Real UAV's

[PatR]

Speaking of weapons, how about Pournelle and Niven describing how an alien invader only needs to throw rocks mined at the moon for devastating kinetic weapons. I believe the super heated copper rods used for upper armor penetration originated with that.

 

[dougcjohn]

Speaking of weapons, how about Pournelle and Niven describing how an alien invader only needs to throw rocks mined at the moon for devastating kinetic weapons. I believe the super heated copper rods used for upper armor penetration originated with that.

Pournelle had a wide career, was one of few Polymath in US. That rock & copper comment is actually spot on... he worked for Boeing in 40's and Aerospace in 70's. While researching under Boeing in mid-40's he wrote about an envisioned weapon with tungsten rods dropped from atmosphere altitude, a high Kinetic energy projectiles called the weapon "Project Thor".

His technical knowledge was amazing, still to this day his book The Strategies of Technology is used as text book in West Point and Air War College.

 

[R.Perry]

His early books were masterpieces of international politics, military tactics, strategy, technology, suspense, and science fiction all rolled into a single package. Like any of the great SciFi writers, much of what appears fiction is based on fact, whether or not those facts have been discovered yet. An example of undiscovered fact is the use of solar sails now being talked about for space flight. Heinlein wrote about them a long, long time ago.

He has always been one of my favorite fiction authors, it is a shame he is gone.

 

[PatR]

Pournelle had a wide career, was one of few Polymath in US. That rock & copper comment is actually spot on... he worked for Boeing in 40's and Aerospace in 70's. While researching under Boeing in mid-40's he wrote about an envisioned weapon with tungsten rods dropped from atmosphere altitude, a high Kinetic energy projectiles called the weapon "Project Thor".

His technical knowledge was amazing, still to this day his book The Strategies of Technology is used as text book in West Point and Air War College.

I did not know most any of that. Thanks for the enlightenment!

 

[PatR]

He has always been one of my favorite fiction authors, it is a shame he is gone.

Two of his books well represented what would happen to society when the chips hit the floor; Lucifer’s Hammer and Foot Fall. In one our society turns on itself after a world wide disaster and in the other humans become the “insurgents” after an alien invasion. Both were/are credible scenarios.