The Moon is a Harsh Mistress...

 

Still an excellent book.

 

not in the real world, but have been reading about "Rods from God" for ages in sci-fi

 

just heard about these the other day. satellite contains metal cylinders that can be dropped as needed. the gravity gives it devestating velocity.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/rods-god

interestingly, the same concept was used in the first world war, as airplanes dropped darts ('fletchettes') on soldiers below. (not cool).

anyone heard of these?

Kinetic weapons have existed for centuries. An arrow is a kinetic weapon. A rifle round is kinetic. Main battle tank sabot rounds are kinetic rounds. Certain shaped charge projected weapons are really hyperkinetic weapons.

The energy goes up as the square of the velocity. E = 1/2m(v*sq)

 

don't think vertical kinetics from that high have been done before.

mentioned in the sci fi novel 'Footfall' in which the elephant-aliens drop stuff on earth's military.

 

it would not matter as even if it didnt burn up on entry the resistance offered by the atmosphere would limit its speed

that is unless its under propulsion

 

They have been trying to figure out how to make them worth the effort. We have regular munitions that can do everything a rod from god can do for much cheaper. Now when they can make these things for cheap and they are reliable they will start to be popular.

 

Yea, the recent Gi Joe movie ripped it off. Although it was a cool cinematic scene, it would be terrifying if anything like that were ever unleashed.

 

Neat little concept for kinetic weapons started in the '40's Lazy Dog Bomb

 

Like the many other posts have said, this is a staple of Sci-Fi. The beauty of it is you don't even need explosives! The kinetic energy of something travelling from orbit are tremendous! Not sure about the feasibility of it, but I guess that's why we have R&D for the military.

 

good, bad, or ugly you have to admit it is a incredibly cool idea

 

Disagree - it's kind of a bad idea.

Why:

1) economics. It costs billions to get an itsy-bitsy satellite into orbit. Getting some monster weapons platform would cost [a crap load of money]. That kind of money can buy you things like stealth bombers and airfields and aircraft carriers.

2) efficacy. Terminal velocity prevents things from going too fast. This is why meteorites burn up instead of killing us all -- the atmosphere pushes against anything falling into it, slowing it down. So even if you drop the empire state building, it's only going to fall at maybe 500 mph. A .223 round goes at 2000 miles per hour, and as was pointed out above, velocity does the damage, not size -- 1/2(m)(v)^2

More efficacy -- how are you going to reload a gun that's in space? Answer: by spending a crap load of money. Money with which you could have bought something infinitely more effective.

3) defense. Does anyone get how easy it is to knock down a satellite in orbit? So you've spend a cubic mile of money and the chicoms can swat it down for a few million bucks. Heck, a shrapnel bomb has already been discussed and threatened...it would take down a big %age of the satellites in orbit.

 

If dropped from a satellite, would they not burn up before striking the earth's surface? Guess it depends from where / height they are dropped.

 

Pretty terrifying if you ask me. It's bad enough that armed drones are now buzzing the US airwaves. Now they are dreaming of using some god rods to give folk the sword of Damocles treatment. I might write this into my next book, plenty of material to draw from off current events alone...

 

Heard about these things lately, usually within the framework of the US PGS-project (Prompt Global Strike), and then specifically the Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS), but other uses have been mentioned as well.

We have the conventional Trident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(missile)#Conventional_Trident

And Project Thor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment#Project_Thor

More info on PGS can be found here (.pdf-download): http://www.google.no/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&ved=0CEgQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fas.org%2Fsgp%2Fcrs%2Fnuke%2FR41464.pdf&ei=HxntUeHSHcHq4gS-8IDQDA&usg=AFQjCNHwjMIUul2m6elw4AqHV1skL7y-5g&sig2=_xsqGABhmxuckRD17jN_lg

 

In addition to Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the Rod concept was also in Neal Stephenson's Anathem.

 

They did it in Peter Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" Trilogy. To really good effect.

 

As mentioned before, this is 1940s idea. The cooler trick would be to materialize the object right before the destination, so it would not have travel through the atmosphere. Something like the "meteor" in the Russland...

 

Satalitte dropped object would have a calculatable terminal velocity. Where as objects coming in from outer space would have tremendous speed already and would likey be be slowed by the atmosphere.

 

The mass of a gravity driven would not make it fall faster in any way, however the mass would have a direct correlation to the energy released when the object did hit the earth. Just like a heavier bullet vs a lighter one, measured in foot pounds i believe.

Personally i don't measure the scientific foot pounds, i go by the amount of body parts, penetration, gore, and the number of back flips the ground squirrel does when the bullet hits em) !! That's how a country boy measures kinetic energy!!!

 

Why is this in the "Manmade and Natural Disasters" Section????
Would'nt "Military Weapons" be more appropriate.
Space Based Weapons are not a Disaster of any type.
WTF is up with that???

 

my bad. I saw 'wars' listed and presumed this would be the right plce. didn't even realize there were a 'mil weap' section.

never presume, for when one does, one makes a pres out of u and me.

 

Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest sonofabitch in space.

 

I thought these things had been quitely dropped as they were mostly Bush Junior's plans. Rod's from God is the most destabilising of the systems as it would give the US the capability to deliver potentially a very large number of strikes against hardened targets with a few minutes notice. Whilst this may sound great, the other countries aren't going to accept this, instead many will use less time to think and more to hit out at the US. Anyone for living under hairtrigger wars?

 

This is a story I heard when I was in Thailand-1967. That b-52 bombers were dropping darts from cannisters over N. Viet Nam. No whistle coming down but deadly if you were in the spread. Mostly the Ho Chi Trails. Like I said, I can't prove it one way or the other.

 

I don't know about 52's but they fired finned nails from helicopters into the foliage as the nails had better penetrating power than regular ballistic weapons. They also fired them from the 106 recoilless rifle.

The helicopter one was on the evening news at the time or 60 minutes.

The recoilless was demonstrated to us in boot camp by shooting a bunch of balloons downrange.

 

And yet here it still is in "Manmade and Natural Disasters".

Even if this Military Weapons Platform was already deployed, it is in no way a Manmade or Natural Disaster.
Am I missing something guys???

Can I post something about Aircraft Carriers or Tanks here???
I really don't get it.

 

What would be cool is the deny-ability.

"We didn't shoot you, that was a meteorite."

Plus the power of a nuke without the radiation.

 

This type of space weapon never occurred to me. I trust some type of guidance system would still be necessary.

 

A guidance system, and a rocket of some sort to slow it down enough to drop out of orbit. All of which would be vaporized on impact.

 

The Newest Manmade and Natural Disaster

See my Thread about the Disaster of the USS Gerald Ford.:

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=311518/

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