Can Humans SURVIVE Orbital Drops?

[@exodus1383]

The terminal deceleration rockets along with all the other safety features listed really could make orbital drop pods feasible

[@beeno3487]

This is a nitpick but when talking about velocity, deceleration is actually called negative acceleration.

[@WoxyProxy]

@@beeno3487 🤓

[@chickennuggets8685]

@@beeno3487 if it's slowing down im calling it decelleration

[@chickennuggets8685]

cant edit comments for some reason, i mean deceleration

[@Blox117]

its like asking if neil armstrong could survive landing on the moon without a parachute

[@HotboxedCoffin]

I also heard ODST drop pods have explosives on the bottom that detonate milliseconds before impact to soften the blow.

[@thanosmaster-abel559]

That would make sense if the force of the explosives were pointed down, me personally why not just add retro rockets that are exposed nearing the surface idk. The capsule would be hot for sure

[@jimbothegymbro7086]

it could also help level the ground under them to help avoid roll overs especially on a hill

[@dsdy1205]

That's not too out of the question, existing space capsules like Soyuz and New Shepard come with 'soft' landing rockets that reduce the impact from collision with a freight train to collision with a big truck. Vet benefits for hell jumpers probably don't cover spinal injuries...

[@AS-fp4gb]

"Soft landing rockets" are used on the Soyuz spacecraft on reentry as well!

[@butterflymage5623]

@@thanosmaster-abel559 strategically you want the most speed for most of the drop. We learned this from world war 2 dropping personnel out of air planes. They would open their shoots really early in mass and get shot down. So we’ve learned or developed today the halo jump which is used for day time jumps or active areas. I’d assume in the future with better guns and targeting equipment you wouldn’t want the drop pod to slow down until close to landing.

[@TgamerBio5529]

We already have something similar to a drop pod that’s used by astronauts and it’s survivable

[@guardianoftexas5188]

It also lands on water with parachutes to slow them down but we haven’t seen them, touch down on land except for water.

[@alphaironheart]

@@guardianoftexas5188 The soviets did their cosmonauts would land in Siberia.

[@BrokenLifeCycle]

@@guardianoftexas5188 Uhh... the Blue Origins capsule, Soyuz capsule, the Starliner capsule can all land on solid ground.

[@guardianoftexas5188]

@@BrokenLifeCycle not the ones I was talking about but okay.

[@guardianoftexas5188]

@@BrokenLifeCycle I was talking about before all the new space agencies showed up, I was speaking about NASA’s capsule that only lands on water not fucking land.

[@DSlyde]

You mentioned SUSTAIN, but GE's Project Moose is even more similar. "Man Out Of Space Easiest" was a one man deorbit process that was in a lot of ways similar to what you describe here, though it was for emergencies not combat. You'd exit the ISS in your space suit, place yourself in a shaped bag with an ablative heatshield, fill the bag with foam, locking you in position, use a rocket pack to deorbit, and drop to earth. The shield and foam would protect you from re-entry, your suit provided the life support, a parachute would remove most if your velocity, and the foam would crumple and deform to protect you from the final landing. The foam would also float if you landed in water. Unfortunately it never got beyond Earth based testing in practice, but the numbers are sound. Excellent video btw.

[@arcanealchemist3190]

lol yeah i think the biggest barrier for MOOSE was that someone would have to be really desperate or really crazy to actually do it. getting into an ODST drop pod might feel like jumping off a cliff in a coffin. getting into a MOOSE bag would probably feel more like getting into a body bag and being thrown off the cliff by a jetpack. and then, once they're down safe, they're incased in foam. we have learned the hard way that you need to guarantee your astronauts can move around freely after impact, or it will cost them their life.

[@akaroth7542]

Yeah, you'd have to find a really 'unique' person to even want to test that.

[@DSlyde]

@@akaroth7542 Joe Kittinger, Felix Baumgartner, and Alan Eustace all imply to me that someone would step up to test the thing. Only after a lot more testing than the real one got, of course, but if it got that far I think you could find a test "pilot".

[@uknown6t669]

Don't forget to account for the odst's armor. Those things are able to be used in the vacuum of space, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to believe they have some form of reactive gel layer that helps reduce the impact of landing in their pods.

[@JoJoRogain]

Even the Marines regularly jump down lethal/incapacitating distances so I think you're right lore wise

[@deathsicon]

the gel layer is already a known factor in the MJOLNIR armor, so why wouldn't there be some earlier version of it incorporated into the odst armor?

[@theorixlux]

Don't know much about the armor in lore, but space suits keep generally are good at keeping pressure in, not pressure out. Pressure is force applied over a surface. Impact (jerk) is force applied over time. You would need a space suit that can maintain a strong internal force everywhere, and a strong external force at a very small period of time. General speaking, you want a suit to be good at one, or the other, so as not to compromise the other systems.

[@akaroth7542]

It's the motion of the organs and brain, then the sudden stop that creates the most problem (and damage) No suit could negate the intertia change alone.

[@bombomos]

It would need to be the impact that we'd have trouble saving them from

[@mattstorm360]

Well, you wouldn't have to worry about burying them after that.

[@Celestial_Wing]

We've managed to drop rovers and landers from space without killing the astronaut, I'm sure we could do the ODST drop too, just maybe with a bigger pod and "brake" system.

[@thanosmaster-abel559]

Retro rockets is what comes to mind. Parachutes would be too slow and ez to shoot. Idk just me.

[@mattstorm360]

@@thanosmaster-abel559 Droppods in halo use both a dragchute and retro rockets. So it would make since to have multiple methods to slow down.

[@bombomos]

@@thanosmaster-abel559 all these are great ideas. Just from the cutscenes of how the drop pods land... They drop a bit too hard for the human inside to not be folded lol. I'm sure 500 years from now we will have ways of slowing impact and reducing G forces.

[@stuperman117]

Two things I do remember reading about in regards to the ODST pods, is that they get cooked alive if they are unlucky enough on re-entry. The other is that due to the shape of the pod itself.. you kinda don’t got any real control of the way the pod flies around. You could absolutely slam into the environment on the way down, such as a tree branch or a rock.

[@supersim3]

A tree branch would help slow you down before impacting the ground. A rock on the other hand could be bad, although the pods in ODST bounce off walls on the way down without seriously injuring the occupants.

[@stuperman117]

@@supersim3 A tree branch may slow, but it's still an obstacle that can throw off the trajectory of the pod, enough that when it lands, it may go flying even further, endangering the occupant. Imagine dying by one twiggy boi.

