[Destro]

Jerry Pournelle's "Janissary" trilogy is one of my all time favorite reads.

[StatesEnemy]

I give humanity (well... at least modern living hominids) about 100 years.

At near 6,400,000,000 carrying capacity, we're due for a massive die-off. And for the grandchildren of those that survive, it'll be "spring".

[Pyrion]

12,000 ft/s?

Hmm...

12,000 x 60 (seconds per minute) = 720,000 ft/m.

720,000 x 60 (minutes per hour) = 43,200,000 ft/h.

43,200,000 / 5,280 (feet per mile) = 8,181.8 mi/h.

8,181.8 / 761.2 (mach 1 in mph at sea level) = Mach 10.74.

*whistles*

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Servant of the Nine]

"Rods from God," was technically "Project Thor" back in the 60s and I believe it was one of the programs Pournelle was involved in. The idea was to drop tens of thousands of smaller steel rods unguided into the Fulda Gap as the Soviet tanks came through.

So9

[LonePalm]

This idea was written up under the name 'crowbar' in the book "David's Sling" back in the seventies along with a version of the World Wide Web.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Sparticus]

How much mass does a 1 X 25 foot tungston rod possess and how many can a Saturn V put into orbit (if any)?

[ahadams2]

I may be wrong, but I believe the whole "tungsten rod" idea is just an upscaled version of the current antiarmor rounds referred to as APFSDS - Armor Piercing Fin stabilized Discarding Sabot fired by the M1A1 and M1A2 tanks...they look like giant lawn darts.

[general_re]

A key advantage of a space plane, the writers said, is its weapons could enter the atmosphere over a target, so there would be no need to seek overflight permission from other countries.

Okay, somebody help me out with this. A true space plane would be one that leaves the atmosphere, which means that there are no aerodynamics to keep it up there. So in order to stay up, it's essentially going to be assuming a low-earth orbit. But in order to maintain a stable orbit, it's going to have to be moving along at a serious rate of speed, which means that anything it releases to drop down to earth is probably going to have a hell of a long glide path before reaching the ground. So how can you possibly guarantee that a bomb will "enter the atmosphere over a target"? Strap an engine on it and bring it to a dead stop, so you can drop it straight down?

[aruanan]

Jerry Pournelle, a science writer and chairman of the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy, came up with the idea, which he originally named "Thor" after the Norse god of thunder.

And Jerry Pournelle got it from Robert Heinlein in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

[gitmo]

Footfall.

[11B3]

Replace the tungsten rod with a tungsten or depleted uranium sphere with a diameter of just over 10'. Launch it from an orbiting rail gun or from the Moon, but since you're in a vacuum let the muzzle velocity be just below c. That sphere could rupture tectonic plates, creating cataclysmic geological events. (I did a research paper on that years ago in college, and my liberal prof hated the idea - even though the calculations stood up.)

[Dark Wing]

Thor lives!

[Savage Beast]

Hey, you know those spycams that can read an auto license plate from an orbiting satellite? They need to ratchet up the magnification so they can read irises and do facial recognition. Then fire the Rods from God!

[RIGHT IN SEATTLE]

Screw tungsten, just use concrete.

Coat it with NASA shuttle S#IT, and run like hell!

[mvpel]

Daaaang. Guess the "Aurora" from a number of years back doesn't sound quite so far-fetched in comparison to this stuff.

[RightWhale]

I don't believe we can legally station weapons in orbit.

[RippleFire]

tungsten rods perhaps 20 feet long and one foot in diameter

Rods? Sounds more like a metal telephone pole.

[StriperSniper]

BTTT

[MissAmericanPie]

The Supreme Court better not find out that they are calling them "Rods from God".=o)

[Kozak]

ping