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Interview about Crazy Pentagon Science

By purepedantry on July 11, 2006.

I was listening to the Leonard Lopate Show yesterday on WNYC (my local NPR affiliate), and I heard this great interview with Sharon Weinberger, a defense reporter, about her new book Imaginary Weapons.

In the book, she details all the crazy, fringe science ideas that they come up with at the Pentagon, and how these things are still getting funded. And these ideas are truly crazy, like research into how we can telepathically beam voices into enemy soldiers brains.

If you are pissed about how your last grant didn't get funded, you should listen to this. We are all in the wrong business. They are giving these people $30 million dollars to study this nonsense.

She even describes a story, unverified, that it was suggested in a Pentagon meeting that rockets be placed on the Moon to propel it into the Earth to attack the Soviet Union as a weapon of last resort. Wow...kind of gives Star Wars whole new meaning. Anyway, here is a link to mp3 audio. (If you have trouble downloading, this is the link to the show. It is the second from the top.)

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She even describes a story, unverified, that it was suggested in a Pentagon meeting that rockets be placed on the Moon to propel it into the Earth to attack the Soviet Union as a weapon of last resort.

Genius!!

Marvin must be on the red planet wrining his hands in joy. The Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator is no longer needed.