[@jimbothegymbro7086]

@@supersim3 I'd rather not hit a tree in a drop pod, unless you hit it dead center it'll make you tumble and I don't think landing upside down at 60Gs is good for your neck

[@nobleman9393]

Or you burrow yourself in dirt and can't leave.

[@physical_insanity]

@@jimbothegymbro7086 I think a drop pod is too heavy to start tumbling if it hits a tree branch.

[@SenorGato237]

Drogue chute: two main purposes. 1 is that it orients the pod correctly. Second is that it provides early braking forces to slow the pod to its lower atmosphere terminal V. Breaking away of drogue also removes a a lot of energy from the drop pod (slowing it). Solid analysis, needs more charts to illustrate the area under the curve being the same with less intensity/longer time. That would really help visualize it for people who aren't as math heavy.

[@Mika-ph6ku]

They have those breakaway spinning air brake things that basically serve the same purpose though. Probably more reliably too I'd imagine.

[@jasonmenkins]

What do you mean you never saw the rockets fire in game? They are in Halo 2 during the ODST drop scene when Chief lands on Delta Halo. They're 4 of them on the bottom of the drop pod and they fire right as the drag chute is cut loose. Here is the scene in for reference: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKjRZ5tsq9SZhac, and if you pause it just before Chief's pod hits the ground you can easily see the 4 separate rockets on the bottom of his drop pod

[@zroberts02]

Dude probably only played Halo 5.. 🤦🏿‍♂️

[@AllenTheSwordsman]

I was thinking the same thing. Also I don’t think the remastered cutscene shows those boosters for whatever reason. They make sense to have so it’s certainly a strange decision.

[@Nostripe361]

I believe a world with spaceships flying around would probably also have to have some sort of inertial dampening devices. I always assumed it would need something like that to work but I am shocked that it is survivable with realistic tech.

[@jimbothegymbro7086]

halo is surprisingly grounded in regards to the UNSC we could make the scorpion now, hell we could probably make it a drone tank, everything but the energy shields and fusion power is comparable to todays tech

[@wesleyridge9696]

apparently prowlers and pelicans have an inertial compensator that allows the crew to survive the fast acceleration

[@christiandauz3742]

Unrealistic part is the time frame, the inconsistency of tech and how kind of slow 25th century humanity is Humans of the 25th century ought to be able to live eternally, youthful lives

[@nobleman9393]

@@jimbothegymbro7086 The Scorpion was already "made" back during the cold war, it was determined that the design doesn't work.

[@physical_insanity]

@@christiandauz3742 Life expectancy in Halo (barring chronological extension via cryogenic hibernation) is actually up by a hundred years or so. Many life threatening diseases like cancer are effortlessly curable, and humans live healthier lives. Even at the biological age of roughly 50, Johnson still looks significantly younger than that. Halo is more about the story and the aesthetic, anyway. It was never too concerned with being super realistic.

[@Metrik19]

You can see the pods use rocket brakes in the Delta Halo intro cutscene in classic graphics.

[@cowmeatius7151]

Starship troopers invented the genre. The entire first chapter is Mobile Infantry (basically ODST but give them powerarmour, a bazooka that fires micro nukes, several heavy guns, and a flamethrower), dropping into a civilian centre, destroying mass amounts of infrastructure in only a few minutes, then bugging out on an escape shuttle. Really shows how a fully mechanized and organized precision usage of paratroopers combined with heavy weapons is deadly, especially in a sci fi setting.

[@DOOT_II]

Would you like to know more?

[@herrhimmlerderpacifist7358]

At 1:23, you say you never see the underside rockets fire in game to slow decent. Watch halo 2 classic cutscenes with the drop pods. After the re-entry burn goes away and the chute releases just before impact, you hear an engine thrust and see flames shoot from the bottom of the pod. Those are the rockets.( It's was cut from Halo 3 odst and Halo 2 anniversary... someone probably mistook it for re-entry burn).

[@Quasarnova1]

They're in Halo 3: ODST, you can see them in the Tayari Plaza cutscene and the firefight trailer.

[@jasonmenkins]

Right?! They're used in Halo 2 and Halo 3 ODST. Idk what he was talking about

[@jakeku2662]

The drop pods in the novel Starship Troopers are best in class and very well described. Worth checking out, and it's a great book. Nothing like the movie. Great video!

[@DB-ku7vu]

Redbull had a dude jump from low orbit back in 2012. He had a spacesuit and a parachute.

[@geronimo5537]

The drop pod could work great with the entire compartment filled with gel to reduce the brutally rapid deacceleration of hitting the ground. Coupled with a parachute or reverse thrust rocket jets. The problem with military application. Is that the pod itself leaves a significant footprint of presence. The pods practically tell people who exactly was there as very few countries would have such a capability. There is definitely an application for drop pods. However the sheer cost of a such a program would easily dwarf that of a much more important aircraft carrier or our now much more expensive submarines here in the US. Where as with a longer delay for deployment. The same payload of troops could reach a location more conventionally for a fraction of the cost or training. If we were needing to rapidly deploy from space onto a hostile planet. Drop pods make a ton of sense. If we are fighting another country on the same planet. There are just a million other ways to do the same task.

[@hammer1349]

The SOEIV drop pod has multiple methods to make the entry survivable. The first is the low/medium altitude drag chute. The second is rocket assisted negative acceleration, though this seems to be model/variant dependent. The last one the bulb on the bottom is actually a crumple zone designed to absorb the impact and lessen to inertia differential on landing. They have enough room for weapons and basic supplies for the occupant. They can be configured to carry only cargo and materials or in some extreme cases, they have been known to carry a single mongoose.

[@thedirtyturtle7681]

The drop pod proposed in this video is basically a smaller, disposable Soyuz command pod. Due to geographical restrictions they are unable to reliably do splash down landings so they employ all the methods listed in this video and then some in order to bring the cosmonauts home safe. It's certainly worth checking out some videos on if anyone is curious about seeing this sort of thing in action.

