Military

1950s engineer Jerry Pournelle proposed dropping tungsten rods from satellites. Project Thor ("Rods from God") drops 6.1 m × 30 cm rods at Mach 10 with ~11.5 tonnes of TNT energy. Not a nuke, so no fallout — and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty's ban on "WMDs in orbit" doesn't apply.

The USA swapped a Hellfire missile's warhead for six folding blades — the AGM-114R9X "Ninja Missile." It deploys them just before impact, slicing the target with no blast — just a hole in a roof. In 2022 it killed al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri on a Kabul balcony.

In 2011, France had to destroy an armored vehicle in a Libyan city. Their fix: a 300 kg concrete bomb — a casing of concrete, not explosives. No blast, no shrapnel; the GPS-guided block smashed the vehicle on impact. The USA had used the trick in Iraqi no-fly zones since the 1990s.

Before World War II, British RAF scientists couldn't crack bomber interception. Commander Grenfell guided fighters by eye, hitting 90% accuracy with the 'gaze heuristic.' This principle later inspired the American Sidewinder missile.