Arthur C. Clarke Science Fiction Idea Basis For M.A.H.E.M.
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Arthur C. Clarke may have passed on recently but his works live on. Many are familiar with him as the author of such classic works as Rendezvous With Rama, Earthlight, Childhood’s End and of course; 2001 A Space Odyssey and it’s sequels. He is also credited with popularizing the idea of a geostationary communications satellite in a paper he wrote in 1945 called: “Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?”
Now about this MAHEM thing and what does it have to do with Clarke? Well, in Earthlight he describes a battle where three spacecraft are attacking a lunar fortress. The commander of the fortress fires a weapons called “Stiletto” which pierces through a ship like a hot knife through butter. The “Stiletto” turns out to be “a jet of molten metal, hurled through space at several hundred kilometres per second by the most powerful electro-magnets ever built.”
Now in the early 21st century Clarkes idea is seeing the light of day in the form of “MAgneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM)“, a project being worked on by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Technorati Tags: Science+fiction, darpa, arthur+c+clarke, mahem, stiletto, MAgneto, Hydrodynamic+Explosive+Munition, weapon, science+fiction+weapon
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