[@DemonKelthar]

I miss forming LGOP’s lol (Little Group Of Paratroopers) And na it doesn’t take just junior leaders it takes all of us, at least in the 82nd you form an LGOP with anyone you find till you each reach your units here in training that’s easy you rarely absorb anyone who gets lost but in WWII lgops got formed by privates from entirely different units that never met and fought their way to the objectives getting absorbed by larger or absorbing smaller Lgops as they went higher command that survived would set up a cop and work on getting the word out based on pre determined rally points consolidation reorganization then redeployment, all while pushing towards the enemy. Seriously band of brothers hits what airborne ops looks like in real life it’s messy and has a high casualty tolerance. Beat times of my life, word from the wise don’t get fat, looking back at the man you were and knowing you arnt that man no more really fucking sucks, being a truck driver sure ain’t as fulfilling as being airborne infantry that’s for damn sure

[@isaacschmitt4803]

Those chutes you mentioned are drogue chutes. They're something that adds a little drag and are more for stability than anything else. They're also usually deployed before the main chute to slow the person or object being dropped enough that they don't tear the main chute apart when it deploys, as well as giving the main chute momentum to actually deploy. If you ever played with army men and parachutes, you'll notice that sometimes the chute won't deploy right and they'll plummet to the ground. The drogue chute helps with that, giving a smaller surface area that catches the air faster than the main would and helps the main one to deploy properly.

[@MJS-lk2ej]

1:45 that is so if you land door down (or in a lake or other unfavourable terrain) it doesn't become a coffin.

[@AvalanchCXVII]

You see the rocket brakes in action in Halo 2. I never noticed that they didn't deploy in ODST actually. EDIT: Oh huh, the H2 anniversary edition doesn't show them activating. They're shown activating the original game cutscene.

[@Riflery]

I wrote a paper doing the math on this years ago. I'll copy paste as much of it as I can find. *Here is the math.* The upper limit on drop pod acceleration should be 30 m/s². This equates to a force on the occupant of about 20 m/s², since you are still in a gravity well and about 10 m/s² is negated by Earth itself. Acceleration = 30 m/s² Velocity = acceleration · time Distance = 1/2 · acceleration · time² Plugging in 128,000 meters for the distance and 30 m/s² for the acceleration, the transit time comes out to 92.4 seconds. That's just over a minute and a half to get to the atmosphere. From watching the Halo 3: ODST opening cutscene, it depicts a transit time of closer to 1 minute for the whole ordeal, but I'll chalk that up to artistic licensing and/or a much lower initial drop height. Now we know the transit time, so we can figure out just how fast the pod is traveling when it hits the atmosphere. accelerating at 30 m/s² for 92.4 seconds gets you a final velocity of 2,771 m/s, or 9,977 kph or 6,200 mph. Oof. Maybe using the slowest speed we calculated, 5,614 kph, the same distance of 32 km, and a maximum deceleration of 80 m/s² will give us better results. Using the second equation again, we get a minimum transit time of 19.5 seconds to slow down the pod from 5,600 kph to 0 kph. That sounds better. Taking that number and plugging it into the third equation along with 80 m/s² (8-G's), the minimum required stopping distance is... 15.2 km. We survived! And with quite a bit of distance to spare. Ok, so we know an entry velocity of 27,000 kph is not manageable, and an entry velocity of 5,600 kph has a lot of room to spare. So, given the conditions we have set, what is the maximum entry velocity a drop pod can be travelling and still survive the descent and keep the ODST alive and conscious? We know our distance is still 32 km, and the maximum deceleration is still 80 m/s². Using these numbers, we get a transit time of 28.3 seconds. Using that transit time and plugging it into the velocity equation, the maximum entry velocity would be 2264 m/s, or 8,150 kph or 5,064 mph. That's still pretty fast, and that would be one hell of a ride. For reference, that is nearly the same speed as the railgun in the above video. I don't think intense even begins to describe it. Using those numbers, and working backwards, the resulting drop altitude would be 117.5 km, or 73 miles. Pretty high up, and a reasonable launch distance, though that would still be too low to be considered "in orbit". But no worries, it is still a reasonable scenario, which is good. Again, we know 8,150 kph is as fast as we can get to. It appears that drops from 315 km (196 miles) and lower are both survivable and manageable. This is actually quite a small range of orbital heights, but is well within the established lore and a good degree of believability. While we did not take every factor into account, the bounds that we set means a more detailed analysis would likely find this range is a little larger. Even at 315 km, however, the drop time is getting uncomfortably long, and if you can't get a capital ship any closer to the surface due to the enemy, there's a good chance you aren't getting any drop pods through either. What I can say is that the pod itself would slow down to somewhere around 800 kph or 500 mph without any brakes just from air resistance. Adding in the air brake, you might get to a couple hundred mph, and the remaining brake would have to be done via retro rockets. TLDR: Basically, yes it's possible. The pod must impact the ground at 50mph or less, but with crunch armor, suspension seats, and well trained crew, it's entirely possible. Occupants would need to wear g-suits, neck braces, harnesses, be suspended a few inches above crash seats. But the transit of several hundred miles could be made in 30 seconds to a minute, with a 50mph car crash at the end. Much of this info was gathered from a website, and fact checked/edited by me, but I cannot remember what site. Also, it'd be about 105-115° F inside the pod.

[@Riflery]

