Mondolithic Studios

We have decided to hell with it… GYM!!!!! Legs methinks. I can take the weekend off if i want and Sunday is break day for the crew…. well deserved. Then i can wrap up work early evening and once again have an early night. Have a great weekend everybody! Fingers crossed here…. it also looks like we made it into one of our fave books.. How Things Work.. our Bigelow Space Station illustration and a cover for a magazine in Turkey to boot! Woof!

A mass driver or electromagnetic catapult is a proposed method of non-rocket spacelaunch that would use a linear motorto accelerate and catapult payloads up to high speeds. All existing and contemplated mass drivers use coils of wire energized by electricity to make electromagnets. Sequential firing of a row of electromagnets accelerates the payload along a path. After leaving the path, the payload continues to move due to inertia.

A mass driver is essentially a coilgun that magnetically accelerates a package consisting of a magnetisable holder containing a payload. Once the payload has been accelerated, the two separate, and the holder is slowed and recycled for another payload.

Mass drivers can be used to propel spacecraft in two different ways: A large, ground-based mass driver could be used tolaunch spacecraft away from the Earth or another planet. A spacecraft could have a mass driver on board, flinging large pieces of material into space to propel itself. A hybrid design is also possible (see coilgun, railgun, or helical railgun).

Miniaturized mass drivers can also be used as weapons in a similar manner as classic firearms or cannon using chemical combustion.