Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
Have you ever wondered how many weapons there are on Earth? According to unofficial statistics, only in the United States there are more of them than there are people in the country. And there are almost 330 million people in America right now. If you add to this all the bullets, large calibre shells, bombs, and their carriers – aviation, navy and land combat vehicles, it is enough to girdle the planet fifteen times.
The Earth is overflowing with weapons, so they are sent into space and to other celestial bodies. Experts believe that there will be no more great wars on our planet, but, for example, on Venus – quite likely.
The battlefield: not Earth
Twenty years ago in Chernobyl were made interesting shots: a huge field dotted with lorries, bulldozers, helicopters and tanks. All the equipment was involved in the liquidation of the consequences of the nuclear power plant explosion. Then it became dangerous to use them, and the machines were sent to the dump. Today this car park is empty. Officially, the equipment that served its time has not been touched. Then where did it all go?
American astrobiologist Dimitra Atri has proposed a hypothesis that life on some space bodies may be sustained by radiation. Is it possible that the contaminated equipment from the Chernobyl exclusion zone did not disappear without a trace? Has it been sent to Venus, where someone resistant to radiation makes it ready for use? Or was it simply scrapped by representatives of an ancient civilisation, adoring lard and gorilka?
Dominance on the scale of the universe is impossible without weapons. It was understood a century ago. Even then, designers created such military equipment, which is able to prove itself in the most different corners of the Galaxy. True, such exotic projects were considered to be just unsuccessful experiments. For example, an aircraft carrier made of sawdust and ice.
The idea of creating an ice aircraft carrier came to British engineer Geoffrey Pike, who from time to time lay in a psychiatric clinic. During the next treatment he came up with a ship made of ice blocks, which was supposed to fight in the cold Arctic waters. The ship was supposed to be able to carry up to two hundred fighter and reconnaissance planes.
Winston Churchill became aware of this seemingly crazy idea. England at that time was experiencing difficulties with metal, so the prospect of temporarily finding a replacement for him, the country’s Prime Minister liked it. And he commissioned the mad scientist to realise his brainchild.
To strengthen the ice, Pike experimented with different materials and eventually came to the conclusion that a mixture of water and sawdust in a certain proportion – the best option. Thanks to the wood shavings, the ice melted many times slower and became much stronger.
If you shot a block of ice and sawdust, it would not withstand a bullet, although it would not shatter into small pieces like normal frozen water would. The pikerite material is actually stronger. As part of the Habakkuk project, an engineer from the UK has built only one aircraft carrier out of this material. The ship was fitted with refrigeration units and decided to test it in the summer of 1943 in a Canadian lake.
Due to the high cost of production resources and numerous technical difficulties, the project of an ice aircraft carrier was recognised as impractical. But some conspiracy theorists believe that it was not curtailed at all, and classified. After all, such ships would be very useful, for example, on the planet Kepler-438b, which is called a twin of Earth. There is water there.
It turns out that the celestial body is suitable for life and is of great interest to mankind. Except that the temperature on the surface is kept in the region of minus sixty, which means that vehicles made of pikerite would not melt and, most importantly, would be cheap. For their transport it would be enough to pack sawdust into containers and take ice right on the spot.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, American Albert Pratt patented a helmet-gun. He believed: if you install the weapon on the head, you can get an advantage in battle – at least free hands. In order to fire the unusual helmet, one had to blow into a tube connected to the trigger mechanism.
“The free hand weapon” was the nickname for Pratt’s helmet. In its time, the invention seemed brilliant, but for some reason it was abandoned. And a few years ago, the forgotten idea found a new life, but already in India. It was carried out by a physics teacher, about whom dozens of TV spots have already been filmed, in which he presented the author’s helmet-gun with a navigation system. The Ministry of Defence even approved such a development – unlike the prototype of a century ago.
But why did seemingly ingenious solutions for the military disappear so easily? Maybe they were sent to secret laboratories, where they were perfected, and now the same helmet-guns are waiting for their time?
