Rods from God?

The Coach's Team ^ | 9/13/17 | Suzanne Eovaldi

[FredZarguna]

The yield described is correct. The calulation is elementary from ½ mv².

[WhirlwindAttack]

Uhh, No it's not.

And that's all I can say about that.

[FredZarguna]

Of course there is no advantage to printers, but the addition of propulsion, targeting and stabilizers is absolutely necessary, since without active guidance these things are useless as weapons.

[txhurl]

So shoot 100lb packs of printing tungsten at the printing station in orbit. Invisible to our enemies. Or retrofit C-130s to carry them most of the way up and shoot them the rest of the way.

[TennTuxedo]

What does the Hiroshima bomb strength have to do with the intended solution and goal? That is what everyone is overlooking.

[txhurl]

Can you believe all the can’t-doers shooting this nearly perfect weapon system down on the thread?

[Bobalu]

Could be, they were friends...I hope they have somehow met up on the other side. It’s a nice thought :-)

[FredZarguna]

I was replying to specific posters who claimed the yield "had to be higher." No, it doesn't. Gravity is a very weak force. It is so weak, in fact, that we don't understand why it is so weak. It's 38 orders of magnitude weaker than the strong nuclear force, so it isn't surprising that a weapon that uses the whole planet to extract binding energy would still have less yield than a nuclear weapon.

As for the rest, what is the objective? And why could it not be achieved with a conventional weapon?

[FredZarguna]

There’s nothing perfect about it. It has severe limitations and only a very narrow usage context. In most other scenarios, it’s not a “can’t do” it’s a “stupid to do.”

[Bobalu]

A very tiny but dense rod from God with precise guidance might be useful against some types of targets.

But I don’t see the advantage over more conventional weapons.

If Kim Jon suddenly vaporizes no one is gonna believe it was a freak asteroid strike anyhoo.

[PapaBear3625]

MOAB deliverability is entirely a function of the delivery vehicle and has nothing to do with the bomb.

MOAB is delivered out the cargo hatch of a C-130 transport plane. It's too big for any other plane. C-130 is slow and non-stealthy.

[FredZarguna]

C130 service ceiling is about 9 km. Low Earth orbit is 160 km. Conventional aircraft aren't carrying anything “most of the way up.”

[FredZarguna]

It has a very limited number of useable scenarios, and is not a substitute for conventional weapons in most of them, and is certainly not a substitute in any scenario where nuclear weapons would be used. Should we have it in the arsenal? sure.

[GOPJ]

"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?

North Korea, Iran and China need to take the red pill... or they're gonna die wondering what happened.

[GOPJ]

Prepositioning weapons etc. in Outer Space gives us the advantage of not having to rely on navigation systems that are ‘hackable’...

[txhurl]

What’s not great about smallish, guided, propelled past terminal velocity no-see-ums that create targeted holes with no NBC baggage and zero warning for the enemy, and can laterally destroy enemy sats in its free time?

[Afterguard]

Would like to know the velocity at impact...

[txhurl]

Faster than dropped-from-air ordnance with attached propulsion. There might even be 5 small high-det bombs embedded in each 20ft rod.

[Crusher138]

From New Mexico, the land of “if I told you, I’d have to kill you”

I have it on good authority that we have Rods from God. They are not just dropped, but pushed. Testers were surprised at the penetrating power, which may be why they are being considered.

Supposedly we’ve been sending them up for years. One at a time they aren’t that heavy.

They are an ideal weapon for taking out a hardened facility.

[Nifster]

Delusions from a blogger of age