President Donald Trump has waded into the swampy world of defense systems again. Months after threatening to cancel the F-35 program over escalating costs (and taking credit for cost reductions already scheduled to take place ) the President told Time magazine he ordered the Navy to ditch the USS Gerald R. Ford's new Electomagnetic Aircraft Launch System , or EMALS.

In the President's own words :

"You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, we're going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you don't use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, "Ah, how is it working?" "Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn't have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam's going all over the place, there's planes thrown in the air."It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it's very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said–and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be–"Sir, we're staying with digital." I said no you're not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it's no good."

Catapults have launched aircraft from the decks of carriers for more than a hundred years, solving the short runway problem. Planes taking off from modern carriers are limited to about 300 feet or less of runaway—about an eighth of what they would normally need on land. Catapults provide a sudden burst of acceleration that can take a plane from zero to a takeoff speed of 170 miles an hour in just two seconds.

Modern nuclear-powered carriers use steam catapults, diverting steam from the nuclear-powered turbines to the catapult system. The catapult system manipulates steam pressure levels and, once high enough, uses the force of steam release to launch airplanes into the air.

Steam rises from the catapult system on the USS George Washington, June 2014. Philippe Lopez Getty Images

The steam method is tried and true, although it does require a lot of maintenance, and steam is dangerous to work around. Also, steam catapults are less flexible when it comes to launching planes of different weights, particularly small drones.

The new EMALS ("digital") system is designed to remove steam from the equation and take power directly from the turbines. EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System) uses a surge of electricity to generate electrical currents with strong magnetic fields. These fields propel a carriage down the runway. This carriage is attached to the airplane and flings it into the air. EMALS is supposed to be easier to operate, gentler on airplanes, and capable of launching more planes into the air in a shorter period of time than steam catapults.

But the system has had a rocky development history, and its troubles have partially accounted for the three-year delay in getting USS Ford into service. In 2015 the first public launch on the Ford was a failure . Navy officials were so worried about EMALS they briefly considered going back to steam for the next two carriers under construction, USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise.

Here's a video of EMALS hurtling test loads off the deck of Ford once they finally got it working:

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

However, it's difficult to understand what the President of the United States is trying to say in his comments to Time. He seems to suggest that Kennedy and Enterprise should go back to steam catapults. He also seems to be saying that the USS Ford should be refitted with steam catapults. After all, if it the system doesn't work, why send Ford to sea with it? We don't know why someone in the Navy told Trump that the system doesn't work—if the conversation happened at all. It's difficult to understand why anyone in the Navy working with EMALS would go off-message with the President himself and set the Navy up for what amounts to a fool's errand.

The problem with "going (back) to g*ddamned steam" is that it would require a major reworking of the ship's innards. Ford was designed without steam piping running from the steam turbines all the way to the catapults. The Navy and shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries would be forced to rip out the miles of electrical cabling in the ship and lay down a complex new network of steam pipe. They would also have to rip out the EMALS system itself, which is smaller and lighter than the steam catapult system. Going back to steam would force the Navy to reassign space inside the ship, tossing something overboard to make room for the steam system.

PCU Ford during builders trials, April 2017. U.S. Navy photo.

Refitting the Gerald R. Ford with steam would cost hundreds of millions (if not billions ) of dollars. Ford is already the most expensive ship of all time, costing $12.8 billion in construction costs and another $4.7 billion in research and development costs. Ford is also three years behind schedule, and a steam conversion would send the carrier back to the shipyards for at least a year, if not two, just weeks from commissioning.

EMALS is a poster child for immature technologies sent to the field too soon. That said, by all accounts the principles behind it are sound. Like any new technology the problems will eventually be worked out. It will almost certainly be cheaper and less time-consuming to debug the new system than to reintroduce the old one. While the President may be Commander in Chief, and the Navy has not done a good job managing the Ford program, micromanaging complex engineering programs is a bad idea. The President needs to make the Navy fix its own problem instead of handing it a new one.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io