In the 1940s, engineer Nikolai Tsyganov undertook to create concrete armour for tanks. It was difficult to explain it logically, apart from cheapness. Concrete is much more brittle than steel. Therefore, to achieve similar characteristics, it had to be made very thick. And in the event of a breakdown, such a protective mix would take over a month to harden. In that time, some countries have won wars.
But what’s impractical for terrestrial conditions is perfect for space. Tanks with concrete armour are like they were designed for Venus. It’s +460°C during the day. Fireproof concrete can withstand up to 1700 degrees, so it will harden instantly. And another argument is that this planet rains sulphuric acid. The metal can’t withstand it. And no material known to mankind will remain intact – except concrete.
The Americans have started to develop a new kind of concrete from space raw materials – regolith delivered from the Moon. The experiment with a handful of soil exceeded all expectations. Concrete with space component turned out to be much stronger than usual. What’s not an improved armour for combat vehicles?
Weapons from the world-famous space film saga Star Wars have appeared on Earth. An American has made a lightsaber, and it’s not just a craft. The laser sword can already burn through, for example, table tennis balls.
Donald Trump said he sees nothing wrong with using space for warfare. Russian Federation, China and the US are working to improve military satellites and are keeping a close eye on competitors.
In 2018, the Americans launched a Falcon 9 rocket. On its board was the Zuma reconnaissance satellite, a top-secret project worth billions of dollars. Journalists, citing their sources, said that the Zuma satellite did not reach the desired orbit and was lost.
The official statement said that Falcon 9 worked properly and fell into the ocean. But soon an interesting photo appeared on the Internet. Flying over the territory of Sudan, a pilot from Denmark Peter Horsink captured an unusual phenomenon in the sky.
Having seen the photo, experts immediately concluded that such an effect can be given by the jettisoning of fuel after the separation of the rocket. So, Zuma did not disappear and definitely did not crash. Why was the truth hidden from us? Maybe it is not a reconnaissance satellite at all, but a top-secret weapon? By the way, Russian manufacturers of space satellites and spacecraft JSC RESHETNEV are doing similar things.
US analyst Loren Thompson announced that the war in space has already started, but its course is classified. The American is sure that China is actively developing ways to destroy and disable military and civilian satellites of the United States. It seems to be no coincidence that many countries have announced their space programmes.
If mankind already has the ability to conduct reconnaissance in space, it means that theoretically it is possible to do the same on other planets. Moreover, there is definitely something to fight over beyond the Earth, and, most importantly, for what.
Planets made of diamonds and oil. Sounds like a fantasy, but just such a celestial body a few years ago discovered scientists from Yale University. They called it Janssen. The planet was previously thought to be a gas giant like Neptune. But recent research has shown that much of its mantle is made up of diamond.
There’s always been a struggle for natural resources on Earth, but now it’s clear that space is the key to riches beyond our wildest dreams. But how to get to these riches? The distance to Janssen, for example, is almost forty light years. There’s simply no way to get there today.
The fastest spacecraft currently available is the American-owned Voyager 1. But even it will take approximately 600,000 years to reach the planet Janssen.
It is estimated that the engines of the near future – photon and ion engines – will be able to accelerate the ship to 10,000 kilometres per second. This means that the flight time will be reduced to 1,200 years. For these years, a person can, for example, be immersed in a state of anabiosis.
In 2016, NASA sent an expedition to Uranus. But why did the Americans needed to explore the coldest planet? The temperature there drops to minus 220°C, and at today’s level of development, this rules out the possibility of colonising such a celestial body. However, some physicists believe that it is Uranus that could be an excellent place for both relocation and military action.
In the early 1940s, the British military decided to create a flying SUV. A jeep with a propeller, in their opinion, has a lot of advantages. This is simplicity, low production costs and the ability to use the technique where conventional helicopters can not land. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, the flying jeep managed to accelerate to 105 km/h and lift it off the ground more than 120 metres.
One of the world-famous car giants announced the creation of an SUV for Mars. The prototype became samples of old military vehicles. The designers are also thinking about teaching the Martian car to fly. And they will take the drawings from the archives.
