Comments on: Rods From God

By: Necdet

Necdet — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 21:41:11 +0000

Fay hattına hedef alındığında, fay hattını tetikleyip depreme neden olur mu? Örnek son Kahramanmaraş depremleri 7.8 ve 7.6

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 11:26:29 +0000

I love to pick apart ideas like these.
First: why two satellites? Two components are twice as likely to fail.

Second: putting up atomic bombs would be way more cheaper.

Third: Tungsten sounds good, but it costs arms and legs. There are other alternatives (like Osmium or Plutonium) but I’d wager that it would be better if the designers would load plain Basalt into the tubes. Otherwise you’ll end up with the same effect the US had in Afghanistan: blowing up a 10$ tent with a 40k$ missile.

By: RBB

RBB — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 23:34:01 +0000

The Moon really is a Harsh Mistress

By: Jason the big

Jason the big — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 20:39:27 +0000

well, the moon offers a big supply of rocks. slinging those into an earth orbit shouldnt be too hard. a railgun using a steel sled? And then you just have to nudge them into reentry. Targetting becomes the tricky part but if you get it aimed at a continent then a JDAM guidance attachment might be able to guide a cylindrical piece of moonrock to approximately the location of the separatists in eastern ukraine,.

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 09:01:32 +0000

For things like GPS you need multiple satellites to triangulate your position – the more the better. If the enemy can detect the launcher they could also try to shoot it down. I wonder if the first space war will end up looking like Gravity and leaving us Kesslered until someone goes up and nudges all the debris out of the way.

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 08:58:41 +0000

There’s the idea of using an asteroid in Earth orbit as a counterweight to a space elevator. But yeah, I imagine people might get nervous. That said, assuming capitalism doesn’t implode and wealth & power disparity continues, I assume private companies will absolutely get away with moving asteroids about.

As for the precision weapon against tanks, I doubt tanks will be a major weapon in the near future; missiles and drones will probably tear them apart, they’re useless for counter-insurgency and difficult to use safely in urban environments. Plus yeah, aimed kinetic weapons would probably end up with something like a depleted uranium missile, not a huge rod buffeting about in the troposphere.

By: Zenicetus

Zenicetus — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 17:25:27 +0000

There wouldn’t be an exhaust plume, but if it’s coming in fast enough it will heat up and glow, at least through the initial encounter with the atmosphere before aerodynamic drag slows it down. Might be enough for IR detection of an incoming strike, especially if the defense sensor is also in orbit and looking down, not up through the atmosphere..

If it’s coming in REALLY fast it will leave an ionization trail. I’ve seen fast meteors leave a glowing trail across half the sky that lasted almost a full minute, at a dark sky observing site. Although I guess we’re talking less velocity than that.

Anyway, by the time this kind of technology could be deployed, the ability to detect an incoming strike — either through better radar or heat sensing — might also be advanced enough to launch a defense of some kind. Ground-based laser maybe, for the more predictable military targets.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 13:49:10 +0000

Gosh that’s a terrible name *shakes head*.

Yay for science!

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 18:12:25 +0000

Less “neat”, more “terrifying”. You ever see that bit in Babylon 5 where Londo is staring out the window of his warship as it fires asteroids at the Narn homeworld? There’s a reason he looks utterly horrified; it’s pretty much the ultimate weapon of mass destruction simply because asteroids are so much more massive than anything we can put into space.

That being said, asteroid mining *will* happen at some point (Earth resources ain’t going to last forever) but I don’t think anyone’s going to be moving full-sized asteroids around any time soon, both for reasons of practicality and because the very idea would make a lot of people extremely nervous.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 18:01:24 +0000

It was a much better idea before the development of ICBMs and cruise missiles, that’s for sure. As it is modern precision guided munitions can be launched from outside a country’s airspace, evade AA defences and strike the target with a similar degree of force, so while it’s an idea that captures the imagination it’s also one that essentially obsolete.