Real NASA Electron Gun In 'Terminator 3'

Dr. Charles “Chuck” Crawford, founder of Kimball Physics, wasn’t sure how or where the set designers came across an electron gun manufactured by the company for NASA. But they had, and they wanted to put that ominous-looking gun in Schwarzenegger’s hands.

“They (the movie people) contacted us quite a while ago,” Crawford said recently. “They wanted to lease a couple of our electron guns. We were concerned that if we sent them one, it would get damaged – they are quite expensive. If I’d thought, what we should have done was send them one with no insides.”

Instead he sent them pictures and specs of the gun so the movie people could build a model. Crawford also sent photographs of the Kimball Physics labs.

One of the electron guns was sitting on a table in the conference room during an interview. It was a shiny, silvery, very futuristic-looking high-tech weapon about 4 feet long, looking like something straight out of the “Terminator” films.

“It looks dangerous because it is,” Crawford said, explaining that this one was “a small one, only about 100,000 volts.”