It was a story about how the Brits ran into a problem with a contraption they borrowed from NASA. NASA had a weird aerospace technobabble name for it, but let’s call it a Chicken Cannon.
The Chicken Cannon (as the story went) was developed by NASA to do high speed impact testing on the windshields on the shuttle. The Brits borrowed it to test the windshield on their new high speed train. They set the cannon up and fired it at the train. Not only did the chicken break the windshield but it went through the dummy in the driver’s seat and the driver’s seat and blasted a hole in the high-tech instrument panel behind the driver’s seat.
Brits called NASA. “Say, Chaps! What the ...?” NASA’s technical advice boiled down to 4 words: “Thaw out the chicken.”
This is still a grand story and relevant today. It proposed that we had the willingness and the know-how to help out our friends. When the Brits wanted a way to simulate the impact of a 300 mile-an-hour chicken, who did they turn to? Who else?
And since most hoaxes are taken as fact, this one also “proved” we’re thinking out there. We lead the world in many things. Now, in pullet ballistics. Have the French or the Germans come up with a weapons-grade device that fires poultry? They’re way behind us. Probably even now other governments are scrambling. If we can fire a chicken 30 miles and hit strategic targets, them targets will stop in their nasty little tracks and think long and hard before they screw around with people who can make a fowl shot from that kind of yardage.
Not to mention the salmonella.
An actual Chicken Cannon would probably cost us a few billion. But as with most technologies the folks at NASA develop, civilians would benefit. KFC could revolutionize delivery. Think of it – you pick up the phone, place your order, hang up and open a window. No more “bucket of chicken". Now it’s a “crater of chicken”.
But the most important part of this story is what could come out of it. We are The Last Superpower. We could get creative with our status and make some new rules: From now on, nobody can shoot anything at anyone unless the weapon fires a chicken. It would make the world a safer place. With chickens the mandated projectile, the weapons manufacturers could get huge new contracts while everyone gears up for a whole new offshoot of the Arms Race – the Wings & Thighs Race. In the business world, a lot of people would make money. In the civilian world, a lot of people would not get shot. Can you imagine a crazed Master-Race type waddling into a McDonald’s with a bandolier of chickens strapped around his gut? No way. Too damned embarrassing. These kinds of violent groups that stockpile huge amounts of weapons would be neutralized. We can see members of the Church of Jesus Christ The White Guy getting drunk on a Saturday afternoon, firing up the barbecue and eating all their ammo.
I can already see the ad campaign we’d work up for KFC. John Madden is the spokesman. “Want dinner? BOOM! You got it!”