The Experience. The automated countdown begins, "beep, beep, beep, BEEP" and as that final chime sounds, your pod's insertion thrusters fire, launching the SOEIV away from the ship and towards its destination, Earth. You, meanwhile, are forced up into your harness, carrying what is effectively twice your weight on your shoulders. The feeling doesn't go away, though. Its continuous, and as the seconds tick by, you feel the blood rushing to your head, causing pressure to build in your eyes and sinuses. The feeling is so intense it gets nearly impossible to breath through your nose, though you stopped doing that the moment the alarm sounded back aboard the ship. You don't start to blackout though. You are experiencing the problem of too much blood in your head. You are feeling the effects of redout. As the blood pressure builds in your face, your lower eyelids actually start filling with blood and get pushed into your field of vision. It is just enough force to be incredibly unpleasant without actually damaging your blood vessels. And it just stays like that. For over a minute your body experiences a feeling not unlike being hung upside down, but worse. Worse because the acceleration forces you are experiencing are twice that of normal Earth gravity. Even worse still because you aren't upside down at all. You can see the planet rushing up below you. Your eyes tell you that you are right-side up. But every other sense is telling you otherwise. Particularly your stomach Then, in an instant, your whole body is thrust down to the floor of the pod as the insertion booster cuts out. Now you carry your weight in your feet and crotch. Quickly your weight grows. This feeling continues to worsen until it literally feels like you weigh eight times the normal 250 pounds you are in full gear. That's 2,000 pounds, but who's counting? This feeling is way more intense than the drop, but at least you know in the back of your mind it will end a lot sooner. Plus there isn't any time to think about it as your ODST training kicks in, flexing your leg and arm muscles to keep at least some of your blood in your head and torso to maintain consciousness. Your vision starts to gray, then tunnel, but you keep from passing out. The feeling starts to lessen a bit as your pod slows. That is, until you hear the familiar thump of the air-brake deploying, thrusting you back down into your seat even harder than before. *The term chute always makes people think of light, canvas parachutes, but the SOEIV's "chute" is nothing of the sort. It is designed to slow your pod from about a mile a second to a paltry few hundred miles per hour in about a dozen seconds. That thing can handle both the force of the planet's atmosphere pushing with all its might to keep the intruding drop pod out, and the intense heat generated when so many air molecules impact the bottom surface of the fins, literally rubbing against the underside so hard it creates a wall of fire at the point of contact. So yeah, the air-brake is absurdly strong. And it ain't light either. So when you land, you pray that the shute detached when it was supposed to. People think drop pods are strong, and they are, but they are designed for impact on the bottom of the pod, not the top.* All that rushes through your head as you descend through the clouds. As you begin to make out individual people on the ground, you hear the familiar "POP!" of a successful ABSS activation. And if you didn't trust the sound of ABSS, you sure do trust its effects. For a moment you feel nearly weightless, as the brake that a moment ago was rapidly slowing your pod is thrown clear of your descent path. In reality you aren't in weightlessness, but the transition from nearly 5 Gs to closer to 2 is the most freeing feeling you can experience as an ODST. Except of course for exiting your pod alive and in one piece. As your pod begins the last phase of the descent, you prepare yourself for the final, most intense part of the whole ordeal, land-fall. The engineers had a term for this too, "Rapid Pod Deceleration Phase" is what they said, though your squad just calls it "the crash". The ground is now coming up on you incredibly quickly, though your descent is continually being slowed by the retro-rockets firing underneath you. As the land transitions from below you to in front of you, you keep an eye on your altimeter and speedometer. 1,000 feet and 343 mph. 500 feet, 117 mph. 200 feet, 87 mph. 100 feet, 58 mph. 50 feet, 42 mph. At the last possible moment the rockets cutout, and for the last few feet you are in free-fall. For the briefest of moments you are truly weightless, freed from the burden of all that weight you were supporting for the past half minute. In the time it takes your brain to process the feeling and think to itself "I am weightless", however, the feeling ends, and does so abruptly. You feel the drop pod impact the Earth, a feeling that is nearly impossible to recreate in real life, aside from maybe a serious car accident You may have hit the ground at nearly 40 mph, but it felt like a gentle 20 mph crash to you inside the pod. For a brief moment you are a little disoriented, shaken by the sudden change in velocity, but your ODST training kicks in yet again and you grab your MA5D and equipment like you do every drop and wait those precious seconds as the automated "Pod Door Detachment System", or PODDS (go to hell, engineers) activates and pops your pod's door away and clear. -This was copy pasted from that website I mentioned. If anyone knows what site it is, let me know.

[@Riflery]

Also, the ODST's would experience a max acceleration of 80m/s which is about 8G's, which is tolerable for well trained men to handle while barely remaining conscious. So, it's suck, your go blind for a moment, and you'd have many hundreds of pounds of weight on your thighs and crotch, but hey, your an ODST, your wouldn't survive long enough to have kids anyway!

[@Einwetok]

Starship Troopers (the book obviously) had a detailed description of drop pods. Kryomek drop pods had a novel approach using autorotation to slow it down. There's also techs we've used on Martian landings to consider. Planets without significant atmospheres would have different solutions obviously.

[@FourOneShiesty]

Absolutely awesome content man! I love the detail and "science" you put into this. 🤙🏼

[@TheBigCabezon]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@monteljameljoshuadublin196]

@@TheBigCabezon can you please make a video about mass effects reapers vs halo flood and who would win in your view?

[@Rotnoc473]

7:58 I’ve never seen a buff guy with an ODST shirt on lol.

[@samuel10125]

Even in Halo lore ODSTs have a very high casualty rate just dropping in so.

[@Nixeen]

While researching for some world building I looked into the idea of drop pods in a sci-fi setting. It does make sense for special forces and recon troops, but I think they would be highly detectable burning through the atmosphere. This means the enemy might be able to pinpoint the landing point before the troops land. So I think a dropship makes a bit more sense, being able to change the landing point. But another idea I had was basically to scale up the drop pod so a whole squad can be seated inside so they aren't scattered over a large area. The larger drop pod could have some automated guns to defend the landing area as the troops embark or maybe return to launch back into space. Or better yet, have the drop pod be a small vehicle sort of like the Soviet/Russian BMD or M-35 Mako from Mass Effect, so the troops can land and immediately be mobile with the firepower to push through enemy territory.

[@edwardo_rojas_]

I think there are some pods like those in Halo: Reach, in the Mission Pillar of Autumn where squads of Grunts land together aboard big drop pods across the field with an Scarab, while you race to the Autumn with Emile

[@nyalan8385]

There are a couple things to consider: You probably are right about detecting the pod entering the atmosphere, but things like that are surprisingly hard to find if you aren't looking for them, and if you are you then have the logistics issue of predicting a landing zone and deploying units there all before the pod lands, which is just infeasible. I can definitely see a drop pod holding like 6 troops or so, but there are some issues. Drop pods are meant to be disposable, so having one big one as opposed to 6 small ones would make more monetary sense, but if anything happens to the pod then you've lose 6 highly trained elite soldiers as opposed to one, and it's not like individual pods would land as scattered as paratroopers nowadays are, they are literally rocket guided to an extent. The issue with the vehicle idea is that a vehicle is inherently less mobile than infantry in terms of evasive procedures, and the point of drop pods is to drop elite troops behind enemy lines and have them stealthily complete some mission, get to a rendezvous, and then be airlifted out. A vehicle would just get in the way of this, plus the pods are meant to be disposable, there sheer cost of engineering a pod to survive the impact and then *transform* into a functional armed vehicle afterwards would likely be orders of magnitude higher than the individual elite troops themselves, which should always be the most expensive cost on missions like these.

[@Nixeen]

@@nyalan8385 I agree with the vehicle being less mobile and the squad drop pods being more risky, but I also imagine they would be deployed a decent distance away from enemy territory. Launching drop pods on top of enemies like in Halo would be unrealistic I think. So it would depend on terrain/vegetation, atmosphere (if any), level of gravity, and type of enemy forces that determine if you go by foot or need a vehicle. Recovering the vehicle is a tricky issue I didn't think about. Overall I think the dropship makes the most sense because its your ride in and out, and hopefully it can also provide some CAS if needed.

