XPost: sci.military.moderated   
   From: jdnicoll@panix.com   
      
   In article <28326d49.0403291744.d51923f@posting.google.com>,   
   dave schneider  wrote:   
   >henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) wrote:   
   >[...]   
   >> massively overrated as weapons.  I'm sorry to shatter illusions, but   
   >> Heinlein blew this one badly.  Their power supplies have to be too big and   
   >> the waste heat would be too hard to hide.   
   >>   
   >   
   >He wasn't positing a secret catapult designed to be used as a   
   >weapon...just a "targeting error" with a load of freight (okay, he   
   >replaced the wheat with rock so it wouldn't be mistaken for Postum).   
   >He didn't have to hide the power supply or the waste heat.   
      
   	He seriously overestimated the impact the incoming objects   
   would have on their targets. The off-shore UK impact should have only   
   raised a ripple a inch or so deep by the time it got to London, and   
   by my estimate it should have taken hundreds of thousands of shots   
   to dismantle Cheyenne Mt.   
   --   
   "Thousands of people will be exposed to Shakespeare who normally wouldn't. Now   
   everyone will be able to enjoy 'Hamlet'. That's the way it should be." "But   
   don't you see? Don't you understand what you are doing?" "Oh, yeah. I'm   
   destroying Shakespeare's snob appeal." "You _fiend_." [Lenny and Cowboy Wally]   
      
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