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Rods From God

kinetic_loki

It’s been over a year since the last science post, so I had probably better either a) make another science post or b) rename the site. What I’m about to talk about is more science fiction than proper science, but I was wondering about it and did the research and it’s close enough to the real thing to pass for it if you squint a bit, and most importantly it ends the science drought.

The hokum military fantasy plotline of Call of Duty: Ghosts is kicked off when the baddies hijack a US space station to drop a number of very heavy objects onto the continental United States, devastating the country and providing the developers with an excuse for one of the more mediocre first person shooters I’ve played in recent years. As with most concepts explored in Call of Duty, while the way its portrayed in the game is complete nonsense the idea of launching weapons into space that can bombard targets below is a legitimate one that’s been around for a very long time –since before we actually got into space in the first place,  in fact — and Ghosts even references a specific one: its Loki satellite has an obvious link to Project Thor, a proposal originating from the 1950s but which was being mentioned in news reports as recently as four years ago under its sexier nickname: Rods from God.

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