[@Furzkampfbomber]

If you want a small number of troops deployed for special operations and all kinds of secret stuff, there are already a ton of other options. Parachutes, gliders, submarines... I think the real value of drop pods would be large scale invasions, specifically for dropping troops behind main battle lines (as the allies did before and during D-day) or right amongst enemy troops, even more so if you want a shock effect. Think Warhammer 40k and Space Marines. Which are actually using squad based drop pods which often come with a large array of guns. The way the USNC and ODST are using them is cool, but actually kind of pointless. Here is a short, giving a, well, short explanation: kzbin.infofxHZagK9jUQ?feature=share And here is a more detailed one with a bit of lore: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fp2XcmCeq9d5jdk

[@hunted4blood]

The other thing, that's kinda dumb because it's a technology that basically breaks most sci fi setting if you think about it too much, but Halo has artificial gravity technology, so you could easily use that in a drop pod to fight against gravity during the fall and negate almost any problem you can think of. Of course artificial gravity tech is basically just magic so it's usually better to ignore the possibilities if you want an even slightly grounded story.

[@SovereignTurkey]

in direct comparison to regular paratroopers, this is prohibitively expensive, its not until you apply this to interplanetary warfare it becomes usefull.

[@jimbothegymbro7086]

and once you're at such a big scale you've got the benefit of mass producing the pods and once the tooling is done on the factory it's more or less a fixed rate out the door each week

[@stugiiif146]

I think it would be interesting to talk about all the different drop pods in the Halo universe, and potential evolution of this pod technology. Such as dropping in tanks or equipment from orbit

[@ethantheenigma5513]

I think another big reason we wouldn't see drop pods for a while is cost and the single-use nature of a real-world drop pod, with its crumple zones and all that.

[@zano187]

While it's not a major heads up, re-entry will always be flashy due to the heat, and namely light generated by friction, followed by sonic booms announcing your imminent arrival for anyone who missed the light show.

[@Prich319]

Oh yeah, drop pods are definitely viable. There were high altitude jumps conducted in the 1960s (plus that one skydiver a couple years back.) that proved a properly equipped parajumper could indeed survive a jump from essentially space. To evolve that into an ODST, all you would need is a system that allows the jumper to deorbit and survive reentry, whether wearable (like Halo: Reach's M-spec reentry pack) or a fully enclosed drop pod. If you're not planning on reusing the pod, then something with ablative layers, or an inflatable heat shield might be all you need.

[@project4061]

This is actually something I wanted to look into myself, but was unsure where to start. An awesome breakdown of drop pods!

[@darkskull9166]

The issue with these drop pods is that the realisticness of these things shows how expensive they are. They have small explosive bolts, a metal parachute of sorts, lots of mechanics that can control where the pod will land, storage for smaller weapons, and some other mechanics that the drop pod uses to function. It'd be expensive to make one, let alone enough for a single squadron... unless we somehow developed a society that didn't rely on a form of currency in order to commit to supply and demand or collecting the resources needed to build this.

[@sebastiannelson6355]

Easier than you think when you have many worlds to buy cheaply from and tax. Plus the pods are reusable after repairs so its not a full loss upon use.

[@duitk]

@@sebastiannelson6355 to us it's extremely expensive, but for a society 500 years more advanced and that owns hundreds of worlds it's not as bad. Technology in manufacturing makes a huge difference. Think how how our modern textile industry would look like someone from the middle ages. They could make a full suit like we can, but would take a skilled seamstress a long time to make it by hand. We do that on a industrial scale. If they have extreme automatic and better industrial technology they can do it much better. I mean they build kilometers long starships, pods are probably chump change.

[@TylerOrchowski]

I work in the space industry, and this video was very well done. Bringing in an ODST pod from orbit is no harder than any current space capsule, or the first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9. Fun fact, the SpaceX Dragon capsule was originally planned to use thrusters to decelerate like suggested here instead of a parachute, but NASA deemed it too risky. While not depicted this way in the game, I think a likely solution for the heat shield would actually be an inflatable one to increase cross section. Those have been tested recently with great results vs traditional heat tile shields.

[@randybentley2633]

I recently watched the reminisce of the ejection that a pilot of an F-111 had to do on a night training mission. Apparently, there was a catastrophic failure of some bearings in the swing-wing pivot box. When it was surmised that the plane was unlikely to survive long enough to get back to base, a fact that was determined when the copilot looked out and saw nothing but flames where a wing should be happily cutting the air. Procedure dictated that the pilots, in unison, say eject three times before either pulls the handle. The reason for this is that you have to be in a fully reclined position so that the high Gs experienced in the punch-out are spread out over the entire body. This is more so the case in regards to the F-111's use of a pod-type egress instead of the ACES2 individual ejection seat, and as such, more umph is needed to send the pod clear of the dying aircraft. Unfortunately for the pilot, he wasn't reclined in the proper position when the copilot pulled the handle after only one utterance of EJECT! and as such, the pilot ended up with three compressed vertebrae. The impact on the ground injured him further due to the pod bouncing after impact. It was only a fracture to his left leg that, with the pain from the spinal injury, made it so that he couldn't feel it. He was already back in flight ops before a doctor informed him of his leg injury. This incident is the closest that I know of which might give any incite into what an ODST might experience. As for if we may ever see an ODST in real life, it might come to pass via the Space Force and the SpaceX Starship program, be it either Version 1 or the proposed larger Version 2. V1 is 9m (30ft) in diameter and, combined with its booster, is 120m(393ft) tall. Whilst the V1 could work as an ODST transport, it would probably do a better job in its deorbital configuration that will put 100+ tons of equipment down on any point on the globe where there is enough clear-level ground. The V2 is, perhaps, the better option given that it is twice the width and height of the V1. With this being the case, the room available should allow for 100 of the 240m to be used for deploying SF Spec-Ops or possibly USMC from LEO to secure the V1's landing site. Time will tell.

[@Kogasengaha_Hishoshi]

We have astronauts coming back in heatshield protective pods lol Just not landing at the same speed safely XD

[@daymenleo6895]

i remember when ODST's were mentioned on a picture from halo 2 me and friends thought it were other Spartan's foreshadowing some ODST's became Spartans in halo 4/5 LOL

[@APerson-ni1gb]

G-defuser and/or Inertial Dampeners also Artificial Gravity? That’s about it reasonably especially 500 years in technology from now

[@_6-6_]

Feasible not practical: Even in halo, you’d still need a drop ship to get the units back to orbit. Granted, you could use them to neutralize AA weapons, but so could many other different things.

