EPISODE · Mar 1, 2024 · 6 MIN

The Pigeon Guided Missile

from An Ounce - For Your Consideration · host Jim Fugate

 Two of the greatest challenges in war are (1) getting your weapon to hit what you are aiming at, and (2) destroying what you hit. Over time, great improvements have been made in the boom part. Well tested and proven explosives, fuses, and triggers have made assuring the ‘bang’ part of a weapon is quite predictable. Thus, if you could put the bomb somewhere close, there was a good chance the target was destroyed. Refining the accuracy part – hitting what you are aiming at - has been an interesting, and in some ways, a more challenging progression.So, some brilliant folks had a few ideas to more precisely put the explosives where they needed to be. There were competing ideas. One was to employ advancing technology like radar, and later-on GPS and lasers. A competing concept was using tested and proven biological technology trained to zero in on the target. That is to say, installing, or integrating, a ‘lab rat’ (or something like it) into the weapon that was trained to ‘fly’ the payload directly into the target - or in this case a pigeon.https://cyberneticzoo.com/bionics/1940-project-pigeon-1948-project-orcon-b-f-skinner-american/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeonhttps://www.military-history.org/feature/pigeon-guided-missiles.htmhttps://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_690069https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/bf-skinners-pigeon-guided-rocket-53443995/