DARPA turns Arthur C. Clarke's Stiletto into MAHEM

Arthur C. Clarke's ideas have had a tendency of becoming a reality in the past, and it looks like that's now happening yet again, in this case with a little help from the folks at DARPA. As New Scientist reports, the prolific agency is currently working on a new weapon system that bears a striking resembles to the Stiletto weapon in Clarke's 1955 novel Earthlight. That science fiction version was described as "a solid bar of light" that can pierce a spacecraft "as an entomologist pierces a butterfly with a pin." Or, more specifically, "a jet of molten metal, hurled through space at several hundred kilometers per second by the most powerful electro-magnets ever built." DARPA's MAHEM weapon (or Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition), on the other hand, is described by New Scientist as using magnetic fields to "propel either a narrow jet of molten metal or a chunk of molten metal that morphs into an aerodynamic slug during flight." There is a slight difference, however, in that MAHEM's electromagnetic field will be generated by an explosion, and not a giant electro-magnet. It's also not clear if MAHEM will be used to defend a fortress on the moon, although that's not exactly as far fetched as it once seemed either.

[kal326 @ Apr 24th 2008 1:26PM]

Huh a project called mahem and blowing shit up, this sounds oddly familiar....

[GideoN @ Apr 24th 2008 5:27PM]

HA! Fight Club.

[MartinX @ Apr 24th 2008 1:28PM]

You just know that they wanted to call it MAYHEM, but couldn't think of anything for the "y".

[Zorque @ Apr 24th 2008 5:47PM]

They probably should have gone with "Magneto-y".

[JR @ Apr 24th 2008 1:31PM]

Oh lord, is it just me, or does it remind you of the FLAK cannon from the UT games?

[Joseph A. Nagy, Jr @ Apr 24th 2008 7:06PM]

Why yes, yes it does remind me of the flak cannon. Ah, I have good memories of UT and camping for the redeemer with nothing but my trusty sniper rifle and an odd assortment of bots.

[Irwin @ Apr 24th 2008 1:34PM]

lol @ MAC guns :D

the battle against the covenant is coming man, i called it. with the super human power suits, shits goin down

[Joe @ Apr 24th 2008 1:51PM]

The transforming cars and trucks at M.A.S.K. are not going to be happy about this.

[Wonderkid @ Apr 24th 2008 1:56PM]

How does this stop a terrrorist walking into a city centre? Or other issues faced in modern 'warfare'?

[Josh L @ Apr 24th 2008 2:11PM]

Is this the only project DARPA is working on?

Is terrorism the only foreign threat America will ever face?

No, and no.

[matt @ Apr 24th 2008 3:16PM]

easy - we blow all the caves up in afghanistan with it

[one1082 @ Apr 24th 2008 2:04PM]

sounds a lot like the mass effect weapons, but with melted projectiles

[rederikus @ Apr 24th 2008 2:35PM]

I remeber reading Earthlight as a kid (back in the 1960s). I was impressed by this massive kinetic enegy weapon. I built one using a jet of molten solder. Burned myself quite badly.

[blore40 @ Apr 24th 2008 2:26PM]

Well, Russia is doing sorties and planting flags under the Arctic seas and China is blowing up satellites is space. It is time the USA exercised its "bigger dick foreign policy".

[Bakari @ Apr 24th 2008 3:18PM]

Um,

Remember that satellite with the "oh-so-dangerous" fuel that the US Navy shot down a month or so ago? That was definitely a "we can do it too" by America. If you buy the cover story of "the fuel could rain down on a city, poisoning millions" then you're an idiot. The temperatures created by the friction of an uncontrolled flight through our atmosphere would have made that tank explode before it got three miles from the surface. The rest would have evaporated.

Secondly, what the hell do we need to shoot slugs into space at hundreds of miles an hour for? Total waste of time and money. Why don't we work on say - curing cancer, creating alternative fuels, ending world hunger, you know - important things?

[teslasnp @ Apr 24th 2008 4:04PM]

you must be dumb enough to think that we need a cure for cancer or to think that alternative fuels don't exist, which is a reason why world hunger exists. find something more provocative that could be as you said, "important"

[Zorque @ Apr 24th 2008 7:20PM]

Uh.. I'm just gonna come out and say it, what's wrong with your brain, tesla?

[Funke, Tobias Dr. @ Apr 24th 2008 10:51PM]

Bakari, there was a slight chance the it could have survived re-entry and actually done some damage. It's the same reason why Taco Bell had to take up an insurance policy against giving away free tacos if part of Mir hit their target in the Pacific. It's a small risk to be sure, but because the satellite never got to use up the hydrazine, as most deorbited sats do, it was a bigger risk than most every other deorbit.

With that being said, I think it was the perfect opportunity for the US to engage in some one-upmanship. And they at least gave a good explanation to the public and the world before and after the test.

[Fred Thompson @ Apr 24th 2008 11:30PM]

This has been in the tech blogs for what, 2 days? Apparently, very few people actually know how a shaped charge works. Look at an RPG. The warhead is, basically, 2 cones, jointed at the base. The front tip is the triggering sensor. The real cone is a a shaped charge whose explosion turns the inner cone into a stream of molten metal that burns through the target armor. It's not that difficult and goes back to WWII. This DARPA project uses that concept just with a difference in explosive power. About 15 years ago, maybe more, there were articles in Scientific American about directed nuclear explosions. IIRC, the idea was to use EMP to direct the blast effects, to "shape" the explosion. This seems similar to my eyes...

[retro77 @ Apr 24th 2008 4:10PM]

Looks like a fun way to get rid of insurgents.

[Daniel @ Apr 24th 2008 4:24PM]

What?! They kidnapped the DARPA Chief? Huh? It was just Decoy Octopus?

Snake? SNAKE?! SSSSSNNNNNAAAAAAKKKKKKKEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

[John Q. @ Apr 24th 2008 5:10PM]

This sounds exactly like a long distance version (or so I am assuming) of the Krakatoa munition described on a segment of the Discovery Channel's "Future Weapons" show. As of this comment, there are a couple youtube video hits on it.

[Zorque @ Apr 24th 2008 5:26PM]

DARPA is sounding more and more like a supervillain organization everyday. Robot guns, pain beams, and MAHEM? I'm a little worried.

[David J. Williams @ Apr 24th 2008 6:39PM]

One more indication of how the advantage in war is shifting to the offense. As technologies like these and also those that involve speed-of-light weaponry (i.e., lasers, particle beams) attain maturity, it becomes conceivable that a future conflict would unfold so quickly that humans would be out of the firing loop.