[@biz117]

with willpower and crack anything is possible

[@kabuki_kitten7129]

on the deceleration stuff i was literally doing this in my physics a level today

[@my9thaccount140]

Orbital Insertion makes perfect sense because it’s essentially the same thing as airborne deployment just better. If you can overcome the G forces and expenses you have all the benefits of paratroopers with some new bonuses tacked on.

[@HexJK]

The speed of the impact is also roughly how fast your brain will slam into the inside of your skull, causing serious trauma, bleeds, etc. So an impact drop like we see in the games would very likely injure or kill the person inside. For it to be reasonable, they'd have to make deceleration as linear as possible, or literally replace the liquid in our skull (CSF) with some kind of jelly material.

[@dsdy1205]

Something I don't really see mentioned in the video or in the comments is discussion of maneuvering the pod aerodynamically. A cylindrical shape like a drop pod is actually surprisingly maneuverable at hypersonic speeds by tilting into the airstream to generate lift, like a very stubby wing. Their lift to drag lies halfway between capsules ( < 0.10 ) and spaceplanes ( > 1.0). In practice this means that a drop pod with thrusters is capable of a surprising level of lateral translation from the deploying mothership's flight path (Shuttle was capable of 1000 miles to the left and right of its flightpath, it's reasonable to conclude that a drop pod can do at least a third of that) , and can also maneuver effectively against point / area air defense. For anyone interested, google 'biconic reentry vehicle' and 'AMaRV' to see real-world examples developed but ultimately scrapped for ICBM warhead delivery. Some readouts even depict _hairpin turns at Mach 10 without losing significant speed_ . Several advantages present themselves: 1. Maneuvering is obviously an advantage in terms of payload (trooper) survivability. 2. Maneuvering reduces the precision required from the mothership in flying a good drop path, allowing for better deployment accuracy in a high-pressure combat situation. 3. Deploying maneuvering pods allows for greater tactical flexibility for a warship captain. They can increase ship survivability by offsetting their flightpath, or increase unpredictability by forcing the pods onto a non-conventional trajectory. They also have greater control over the spread of their troop deployments. Want an acre-wide dispersion for coverage? You got it. Want massive reinforcement of a point installation? We gotchu fam. Want to divert your forces away from their primary target so that they can tackle a black-op without prior briefing or even involvement from the mothership, involving transport of a suspiciously cute balloon animal? Say no more. 4. When in a lifting configuration, the majority of the g-forces are in the lift direction, i.e. at 90 degrees to the 'down' direction of the pod. With good design, all of the g-forces can pass through the trooper in a way that makes them feel as if they're in a lying position. That is the best position to endure g-forces in, which will allow designers to bump up pod g-limits to close to 10 g's for minutes at a time. 5. All of the above 4 points cause a potential adversary to have to concentrate air defenses to keep them getting through, opening up other less priority installations for attack from Pelican-borne troops. I can't stress enough how advantageous these pods are when deployed in a combined-arms approach. Cons: 1. ODSTs now have egos the size of planets since they also are excellent hypersonic pilots.

[@Th3og0ny]

On paper, the landing should be survivable if we go under the assumption theres safety features and rocket boosts to soften the landing. But, we also got to remember in Halo lore that ODSTs are somewhat physically enhanced... not to the extent of spartans but are slightly more resilient than un-augmented humans. While the augmenting is sci-fi, it wouldn't surprise me if we see this type of technology in the not too distant future.

[@chrisreilly1290]

Pretty sure the seat inside is slightly reclined and is on a rail But in Halo 2 anniversary, they get rid of the rocket brakes, which would probably leave your ODSTs as puddles on the floor of their pods

[@JB-fp8tw]

The word your looking for is impulse. Increase the impulse time the more survivable the crash.

[@cadendennis3019]

This was an awesome video. I'm an Aero and in one of my grad courses I actually did a assignment where I did a reentry analysis of a drop pod and got it to around 126 m/s on impact. This is totally feasible, and we will probably see some sort of drop pod in our lifetimes. (May end up with small team insertions of 6ish troops to bring the cost per soldier insertion down a bit, which is probably the biggest down side to this type of technology).

[@KellyStarks]

Yeah there was a design called MOOSE for a single person renter from orbit pod. It had a reentry booster on the end of a cable, and a foamed reentry disk. Once down to low altitudes and a couple hundred mph, you deploy a chute and land normally in your space suit. Really the biggest argument against the ODST pods is price for a throw away pod, rather then a landing craft with presumably armor and counter weapons, and a pilot being pickyier about LZs.

[@clan741]

Technically this is how a lot of astronaut’s landed on earth, literally dropping into the ocean. We also launched rovers on mars by just having them drop on the world in a big cushioned ball that deflates when they’re done bouncing around, I kid you not. I imagine after centuries of developing better methods of landing on alien worlds then the ODST drop-pod would be the natural evolution of what astronauts use today.

[@maverick9708]

when I was a growing up, drop pods were seemed like the coolest type of vessel ever devised.

[@TheGelatinousSnake]

My only change in design would be to have a full standing orientation at exactly 45 degrees. Less spinal impact than sitting or standing full vertical. Let the legs absorb a bit of the impact instead of only spine

[@Naptosis]

6:36 Interesting, those inflatable collars already exist; they're sold to cyclists and inflate like an airbag covering the head when the device detects an impact.

[@extremosaur]

Springs and foam or gel cushions could help, especially in combination with your angled rail proposal. @Installation00

[@jimbothegymbro7086]

or just a cheap crumple zone underneath, Iron is the most common material in the universe after all, simple is cheap too

[@paulvcope]

"I find this highly impractical, especially if your coming in as a team, to have a single individual bouncing around." That's because you misunderstand the application of it. The occupant isn't going to be "bouncing around", they are going to be using that fuel to get out of ravines or up short cliffs, dislodge pods dropped into boggy or soft terrain, or possibly get the pod back onto the roof of the target building they may have missed. It's a feature that's going to aid team cohesion because having one of your teammates unable to engage the enemy because their pod is now unable to blow it's hatch, having sunk 10 feet into the mud of the LZ, leaves you a man down. Hell, even being able to relocate a hundred meters or so means your fireteam can be more effective because you aren't going to have one member get KIA due to being isolated.

