RODS FROM GOD; Imagine a bundle of telephone poles hurtling through space at 7,000 mph

Abstract

Although the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan often takes place at eyeball range -- as will most battles in what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld now calls "the long war" -- Pentagon planners are spending billions of dollars trying to figure out how to engage our enemies on the ground with weapons based in space. Efforts are also under way to figure out how to wage war in space, not just to bombard others from the heavens.