Coming To a War Near You: Nuclear Powered Drones

An anonymous reader writes "American scientists and engineers are researching a new generation of UAV's that would be nuclear-powered. Why do this? They would have the capacity to stay over a target area for months and only be limited by the ordinance they could drop on a potential foe. They would be similar to a nuclear attack submarine but not limited to the amount of food on-board. The article notes: 'The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the U.S. government's principal nuclear research and development agency – and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time "from days to months" while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia,' the paper reported."

I for one....

[JoeMerchant]

Welcome our nuclear powered flying overlords.

Disincentive

[busyqth]

I suppose this would provide some disincentive for shooting them down too:

Should I shoot it down and stop myself from getting attacked with an air-to-ground missile, or should I not shoot it down and stop myself from getting a lungful of plutonium dust. Hmmm... choices, choices...

That's what you get with your empire

[roman_mir]

That's what you get with the huge government empire, and when I point out that I would like more freedoms instead in order to be able to get myself a nuclear powered car - this place throws a hissy fit.

WHAA WHAA WHAAAAAAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww, did da widdle trolly-wolly get his bum-bum spanked?

Come back when you're potty-trained, threadshitter.

Ordinance Bombers

[draconx]

They would ... only be limited by the ordinance they could drop on a potential foe.

Not surprising that it's the United States which comes up with a device to literally drop their laws on unsuspecting nations.

Oh wait, slashdot, you must have meant ordnance.

Trolling

[busyqth]

Trolling is what makes slashdot a worthwhile site. But good trolling isn't just saying offensive or outrageous things to provoke an angry response. That's lame. Good trolling is writing something that seems serious, and yet at the same time somehow flawed. Then, given the nature of the kind of people who read slashdot, you get a bunch of responses from people who want to show their intellectual superiority by pointing out the factual errors, or the ridiculousness of the argument, or whatever the flaw was. You can keep it going for a while by making ignorant counter responses. Eventually the trollees figure out they're being trolled and get disgusted. Everyone else who was just reading along finds it all hilarious and enjoyable.

Re:Disincentive

[Delarth799]

No, you still need to give it an AI system that goes berserk and chooses to kill humanity.

Re:Trolling

[similar_name]

You left one out: misunderstanding your argument

I think you're the one that misunderstands.

you're an idiot

Right back at you. Look I liked Automan too but it only had like 7 episodes. Nice strawman.



:p

Re:I for one....

[Dahamma]

Yes! And they could keep the nuclear-powered mothership floating in the ocean instead of the air so that it could hold a lot more cargo and have a larger landing surface.

Re:Disincentive

[Anonymous Coward]

"Social Security numbers will never be used as personal identification."
"Our uav's will never carry weapons."
"We will never develop uav's that are nuclear powered."
"We will never put tactical nuclear weapons in our nuclear powered uav's."
.
.
.
"We will never augment our peacekeeper tree limbs with shaped flint axeheads."

Re:Disincentive

[ColdWetDog]

No, you still need to give it an AI system that goes berserk and chooses to kill humanity.

Oh, like Siri?