ive been hearing about a new weapon in development, or successfully developed already, but its called a rod from god. essentally, it is a long metal rod (like a telephone pole) that is shot from space and has the same effect as a nuclear bomb. any ideas?

ps. heres the link www.weeklystandard.com...

isnt that from some video game? i think it was command and conquer? are they really devolping these things? is that our governments creative department playing video games?

reply to post by Xyver

---

that would be insane


and awesome, but sick at the same time .... its mind boggling if it's real

kinda strange though considering the article's 3 years old and nothing newer has been published???

uhh isnt this essentailly the same idea as Tom Clancy's Endwar? Which was just recently released.

Any chance of a new article?

i dunno much but i heard my friend talking about it so i decided to google it. if its true, i think its a great idea. well, actually its a terrible idea cuz war is stupid, but theres not much we can do about that. but if you are going to fight, and you are going to launch nukes at each other, then we are going to screw ourselves over with all the nuclear radiation. these rods would just make a huge explosion, and it would only be dust and dirt thrown into the air, not toxic chemicals.

I agree, the use of nuclear weapons is an old tired cold war dick show. The less civilian casualties the better , this indiscriminate way of killing is hopefully going out of style.

best solution would be reverting everything back to midevial times. swords and arrows and such. perfectly controlled killing right there, if you ask me.

yes but thats just terrible. the point of military technology is to kill the other guy quicker and easier. war is the price we pay for testing that technology.

That would only work if you knew no one was going to cheat.. You go running into battle with your sword out and your shield in and the enemy pops out from behind a tree and cooks your heads with microwave active denial systems. Then while your puking shards of your pelvis some invisible ninja comes dancin through and cuts you all into ribbons.

All I'm saying is that if we're devloping weapons off of video games now I want to get my hands on that awesome gun from Gears of War with the chainsaw bayonet...

...that's all I'm sayin...


Oh also, Can we please STOP weaponizing space? Don't we have enough weapons here? Why do we have to put em up there too?

war is like a video game with really good graphics but terrible re spawn time.

Here is a site that might be of interest to you .

The Star Wars Beam Weapons
and
Star Wars Directed-Energy Weapons (DEW)
(brought to you by the Star Wars Program)
drjudywood.com...

Lots of video pictures and links

I heard of the possibilities of this technology a couple years ago. In fact, I vaguely remember an article about a military official discussing their practical applications, and an alternative to tactical nuclear weapons. All the boom, and none of the nuclear aftermath.

EDIT: Here is a 2004 Popular Science article about them:

www.popsci.com...

doesnt matter what we do, well end up back in mideval times anyways. after world war three, well be starting from the stone age.

why? because einstein said so? hes a smart guy but he over looked things. technology will still be around. so we will start off right after we left off. except with hopefully a greater understanding of how terrible nuclear weapons are.

Assuming that there is no real end of the world scenerio in our near future .
And that the bible was all wrong ..
Then you may be right .

the bible hasn't been right yet so ill put my money on myself and hope and work for the best.

if we are lucky, we will still survive after ww3. i am saying that we will end up back in the stone age on the account of everyone dying. if one country shoots a nuke at another, then the country will turn around and shoot one back. then the countrys allies will shoot one as well. maybe 2. everntually well have nukes flying everywhere, causing a nuclear winter. that will PROBABLY wipe out all life on earth. we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world entirly at least twice.

If a nuclear war happened between a superpower and someone else, I would be willing to bet that after the initial attack, and assuming the superpower didn't make the first move, they (the superpower) would first understand the global implications of retaliation, and not retaliate with nuclear force. It is because of the very issue you bring up that the aforementioned scenario, rather than MAD, would happen.

Anyway, a cold war era nuclear war is obsolete. All level headed first would countries know MAD would be inevitable. Korea, on the other hand is not level headed. Nor are the so called "middle-eastern" "terrorists".

If anything, a dirty bomb will be set off in this country, and a "middle-eastern" "terrorist" group will claim responsibility. That or Korea will attack, but we wont be able to retaliate, due to potential collateral damage to the surrounding countries.

In short: MAD is self defeating, and obsolete.

[edit on 11/12/2008 by prototism]

[edit on 11/12/2008 by prototism]

you seem to be so sure that people are hell bent on ending the world. its not one guy who pushes a button. its a whole butt load of people who have to agree that they hate the world and want to destroy it. launching a nuke isnt as easy as a button and a countdown. have faith in humanity. and ww3 will be fine. ill see you on the front lines