[@SoloRenegade]

retro thrusters like existing re-entry capsules, and shock absorbing seats like modern military vehicles to deal with IEDs.

[@____________838]

Pretty cool that Installation00 did a video over this very topic a few days later!

[@michaelgautreaux3168]

Side note. NASA used water landings to soften the impact. The Soviets used "Retros" for ground (dirt) landings. It's all very real ! GR8 vid, many thanx. 👍👍

[@trevorthompson6825]

Drop troops would absolutely be a thing if we became an interstellar civilization or even had a large presence in-orbit. If it gets cheap enough to send stuff into space and we start capitalizing on in-orbit "real estate" for business, research, etc, we'd absolutely station troops to police up there or drop down when a fast response is needed on the ground.

[@greenscorpeon3]

Thats really interesting. I never thought that even with our own already existing technology drop pods could already be made. Its just as you said, we dont yet have a use for them. But what i could see a possible problem with a drop pod design (in the future where they would exist). Would they be recoverable and reusable. If not, it could be that they would be quite expensive in comparison to sending out a shuttle like the Pelican from Halo. With how much tech and materials would be required for those drop pods, just to drop one soldier, it might not be cost viable. Then again, maybe building bigger drop pods like those in Titanfall series, where like 6-8 soldiers are in. Would make it more cost effective. Additionally there would have to be some kind of pods that can carry equipment too. Such as Troop transport vehicles, AA weappons and so on. Dropping an infantry only force might not be so realistic. Of course in terms of Halo series, dropping one Spartan is basically like dropping a squad of tanks.

[@Tetrumo]

Kind of makes the drop pods of Starship Troopers (the book) more plausible. Cause they're already dropping in suits with some of those features.

[@triplebog]

Im sure this has already been said, but drop pods in the Halo 2 Delt Halo drop scene do actually have the rockets in the original game. The blur cutscenes didn't carry them over, but they are in the original. In the original it also seemed more like the chutes breaking off was intended also. But if the breaking off wasn't intended, this could also be because Master Chief in Mjolnir probably weighs an order of magnitude more than a standard Helljumper, and that seems like it would likely disrupt some of the "slowing down" features. Gonna be honest, it's wild that there are 3 cutscenes of drop pods in Halo and you only watched two.

[@ItatsuMagnatsa]

I'd like to see a Scenario where the Terran Dominion, UED (United Earth Directorate), and the Protoss at their Full Might from StarCraft enters the Halo Universe and Aids the UNSC against the Covenant.

[@The_Natalist]

Im surprised more setting dont show supplies and equipment delivered this way, would makes lots of sense

[@gruntes11isttt]

The orginal halo 2 cut scene shows the rocket brakes but it's really hard to see and it might be one of the mcc bugs causes it to not appear on mcc

[@jimbothegymbro7086]

my guess is 343 cut it since it was hard to spot anyway

[@satuerdandashnaw3700]

Yes, it's very survivable. The Capsules that come down from space burst into the atmosphere at terminal velocity before they drop a buffering shoot which slows them down considerably. Although they tend to land in the ocean to reduce the impact, the occupants are usually padded and strapped into suit chairs which are rather comfy. If the pods were designed with the idea of a sharp cushioned impact in mind, they could theoreticaly land on solid earth, rock or on the side of buildings and the occupants still survive. If the pods were designed as a smaller more teardrop shaped ovoid with it's own vectoring, maneuvering thrusters and a impact shoot to slow down velocity in re-entry, the pod and it's occupants could easily survive. They may be a tad disoriented or dizzy on the way down, but it's very possible in this day and age. Even in the 80's.

[@filtratedbread]

I think this was the most realistic, because it's related to an existing idea from during the cold war. If I can recall correctly, originally the concept was: a launch vehicle somewhere similar to the Saturn 7 and instead of carrying moon stuff (return vehicle, lander, things ect.) ...it carried 12 dudes(-ish idk its been forever since I learned about it) in a bigger landing capsule with the idea of being able to have them do the whole "special operations thing", anywhere in the world; in minutes, rather than hours. Also, the 70's was a gold mine for concepts related to sci-fi and the halo dev's did their homework from material of the decade (the ring itself was a pre existing idea as well as many others).

[@TheBigCabezon]

The 60s and 70s were such a wild time for science. Government didn't gaf they tested everything. I low key respect that unbridled hunger for science and progression, despite the lack of morality.

[@filtratedbread]

​@@TheBigCabezon Part of it I think, is we told ourselves what worked and what didn't. Then shelved everything that didn't work, and kind of forgot about them. Because after how certain advancements have made some ideas more plausible in the recent years, sense I feel many are more revisit-able.

[@filanfyretracker]

@@filtratedbread an example is Rods from God, aka Project Thor. Totally impossible due to budget alone back then, but launch continues to fall in price in the current era. Given its supposed to have 100T to LEO, I have zero doubts that somewhere in the bowels of DARPA that there isnt someone thinking of a Starship Orbital Kinetic Bomber. Just in case that shiny SpaceX experimental actually works. Because DARPA basically exists to dream this stuff up.

[@NeoMorphUK]

The chute isn’t as much to guide but to stop tumbling of the pod as that is the worst that can happen. Just look at what happened to Felix Baumgartner when he tumbled at supersonic speed IN A REAL LIFE DROP. It’s easy to begin spinning so fast that the trooper would end up blacking out. Hence the stabilising drogue chute. A better system for orbital drops is in Starship Troopers. I’m not talking the crappy movie but the novel now. Troopers are sealed into what is essentially a huge bullet and fired in the opposite direction of orbit. This means the pod will begin to deorbit quickly (yeah, to launch the pod down you fire in the opposite direction of orbit… orbital mechanics can mess with your head). The outer layers then heat up and burn away leaving lots of hot strips of metal around the troopers to confuse anti-air defences. When the pod reaches lower atmosphere it reveals a sensor window for the trooper to scan their landing point… at this point in the drop the trooper can choose to shed the remaining pod by firing off charges that splits it away from the HEAVILY armoured trooper who then can fall the final part of the jump on his rocket pack. It also allows the trooper to start firing tactical nukes at targets around the drop zone (yeah, Heinlein’s original Troopers make Spartans look like wimps in comparison). Apparently the bit that scares the Starship Troopers protagonist the worst about the drop is being sealed into the drop pod up until being flushed out of the ship “magazine” because ships are HUGE targets. As soon as he’s falling to the planet and into a really dangerous drop zone HE CALMS DOWN. Sounds bonkers but it even affects parachutists in todays armies. So yeah… in my mind Starship Troopers is the definitive version of orbital drop troopers.

