Companies like SpaceX want electromagnetic catapults on the moon. Could they be used as weapons?

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A new report stresses the strategic and security implications of placing mass drivers on the moon — essentially electromagnetic catapults — by arguing that these launchers could serve as valuable first strike weapons systems.

According to the theory behind them, these mass drivers could use powerful magnetic fields to throw satellites and other probes into space without the need for costly and heavy chemical propellants. Putting railguns on the moon isn't a new idea, and was most recently proposed by SpaceX as a means of launching thousands of AI data center satellites into deep space.

But according to a new report, these mass drivers are inherently dual use, meaning they can be used for both civilian and military purposes; while it's true they could help launch peaceful satellites, being large electrically-driven cannons, they could also potentially launch weapons from the moon. "This duality places mass drivers in a uniquely sensitive strategic position," the new report states. "While mass drivers can bootstrap an off-world economy, they carry an equally potent and unsettling military capability: the ability to operate as an unassailable, undetectable first-strike platform."