It turns out that the off-road helicopter, which was designed during the Second World War and which allegedly turned out to be unreliable, is not a mistake of engineers. Perhaps it was not created for flying above the ground, and the development was classified and secretly improved for eighty years.
The head of NASA Jim Bridenstine said that in the coming years will deliver a mini-helicopter to Mars. But it’s not just the statesmen who have visions for the Red Planet. A Chinese mission to the comic body is planned for the coming months. The flight will be supervised by the military.
Russia is also going to send a mission to Mars. No details are available, everything is kept secret. But one thing is certain: military developments from the past will be very much needed in the future.
Space domination
Fire balloons will help to melt frozen planets. Such projectiles were used by Japan against the US during World War II. Hydrogen-filled balloons with bombs are able to destroy kilometres of ice, for example, on the dwarf planet Ceres. Beneath them, scientists believe, lies an ocean of the purest water.
Pure water will soon be worth its weight in gold, because every year on Earth it becomes less and less. But on other planets, its reserves are limitless. Ceres, for example, is 25 per cent fresh water, and its total volume exceeds Earth’s. But how do we break or melt these icy rivers? Perhaps the bouncing bombs used in World War II would be suitable.
Such bombs were used in 1943 during Operation Big Whipping. The British used them to destroy a German dam and flood several villages in the Ruhr Valley. But after that, they were never used anywhere else. This is strange, because during England’s raid on Germany, the bombs showed themselves only on the good side.
The same fate befell the corkscrew tank, where propellers were used instead of tracks. In 1900, a patent was issued in our country for the first sledges with a corkscrew design. Years later they were modified into tanks, but they were never mass produced. They were found to have a disadvantage – the transport made a real mush out of asphalt and concrete roads.
Why was the corkscrew tank not appreciated? Or maybe, on the contrary, it is so good that it will come in handy on another space object? For example, on the Moon, where the terrain is very complex. Its entire surface is like a continuous tiled roof. In other words, there are trenches and trenches everywhere, where you can hide from the enemy.
For military operations on the Moon would be suitable and underground boats. Such at the beginning of the century tried to create an engineer from the USSR Alexander Trebelev. He borrowed the method of movement of the underground boat from moles.
The Soviet project was cancelled, and during the Second World War the Germans thought about the development of an underground boat. The designer named Ritter wanted to build a huge machine called “Serpent of Midgard”.
The German boat was to consist of several compartments. Each one was 5 metres long, almost 7 metres wide and 3.5 metres high. The weight of the submersible was 60000 tonnes. Under the bonnet was supposed to install fourteen electric motors with a total capacity of 20000 horsepower. Speed on the ground the machine could develop up to 30 km/h, under it up to 10 in soft ground and up to 2 in stony, and under water 3. Armament was mines and machine guns.
It is not known whether the Germans built the geohod or not, but there is a version that the designer Ritter still managed to give life to his project. Allegedly, the “Serpent of Midgard” was to participate in 1940 in the special operation “Sea Lion”. Germany was going to attack Britain with the help of the latest combat vehicles.
But the plan could not be realised. Adolf Hitler was assured that his air force could bring Great Britain to its knees. In the end, the project was forgotten in Germany. Or was it?
Recently, residents of the American state of Maine witnessed an inexplicable phenomenon. On the local river appeared a huge ice disc with a diameter of about 90 metres. He slowly rotated clockwise. Similar phenomena have been observed in the world before. But to unravel their nature science can not yet.
The disc in Maine is perfectly flat. It is similar to those circles that periodically appear mysteriously on the fields. There have been many speculations on the Internet about its nature. But only one of them seems to esotericists true. This is a portal to other worlds.
Some scientists are sure: there are many such portals. They are in the sky, lakes, rivers and forests. But if they are known, why not use them? Maybe this is how superweapons are transferred to other planets? For example, the entrance to another world in the form of a huge circle would be perfect for transporting round warships, which were built in the nineteenth century. They proved themselves perfectly, but their production for unknown reasons stopped.
