I think a lot of people have an alarm on their house and this is kinda the same.
I noticed the story in Nature magazine, ((22 October 2008) see link) and it just seemed like a niche market waiting to go...
Having just taken a peek at the SpaceX website it seems that the current cost to orbit is $21,190.47 per kg, and likely to get cheaper.
So, what would be handy would be a satellite made almost in a fractal fashion, to unfold the many Scotch tape dispensers, break open the covers holding in the inert gas and the unrolling mechanisms, focus the resulting x-ray and target the missile on the way up. Call it 10kg at a rough guess.
So, what's a better use of money, new Porsche, or your own mini-Deathstar? Not a lot of point in that fancy burglar alarm...
For the more economically challenged (me), a timeshare version where I get to protect my entire country for the first two weeks in August for a surprisingly low fee - coming to the home shopping channel soon, I suspect.
Although I'd rather have it pointing at the country I might be on holiday in, but I suppose you could have some kind of voting system with the other time-sharees.-- random_patenter_syndrome_victim, Dec 03 2009 Sticky tape makes x-rays - Nature magazine 22 October 2008 http://www.nature.c...news.2008.1185.htmlX-ray sticky tape www.nature.com/news/2008/081022/full/news.2008.1185.html [random_patenter_syndrome_victim, Dec 03 2009] Dial-a-Smite Dial-a-SmiteAnother, earlier orbital weapondary idea. [Aristotle, Dec 03 2009] I think beanangle has some competition-- xaviergisz, Dec 03 2009 Everyone's a critic...
Does this mean Hans Blix and the other WMD guys are going to have to start checking up on illicit shipments of Scotch tape to North Korea or something like that?
As to beanangel, I think his (hers (I dunno)) ideas are more practical.-- random_patenter_syndrome_victim, Dec 03 2009 OK, let me get this straight...unrolling scotch tape in a vacuum makes X-rays, check...SpaceX claims they will charge ~$20K/kg to get to space, check...so then 10kg of scotch tape unrolling in space will create a X-Ray deathstar beam that can be used to shoot down enemy ICBMs. I don't know, sounds like a plan from the underwear gnomes.-- MisterQED, Dec 03 2009 Aristotle - "commerical implementation of the Missile Defense Shield. You dial in someone else's phone number, registration plates or a GPS location and death and distruction is brought to bear by killer satellites with the charges for this services being applied to your phone bill."
Erm, there's no mention of phone in my idea, no mention of exactly how this would happen in your idea, no mention of sticky tape, your idea is not to target incoming ICBM's. Apart from that, they are remarkably similar. I've obviously spent too much time hanging out with lawyers..forgive me
"You would need insurance in case you wipe yourself out in the blast by accident or intentionally use" Presumably that would be a cash payment, upon personal application..I was gonna say that I think most insurance companies wouldn't pay out on the "intentional use"..having said that I did once come out of the Lloyds of London building circa 7pm-ish and one of the suits was so drunk he had to haul himself up the handrail to get out, so maybe if you try them 6.30 ish they might go for it?-- random_patenter_syndrome_victim, Dec 04 2009 MrQED - "so then 10kg of scotch tape unrolling in space will create a X-Ray deathstar beam that can be used to shoot down enemy ICBMs. I don't know, sounds like a plan from the underwear gnomes."
Well, there's only one way to find out. I was thinking it'd be a good chance for some country to find out if those ICBM's actually do work. All we'd need is some expendable piece of territory, like the Outback in Australia, the Sahara, or France.
Incidentally "sah-rah" just means "desert" in Arabic, so when we say Sahara desert, we''re just saying "desert desert"..as far as I know-- random_patenter_syndrome_victim, Dec 04 2009 // some expendable piece of territory //
Wales.-- 8th of 7, Dec 04 2009 random, halfbakery