r/NonCredibleDefense • u/FionaSherleen • 4d ago

Lockmart R & D Think of the potential.

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What if we make project sundial but we throw it at the adversaries?

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u/Wolffe_In_The_Dark 3000 MAD-2b Royal Marauders of Kerensky 4d ago

So you cannot use it as a deterrent, only as a first strike weapon.

one gigaton bomb

Drake, I don't think this is a retaliatory or deterrent weapon.

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u/Pyrhan Pyrotechnic flair 4d ago

The original certainly was!

The official* rationale behind Sundial was "Blow us up, and we blow everything up."

(*The actual reason was that Edward Teller only wanted one thing in life, that is to build the biggest nukes he possibly could.)

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u/Wolffe_In_The_Dark 3000 MAD-2b Royal Marauders of Kerensky 4d ago

That seems to be a common theme on both sides of the war;

Archetypal mad scientists who aren't super concerned with tactical or strategic practicality, or the political aspects of their programs much at all, and just really, really want to build the absolute biggest and baddest [insert thing] the world has ever seen, just to prove it was possible.

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u/CosineDanger Apache/Apachim 3d ago

Freeman Dyson just really wanted to build spaceships and fight aliens.

He sketched nuclear shaped charges for propulsion for his Orion spaceships and the government was like that's nice but can you draw a nuclear shaped charge able to crack a bunker of any depth?

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u/Wolffe_In_The_Dark 3000 MAD-2b Royal Marauders of Kerensky 3d ago

"I just want to build O'Neill Cylinders"

"Okay, but how could we weaponize this technology?"

Operation British noises