Doc Smith Lives!

[seawasp]

In going over the current Department of Defense SBIR solicitation, I came across the following:

"A09-027 TITLE: Nanostructured High Performance Energetic Materials "

For the uninitiated, "energetic materials" is current techspeak for "explosives".

And under this topic, the specific energetic nanostructured materials they are interested in?

"stable polymeric nitrogen".

In "Spacehounds of IPC", Doc Smith wrote about an ultimate explosive, "crystallized pentavalent nitrogen", nitrogen bound to itself in a single diamondlike form that was inherently explosive at a tremendous level; today's estimates of the power of this "stable polymeric nitrogen" is that it would be FIVE TIMES more powerful than any conventional explosive in existence today, more than half a century after Doc first wrote of it.

Once more, Doc's there first.

Comments

[hallerlake.livejournal.com]

Now when they manage to build duodec, then we're really in for it. ;-)

[seawasp]

You mean, "then things actually get fun"? I mean, imagine the Mythbusters with duodec!

[hallerlake.livejournal.com]

"Today on Mythbusters, we're going to see if you really can extinguish a vortex with explosives..."

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

"Today on Mythbusters, we're going to see if you really can extinguish a vortex with explosives..."

Oddly enough, a few days ago I was speculating with my fiancee on what things the Mythbusters might not do if they somehow got the authorization to play with subkiloton-range nuclear explosives on some desert somewhere ... :)

[kengr]

"Today we are going to recreate the way the Brittania took down the wall shields of a Boskonian cruiser with chemical and kinetic energy...."

"We are going to need about a ton of doudec, a Q type helix, and..."

"Remember, we're professionals. Don't try this at home!"

BTW, over on the Crystal Hall site, the Whateley Academy fan-fic writers have come up with "Mythbreakers" which is pretty much Mythbusters in a universe with supers...