From the Heavens

Whilst frittering away my time on the internet today, I stumbled across a link to one of my favorite real life sci-fi weapons project ever: the "Rods From God" kinetic weapons platform.

The idea is delightful in its simplicity: hoist a six-shooter full of tungsten telephone poles into space, wait until they're over your target, then release. The kinetic energy the rods build up while they're screaming through the atmosphere would be equivalent to that of a small meteor. Armor? Pshaw. In a cave? Good luck.

Of course, there are some issues with this. Will the rods survive reentry? How accurate will it be? What if the enemy happens to move after launch? Doesn't Zeus already have a patent on death from above?

My biggest problem is the name. It's that sort of misogynistic phallus-oriented violent language that's made our foreign policy what it is today. I think the pentagon has missed a golden opportunity to clean their image here. Why not call it the High-altitude Unidirectional Gravitational weapon System, or the Low-Orbit Versatile Exterminator? That way, you can say that our government will be sending the evil axis du jour LOVE from God or HUGS from God!

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about those Korean weapons facilities. I have a feeling that God is going to show them some LOVE."

So, to the NSA internet traffic monitoring guys who are reading this: please pass this along to the Department of Defense. I think I could really be on to something here.