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To: topher

I like the "Rods from God" approach to destruction of rogue missile sites. There isn't, to my knowlege, such a system operational at this time, but there is a certain appeal to a foot in diameter tungsten telephone pole suddenly streaking down from space and taking Kim's pet project with it to the netherworld.


1,391 posted on 06/18/2006 5:29:55 PM PDT by Riley (The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.)
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To: Riley
Rods from God are very interesting.

My only concern is what if there is a technical glitch with a rod tungsten hurtling at the earth at 36,000 mph? What about civilian/colateral damage? If that is taken care of, it sounds great... The rest of this post addresses this in more detail...

But I would prefer to refer to them as Rods from god or rods from the gods

Since it is Father's Day, I have respect for the one I consider to be Abba.

They are intriguing, but since they are hurtled to the earth like a meteor from space, a malfunction would be very costly in terms of impact on the wrong area (where civilians might be killed by some technical mishap).

I would prefer something that could have controls and could be self destructed on a malfunction. Deploying things in space has its problems - just look what happened with our Spacelab when it decided to return to earth on its own.

We were able to control where and when it re-entered the earth, but there still had to be an effort to try to make that area of the ocean clear of ships, etc, and hope the debris would not rain down on people anywhere.

Now a rods from god or rods from the gods might be able to be put on a titan rocket and fired at a rogue missile site (as opposed to be dropped from an orbiting satellite).

One movie I have gotten on DVD that is interesting is Stealth -- there is considerable technology used in the making of this film.

And maybe Hollywood should do a film based on rods from the gods. If you might be familar with this film (fictious stealth aircraft capable of Mach 4 or Mach 5), then making a Stealth II: Rods of the gods might actually be helpful to the DoD as well as perhaps a money maker for Hollywood.

But part of the plot in Stealth is that the pilots are assigned to take out some nuclear warheads. The pilot in command makes a good tactical decision not to destroy the warheads because of the wind patterns would rain radioactive waste on civilian areas (because of wind patterns). Of course, the plot continues with one of the pilots decides on taking a rogue course of action, and taking out the warheads anyway - despite the effects on civilians in the area.

1,394 posted on 06/18/2006 6:18:22 PM PDT by topher (Let us return to old-fashioned morality - morality that has stood the test of time...)
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