posted on Jan, 22 2009 @ 04:04 AM
The Nazis did successfully fire a rail gun V-2 missile at Russia on 16 March 1945. In DDR East Germany, 1962 there was a judicial enquiry at Arnstadt
into the Ordruf Concentration camp activities during WW2.
Sworn testimony by four witnesses described the winged V-2 launched horizontally from a rail device with a Pusher rocket behind the V-2 (A-4b).
It took off at night emitting a bright flame behind it. Others who actually assembled the rocket for the "Polte II" launch site testified to the
actual rocket device.
I personally see no need for an expensive and difficult to engineer electric rail gun when a few solid rocket boosters tied together would achieve the
same effort. It would also make the launches safer than the current ones comparing the Challenger disaster, since the space vehicle would be ahead of
the pusher unit and a defective launch would merely result in failure to gain escape velocity and could be recovered by a landing back to a runway.
It would also be kinder on the environment, because booster exhaust would be expended in the lower atmosphere where it would be less harmful to the
Ozone layer and scrubbed by natural rainfall.
One could also infinitely multiply the launch forces by simply increasing the amount of booster rockets permitting perhaps heavier launches that even
Shuttle could manage and at far lower costs