MONEY!

Seriously though, a cement or brick house isn't going to make any difference if it takes a direct hit from a tornado. It will handle the debris flying around at 200+ mph much better, but cannot sustain a direct hit. There are a few structures (like steel frame houses) which might fare a little better, but the cost is prohibitive.

I think it is also important to consider the size of the region we are talking about here. According to Wikipedia, "Tornado Alley can also be defined as an area reaching from central Texas to the Canadian prairies and from eastern Colorado to western Pennsylvania." That's an area of approximately 1.5 million square miles. Where exactly do you draw the line on enforcing extremely expensive building codes? How do you justify the increased building costs in one town but not the town 2 miles down the road?

The building codes in the core of Tornado Alley (north Texas to Nebraska) are more restrictive than you imagine. They focus on strengthened roofs and secure foundations that can take a fair amount of straightline wind. But really, the odds of any given house in Tornado Alley sustaining a direct hit are extremely low (about 1 in 10 million in any given year) so it is much more cost effective and reasonable to require storm cellars which protect life instead of worrying about property. Notice how not a single person was injured in this house despite the destruction.

This is a video of a WIN not a FAIL.

Build a sling to toss chunks of space debris at planets to destro....disrupt them-Call it, the Extinctionator™-Just as fucking scary-urgent?? I think so!

There was probably debris on the windshield that we couldn't see

This tactic is used quite a bit actually around here (the SF Bay Area). It's a way to create a break in the traffic, often to slow down and avoid accidents if, say, it's known that there's debris in the roadway.

That had to be like an RC helicopter strapped with explosive or something. Military helicopters don't just vaporize when they are hit. There should have been large chunks of debris; like identifiable pieces of the tail, rotor, or cockpit.

You can hit a helicopter with a guided missile and it won't blow up like that.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Monster spray legimitises the monster and thus makes them scarier - also, worst game ever? - sweep the debris into the square ...

Looks entertaining, but what is it with J.J. Abrams and jumping off of things and or facediving through debris fields?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this sort of defense, but did anyone else think it was a little disturbing when they talked about the debris of the shot down missile falling on the country that fired it as a plus.

That's all fine and dandy, but there is no guarantee that the debris will damage anything that will impede the enemy war machine, if anything it will probably fall on the civilians of that country. Civilians whose only crime is living in the wrong country.

Still, I hate to say it, but it's a small price to pay to stop a potential attack of large magnitude.

Now...that out of the way. what the heck powers the lasers? The jet turbines couldn't be enough could it?

Not the Largest Man Made Non Nuclear Explosion
Halifax has you beat.
The Halifax Explosion occurred on the morning of Thursday, December 6, 1917. SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship fully laden with wartime explosives, collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the Narrows, a strait connecting the upper Halifax Harbour to Bedford Basin. Approximately twenty minutes later, a fire on board the French ship ignited her volatile cargo, causing a cataclysmic explosion that devastated the Richmond District of Halifax. Approximately 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires, and collapsed buildings, and it is estimated that nearly 9,000 others were injured.The blast was the largest man-made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons with an equivalent force of roughly 2.9 kilotons of Trinitrotoluene (TNT). In a meeting of the Royal Society of Canada in May 1918, Dalhousie University's Professor Howard L. Bronson estimated the blast at some 2.4 million kilograms of high explosive.

⚒ Never too late, Smitty-All you need is a hammer, a furnace, and some cosmic or terrestrial debris. ⚔

They said that clearing the debris also generates energy for the other equipment, I'm wondering if the energy generated is enough to sustain the equipment without hooking them up to an outside power source?

Radical DEMOCRACY Adjustment For Fascism, NOW!

Democracy only really works when all parties have an equal say AND, adjustments are made accordingly for the benefit of all, right?? Well....When elected officials (United States version of concept) neglect or otherwise usurp through whatever means the ability of the stated so-defined system to function as envisioned, what then does one at the bottom of the societal food chain do?

America ain't no democracy, there has never been one anyhoo, nor can there ever be. We're something different here in the U.S. of the "now", and Amy, (I love ya honey please try some flattering threads and maybe eat more, yer on camera a whole fuck of a lot!) what Americans from anywhere have in America, changes constantly to the detriment of stagnation, de-evolution, or assholedouchbagcunts running the whole planet into the sewer.

Now, back to what I mentioned earlier in this rant as to what to do when the "the ability of the stated so-defined system to function as envisioned"...

One must create, outside of the realm of what they are programmed with...(a large piece of quality paper is included with the design instructions that came with this clusterfuck and's still quite legible and straight-forward in tone), and adjust the fuck out that system in a sane, fair humane, disorderly fashion that works for the MAJORITY of peeps,and this process must be maintained constantly....to keep it from becomming this bullshit again and again and again in one form or another.

Then move forward from there??

How to fix that which everyone seems to ignore as broken, but refuses to do much immediately about??
Who the fuck knows, but the guy or gal or imminent threat from oncoming space debris that provides a suitable answer that sticks for longer than a few thousand years,may get some attention-My bet would not be a politician-only-type.

As a species we're fucked-fucked if nanobots can't help us

Hint: Votes don't count, help, or get you free food, power, internet, etc.

(We could have all had this and more already y'know, if assholes weren't left free to run free and fuck and make more douchebag children of the same ilk.....This is why we should all have the same pointy-stick access to defend ourselves maybe???

Space debris map:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40173

It's a damn mess up there.

I don't see anything clearly flying away from Earth's gravity here. Not enough information to deduce the distances by eye alone - these things might be flying in the atmosphere or simply passing between Earth and the Camera. The latter seems much more likely, considering the perceived size of the objects and the distances involved. I'm guessing this is what satellites or space debris on orbital trajectories would look like.

The flaring is interesting though, I wonder what causes that.

With the amount of space debris they say is floating up there, i have no reaction to these. Show me something that changes direction or stops and starts again, and you'll have my attention.