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You can control it with a thin wire. http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/rocket_lightning_030130.html http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/tec

You can control it with a thin wire. http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/rocket_lightning_030130.html http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/rocket_li... To weaponize it, I guess you could parachute down your wire-bearing rockets to the target, wait for a storm, and have the rockets auto-launch when they've detected enough atmospheric electric charge that a discharge would be likely. Of course, in the meantime, the enemy will just go find the rocket, as it sits for hours or days on the roof, waiting for a storm, and disable it. Anyway, from the original article, I think what they are after is more of a manipulation of the storm cloud itself, to get it to form where they want it to form. Form a large, mean enough storm cloud over a city, and at the very least, you've caused your enemy to operate at less than peak efficiency as he deals with it, even if the actual damage is minimal. Shock and Awe.

camccann 17y ago
Stringing a conductor between the cloud and target is what I meant to exclude by "the confines of the device". I figure that if you can successfully get something physically attached to the target, it probably makes more sense to skip the whole overcomplicated lightning business and just use a bomb or something that's more reliable. "Shock and Awe" is nice, but at some point it comes down to who's killing who more effectively, and wasting time with sci-fi-ish boondoggles doesn't really do much on that end.
- robotrout 17y ago
  > it comes down to who's killing who more effectively Actually, it doesn't. It's better to take control of a situation with minimal casualties on either side, which is often greatly assisted these days using communications disruption and distraction. Wholesale slaughter is generally frowned upon, and is repulsive to everybody, especially the military. Also, it turns out that it's not actually necessary.

camccann 17y ago

Stringing a conductor between the cloud and target is what I meant to exclude by "the confines of the device". I figure that if you can successfully get something physically attached to the target, it probably makes more sense to skip the whole overcomplicated lightning business and just use a bomb or something that's more reliable. "Shock and Awe" is nice, but at some point it comes down to who's killing who more effectively, and wasting time with sci-fi-ish boondoggles doesn't really do much on that end.

robotrout 17y ago
> it comes down to who's killing who more effectively Actually, it doesn't. It's better to take control of a situation with minimal casualties on either side, which is often greatly assisted these days using communications disruption and distraction. Wholesale slaughter is generally frowned upon, and is repulsive to everybody, especially the military. Also, it turns out that it's not actually necessary.