One day in 1977, researchers at Australian National University were putting the finishing touches on an experiment that they hoped would cap nearly a decade’s worth of groundbreaking research on electromagnetic guns. Tantalized by the prospect of unleashing the pure power of electromagnetism to accelerate projectiles at rates never before achieved, countless ­researchers had been pursuing the technology since the turn of the century. But without much success.

An engineer loaded a 3-gram Lexan cube into the 5‑meter-long barrel of a contraption that looked like a cross between a cannon and a particle accelerator. He threw the switch on a huge 550-megajoule generator and then took a few steps back as the generator hummed up to speed over several minutes, its giant flywheel rotors spinning and singing as they stored kinetic energy. He threw another switch, releasing the generator’s charge in a stupendous 2‑million-ampere pulse [see photo, “Ready to Launch”].

Photo: Australian News and Information Bureau

READY TO LAUNCH: Richard Parkes [left] and Scott Rashleigh at Australian National University make last-­minute tweaks to a railgun that set the speed record for such machines in 1977.

The Lexan cube flew from the barrel and across the room “like a meteorite,” the railgun’s designer, Richard Marshall, later recalled. Accelerated to half a million g’s, it had reached an astounding 5.9 kilometers per second. At such a speed, if it could be sustained, a trip from London to Los Angeles would take just 25 minutes.

Marshall’s device had set a world record for electromagnetic guns, but what the inventive New Zealander couldn’t have imagined then is that his record would still stand today, 30 years later. It hasn’t been for lack of trying: he and a small cadre of true believers have spent much of the past three decades struggling to advance this frustratingly elusive technology, for use as an advanced weapon and even to launch satellites into orbit. Along the way, they have encountered nearly every pitfall that can beset the development of a promising new military technology: poorly conceived projects and ill-informed politicians, overreaching colleagues and overinflated results, and funding booms that precipitously went bust. Compared with the politicking and turf battles, the huge technical hurdles that Marshall and other researchers faced seemed quite tractable. Those challenges, at least, were subject to the laws of physics and the craft of engineering.

Most of all, the recent history of railgun research is a cautionary tale about military R&D. It’s an enterprise where the best technology doesn’t always win, and even when it does, it may very well have cost far more to field than it should have [see timeline, "Selected Events in the Colorful History of Electromagnetic Guns"].

This particular story may end in success. The persistence of electromagnetic-gun researchers seems to be paying off at last. In recent years, interest in electromagnetic guns has soared, with the United States, China, Russia, and 13 other countries now supporting robust R&D programs. The U.S. Army and Navy envision EM guns as a key component for the next generation of all-electric vehicles. The Chinese, meanwhile, have set up no fewer than 22 research institutes studying various aspects of electromagnetic launch (EML), including an intriguing use in tank armor. If these efforts pan out, it will be a remarkable comeback for a technology that only a few years ago looked moribund. Having watched their prospects wax and wane and wax again, EM gun researchers may finally have reason to hope.