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DailyDirt: Modern Swords To Plowshares
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
As technology advances, it's increasingly obvious that almost any piece of hardware can be used as a weapon, if put in the wrong hands. We can't exactly ban people from brewing their own beer at home because it's possible that they could also incubate a bioweapon with the same equipment. But how about re-purposing weapons for peaceful missions? NASA has inherited a couple pretty nice spy telescopes, and there could be plenty of other scientific uses for certain military hardware.
- A Chinese guided rocket named the SY-400 (aka the Heavy Sword) was fired into a typhoon -- for science. This shot didn't deliver an explosive payload, but a scientific one filled with sensors to collect atmospheric data. [url]
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gets the same very bad suggestion a LOT, so it has publicly posted its official answer. The tl;dr version -- it is a VERY bad idea to try to stop a hurricane with a nuclear bomb. The slightly longer answer: the amount of energy needed to stop a hurricane is far greater than any weapon at our disposal; plus, the nuclear fallout would be insanely bad for everyone and everything. [url]
- NASA uses Global Hawk unmanned aircraft to study various atmospheric phenomena. Drones can fly day and night to study hurricanes, and NASA operates a variety of aircraft equipped for scientific missions. [url]
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As a bonus it gets rid of those pesky nuclear stockpiles! No need to store spent uranium/plutonium either!
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Ummmmmm...no.
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Ummmmmm...no.
I'd rather the fallout stowed nicely in a hole in a rock than scattered all over the Atlantic, thanks.
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Nice try but not really
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Re: Nice try but not really
Be more specific about what you're replying to. ;)
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“Weaponry” Without The Weapons
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I thought it was odd seeing the nuclear bomb question.
We did consider nuclear depth charges since water is marvelous as absorbing the radiation from a nuke, but even then our conventional anti-sub weapons are adequate enough without causing an international nuclear incident.
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Re: I thought it was odd seeing the nuclear bomb question.
Didn't the US once do a high altitude detonation over New England, to try and seed rain, which actually succeeded in producing these huge rain clouds, with the unfortunate side-effect of being radioactive?
Then that pesky Nuclear Test Ban Treaty came along and ruined everything.
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Using explosives to disperse tornadoes
Despite tornadoes being sudden and unpredictable systems, there's also the matter that explosives would be adding a lot of heat to a system that is fueled by heat, so the blast may disrupt a part of system for the moment (the eye, for a well-guided shot) but the newly heated and destabilized air would only ensure that the storm would resume and be stronger for the blast.
Even a MOAB (the largest American conventional weapon) would be a momentary hole in a tornado / super-cell system. Our puny human weapons only make the beast stronger.
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