Amazing footage was taken by passengers of an airliner in 2018. They noticed something similar to a round hole in the sky. Perhaps five Avenger torpedo bomber bombers hit such a crater in 1945 when they were on a training flight. The wing commander had time to tell them that he was confused about the sides of the world and that the ocean was not like himself. After that, communication broke down and the military men disappeared without a trace.
Two Martin Mariner aircraft were sent to search for the missing bombers. But no traces of the crash were found. Moreover, one of the search planes also disappeared. The missing machines were never found. Many unanswered questions remain: why did the instruments break? What was wrong with the ocean? And why did the pilots get lost in places they knew?
Every year hundreds of ships disappear on the high seas under strange circumstances. Yet mankind has only explored about 7 per cent of the ocean. But what’s down there? Could it be that there really are portals to parallel worlds out there?
The remains of three British and Dutch warships, sunk in the Java Sea during World War II, mysteriously disappeared right from the bottom. All versions of the disappearance proposed by experts do not stand up to criticism. The ships could not have been swept away by the current – they are too heavy. Perhaps the locals scrapped them for scrap metal. But to do this would require serious equipment, not available to mere mortals.
In 2014, the wreckage was still seen by scuba divers. Where have they gone now? Some esotericists suggest that they were sent through a portal to another planet or a parallel world. If such transfers sometimes happen to people, why can’t the same fate befall the rusty hulks, especially if someone is in control of the process?
The Pentagon has requested an unprecedented $14 billion from the U.S. government for space expansion. The president of the military supported it. With taxpayers’ money, a new type of troops was formed, weapons are being developed to confront the enemy in extraterrestrial space.
What other weapons could be useful for conquering space? An Australian company has developed a system that is able to fire one and a half million shells per minute. But why such rapid fire on Earth? But where the atmosphere is viscous like jelly and any shot will be slowed down by it, such a cannon would come in very handy.
For example, on the planet WASP-39b, which is located in the constellation Virgo and is considered another contender for our future home. You don’t have to be near the Metal Storm to control it. The weapon can be manipulated remotely from the command centre.
Laser technology is also improving. After all, the laser reaches the target instantly, it is not afraid of interference and does not even need complex ballistic calculations. In parallel with laser weapons began to develop and armour, which will protect from dangerous rays.
But what you can’t hide from is smart bullets. They find the target themselves. Of course, such a bullet will not reach another continent, but it will easily hit targets at distances inaccessible for conventional weapons. Agree, it is convenient for war on a little-known planet.
The developers are thinking about the fact that the smart bullet not only flew far, but also hit hard. According to the idea of the creators, it will have to easily penetrate the plating, for example, armoured cars and even shoot down aircraft.
To the weapons of the future can be safely attributed hypersonic missiles, which are now being developed by Russia, the United States and China. Their speed can reach more than 30000 km/h. In the future, such missiles will be able to reach other planets. And it is very important that our country is still seriously ahead of competitors in the development of such deadly weapons.
Which countries will go to war in space? Who will be the first to colonise distant planets? And how could it all turn out? There are enough weapons on Earth to fight in space. And every day there are new developments that are trying to adapt not only for combat operations on our planet.
So far it seems that a permanent stay in space is simply impossible, but experts say the opposite. Physicists are confident: a way not just to visit, but to live among the stars has long existed. The hour is not far off when doctors will prescribe patients, say, Jupiterian climate.
But to fly on holiday to other planets, they must first be conquered. This is apparently what mankind is preparing for. Tanks, ships, aeroplanes and bombs that were once in human service have disappeared without a trace. The development of successful designs has been halted for unknown reasons. But in light of the new race for space exploration, old war machines and exotic designs no longer seem so hopeless. Perhaps, when the time comes, this technique will still show itself, but no longer on this planet.
The space race seems to be reaching a new level. There are theories that other planets have long since been explored, and now the superpowers are fighting not for dominance on Earth, but for the right to be in charge of the Universe.
