Posted on 09/13/2017 9:04:35 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
Was the top secret space coast launch late this past week really carrying components of "Rods from God," the nickname of a doomsday weapon known as "Project Thor" that can rain hell on North Korea in an attack traveling at Mach Ten? In an exclusive feature, the National ENQUIRER describes America's possible deployment of satellite arsenals of tungsten, non-nuclear rods the size of telephone poles, "the equivalent of a meteor crashing into the Earth's crust." The tabloid explains that deployment of this weaponry by the US military awaits only the President's "GO" order. "Unlike a nuclear weapon, the Rods from God leave no radioactive cloud." Another advantage of this unusual weapon system is that because it can be launched very rapidly, "North Korea will have no warning and no time to react!"
Army veteran and Boeing researcher, Jerry Pournelle, envisioned just such a weapon way back in the 1950's, but it didn't show up until 2003 in a US Air Force report. Allegedly, one rod is "20-foot-long, one-foot-in-diameter." Contained in a series of eight in two satellites, each rod has a "destructive yield of about 11 1/2 tons of TNT. This highly destructive weapon is being seen as preferable to a nuclear solution to North Korea's provocations toward the USA because no nuclear fallout would decimate the North Korean population. When the launch took place on Florida's east coast at Cape Canaveral, news anchors merely described it as being "top secret."
According to Wikipedia, the effectiveness of "Rods from God," lies in the notion of kinetic bombardment or "kinetic orbital strike." The destructive force “…comes from the kinetic energy of the projectile impacting at very high velocities." This military weaponry concept originated during the USA's Cold War period when the citizenry was still recovering from WWII's nuclear attacks that destroyed Japan and left the threat of nuclear fallout not only on the war victims but on future Japanese. Because kinetic energy fuels the inert tungsten rods, the kinetic bombardment is not prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty that prevents the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The Lazy Dog bomb, "a steel projectile shaped like a conventional bomb" was emptied out of aircraft onto enemy troops during the Vietnam War. It had the same effect as the firing of a machine gun vertically.
Considering that a tungsten rod of 1 foot diameter and 20 feet long weighs about 9 and a half U.S. tons, this doesn't sound particularly destructive. They'd be better off just dropping the TNT on 'em. I assume this is a typo.
A telephone Pole of Wolfram is a non-trivial mass.
Printing guided, jetted projectiles in zero gravity is easier than hauling whole rods up. Those rods can also shoot down enemy sats.
They aren’t until you calculate the terminal velocity and determine the kinetic energy.
Orbital braking initial velocity of ~8 km/sec gives rise to a terminal velocity of about Mach 10 in the atmosphere.
Rods of the size given have mass of ~9 tons.
T = ½mv2 = 0.5 * (9 * 2000) / 2.2 * (3430) 2 J = 4.8 * 1010 J.
1 J ~2.4 * 10 -13 kiloton TNT.
Multiply to convert to equivalent high explosive. Result is ~ 0.0115 kiloton. Close enough.
These weapons are about 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the Hiroshima Bomb, and 4 orders of magnitude smaller than typical US thermonuclear weapon (~135 kiloton).
They pose NO significant advantage over nuclear weapons except the political ones.
Undetectable? So what? Nobody but the US can stop a nuclear missile, and even we aren't very good at it. Do people really think having twenty minutes warning of a ballistic missle or a few minutes warning of a nuclear cruise missile would change the NK response? Seriously?
Extremely difficult to target compared to a nuclear weapon.
Extremely difficult and expensive to get into space.
If the politics of a non-nucleear bunker buster are the only advantage, MOAB is a better alternative.
Incorrect. See my calculation in previous post. In no way comparable to nuclear weapon yields.
Throwing objects at the ground...makes me think of the old Heinlein novel “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”
They lobbed stuff at Earth from the moon.
If we gave that chinky bastard just one single Oldsmobile 442, he would bend the knee and worship us in perpetuity. Can you imagine a Korean pissant even dreaming of something like an Olds? - me neither. Gotta think out of the box.
Add speed to the equation and you arrive with a different X factor.
I keep hearing that argument, that NK has thousands of artillery guns pointed at SK and Seoul.
So what exactly does SK have pointed at NK?
Regardless of the consequences, we cannot allow the hermit king to field a nuclear tipped ICBM.
Kim is relying on uncle china to run interference for him, and to keep the Americans off of his back.
When the time comes to strike, bet on Kim launching a nuclear missle at an American ally or territory, while simultaneously launching an artillery barrage at SK.
And expect china to back him up.
The chimese want total control of the entire region, and are using NK as a sabre to rattle. They’re communists, it’s what they do.
A few tens of millions of asians is a small price for the chinese to pay to take control of entire region.
MOAB is only workable against targets which have zero anti-aircraft defenses. North Korea has excellent defenses. But their defenses won't stop a solid rod at Mach 10.
The destructive power as decribed seemed way low. I would agree with 3 orders of magnitude, possibly more.
At that rate and in a bundle of 8, that would be 72 tons or 144,000 pounds. I don’t think we have had anything since the Saturn V that could put that much weight into orbit.
That will be possible when we attack the people living on the other side of the Moon, or take out the Martians. It isn't happening on a planet with atmospehere; it's >100 km/sec. The fastest meteors, moving perfectly against the Earth's rotation, hit the top of the atmosphere at < 75 km/sec.
MOAB is a better alternative.
Incorrect. The calculation is elementary, and the maximum yield is about 1000 times smaller than the Hiroshima Bomb.
Correct. Low Earth orbit payload of Saturn V was about 120 long tons. In addition to which, you must add guidance, stabilizers, and targeting to the rod or it’s useless as a weapon.
I believe that Jerry Pournelle got the idea when he was working at Boeing from that very story.
No advantage to any of that. The "energy yield" is created by boosting substantial mass into orbit. That energy would have to be expended even if the shape of the mass was spools of ribbon or wire raw material to feed a 3D printer.
Tungsten is a preferred projectile because it is dense and heat resistant - re-entry will cause the object to glow, and in order to be effective, the object has to resist breaking up like most space objects (natural and man-made) do.
MOAB deliverability is entirely a function of the delivery vehicle and has nothing to do with the bomb.
North Korea has excellent defenses.
Define "excellent."
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