Whatever happened to the "Rods from God" program?
For the uninitiated, it calls for creating a system of metal poles, fired from space, that could strike anywhere on the planet. It's a long-held -- and long-ridiculed -- idea.
Keeping the rods from liquefying as they enter the atmosphere is a daunting task. In order to be considered effective weapons, the rods would need to be orbited at very low altitudes, and could only deliver one-ninth the destructive energy per gram as a conventional bomb.