs (force of Earth's gravity) without vaporizing them lies in the finer control now achievable of the magnetic field pulse driving the flight.
The arrival of energy at the target is staggered over three hundred nanoseconds, so that the amperage arrives less like a brick wall that would vaporize the plate and more in controllable increments.
More here at SpaceDaily.com: www.spacedaily.com/news/physics-05w.html
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If only it were to be used for good, and not evil.