On Fri, 15 Jun 2001, Chad Cooper wrote:
> Jerry Pournelle and a number of other SCI-Fi writers proposed a missile
> system called THOR. It proposed that you can send into orbit a hundred or so
> satelites that contain 10-20 depleted Uranium Rods weighing a couple hundred
> Kilos each. From orbit you merely wait until a satellite crosses over your
> intended target (Every 20 minutes or so with 100 Satellites), and launch
> this rod toward the Earth. Slap on a GPS and some Gyro rockets guide it to
> its target. At a 12,000 feet/Sec, you get quite a big explosion, and there
> is no defense against it, once it is launched.
> This is a non-nuclear solution, with no defense. We sure could have used it
> in Desert Storm. This type of offensive weapon is extremely effective
> against hostile armies, considering we do not have to do any deployment to
> attack the enemy.
> Nerd From Hell
The Pentagon probably has better people working for it than Jerry
Pournelle does :-) In this case, they looked at Thor, and discovered that
it won't work. The problem is signal cut-off as it goes into the
atmosphere. The plasma surrounding the weapon created by atmospheric
friction would make it impossible to communicate with the weapon during a
critical period of reentry. There were some other problems whose details
I don't recall. At the current state of technology, however, it's just a
neat idea without any practical uses. I'm sure they're still playing with
it, however.
Gautam