[@nathankindle282]

Or better yet, have I similar to the drop pods used in Robert Heinleins Starship Troopers. At a certain point, the pod comes open, and have the troopers parachute the rest of the way down

[@ShinkuRED]

In halo 2 classic you do see the rocket brakes activate right before landing. They didn't translate that to the anniversary graphics for some reason.

[@orctrihar]

What the best part of this video : The fact he validate Helljumper or that he putted epic music during all the video ?

[@filanfyretracker]

you absolutely want that blunt body on the bottom, that slightly curved look is probably the most stable and most viable given we have proven that design already with space capsules all the way back to the original Soviet and US missions in the 1950s and capsules all the way up to now with Crew Dragon, Soyuz, Artemis, CST-100 Starliner and the Chinese one.

[@RikaRoleplay]

5:40 Instead of impulse, try Jerk (the derivative of which is acceleration) It goes in the following order (and I kid you not) velocity, acceleration, jerk, snap, crackle, pop, and so on... Yeah 😂 each being a measurement of the former over time, leading to interesting physics equations and interesting analysis of race cars or space ships

[@Keiranful]

A rotating drogue chute could absorb significant potentital energy, slowing the pod down even further. You could potentially even get rid of the brake rockets that way.

[@thejunkmanlives]

this whole idea of dropping in from orbit has been around for a while. starship troopers(the 1959 novel, not the 90s film) starts off with a drop thats very similar to an odst drop(the pod breaks away throwing clutter in the air to confuse radars). not even going to go in on the powered armor(yes, mobile infantry in the novel has powered armor that can fire small nuclear weapons). a lot of this sci fi stuff was influenced directly or indirectly by the novel.

[@thadiusbarnelsnatch3665]

I mean if you wanted you could design a hypersonic glider re-entry vehicle that would be able to maneuver but also deploy air and rocket breaks when entering the landing phase. The glider would also help reduce radar cross sections as well as visible target profile. It would also allow you to launch your troops from outside of a possible anti ship weapons envelope which might be surrounding the immediate vicinity of a high value target location.

[@Ian501st]

The terminal deceleration rockets appear when buck is crashing on odst, so yeah they are there

[@hrnytinoker4146]

This is unrelated to the video, but damn do I miss Johnson. That knock on chiefs pod always makes me smile. And his speech in the pelican, “Dear humanity we regret being alien bastards, we regret coming to Earth, and we most certainly regret the Corps just blew up our raggedy ass fleet! Hoo-ah”

[@TheBigCabezon]

Johnson and Foehammer were straight up my idols growing up

[@PrimarchX]

Drop Pods should use a chute to slow to a reasonable speed a few thousand above the surface then actuate some retros just prior to impact, with crumple zones or rapid-inflatable cushions taking up the landing force.

[@fencington780]

A video suggestion: why doesn't the UNSC use more field artillery?

[@jimbothegymbro7086]

orbital fire support is probably easier once you upscale to the point of colonizing the galaxy, think the designator in reach that's an orbital barrage and not artillery

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

I think they do but it's usually the UNSC Army. The Marines are mostly infantry with some lighter vehicles (The Scorpion is 60 tons tho, but it only has a 90mm gun). The Army as well, the Army has much heavier gear and equipment.

[@larrybremer4930]

From only my experience with Kerbal Space Program most objects falling from ORBIT of Earth do not fail to decelerate to terminal velocity in the lower atmosphere AND do not experience extreme G forces (nothing over 9 g) given a few assumptions. 1. an Earth like atmosphere (not Mars like or Venus like) 2. a medium mass per sq meter of frontal area (not too light or heavy) 3. a shape that is not overly optimized for transonic, supersonic, or hypersonic terminal velocity to manage deceleration loads by controlling the drag coefficient over all speed regimes encountered 4. a parachute or active propulsion for landing 5. material sufficient for thermal and structural loads imparted in reentry and insulation of the occupants from extreme heat 6. correct drag and loads for either a vertical or ballistic flight path that is just shy of orbital velocity In short a correctly designed and built pod would be the key. I know people will comment how our current capsules are able to over G load without a specific set of parameters for ballistic reentry, but this is largely due to limitations of the vehicle itself. Our current materials are limited in temperature tolerance. Our reentry vehicles are optimized to have a very light mass for its large frontal area (the massive heat shield on its back), and they are designed (in the case of Apollo) to have reentry interface at much higher than orbital velocities making it necessary to lose a lot of speed by conversion to heat during its atmospheric flight phase. Put another way you cant compare a future drop/escape pod to a contemporary space capsule. If you wanted to make a contemporary escape pod for the ISS you would need some way to slow it down to at least just under orbital velocity from LEO. This would not require much impulse, only about 20-30 meters per second retrograde to start reentry about 45 minutes after departing ISS. The pod would need to withstand a long duration heat saturation through a 20-30 minutes or so reentry or possibly even multiple skips in upper atmosphere due to that very shallow entry angle and high perihelion. Or you depart ISS and impulse for about 7800 meters per second retrograde to essentially zero velocity in reference to the Earth (aphelion is on the Earth surface) and allow it to plop vertically due to Earth gravity being the only force acting on it after the burn. This would have very minimal heat loads (like spaceship 1) but requires stronger structure for the much faster deceleration due to a higher max Q requirement but it still needs to shed lot of velocity very quickly due to the gravitation of Earth being able to impart its own acceleration as the pod freefalls in vacuum (infinite terminal velocity at this stage). Using a plop reentry you would need to do nearly all your deceleration in the lower atmosphere (from about 50k feet to sea level) since you will still reach a few thousand meters per second of speed in the freefall but not have enough velocity to appreciably shed that velocity in the thin upper atmosphere. Terminal velocity would likely be reached with only a little extra time to spare before you deploy your parachute so it would be a heck of a ride.

[@coopersly38]

This is why the saying " peasants talk tech and strategy , generals talk logistics " is so very true 😏😏

[@basedeltazero714]

I wouldn't say paratroopers are rare because it's too difficult to do per se, but that there are... a variety of factors in addition to the difficulty of the task at hand. First, you need an operational relevance to having paratroopers. That is, somewhere far away you want to be able to strike suddenly. Second, you also need to be able to commit a large number of paratroopers to the fight in order to have any operational relevance. Third, and most importantly, you need air superiority. All of this means that paratroopers are most appealing to militaries that expect to be conducting significant offensive operations in remote locales, and which can expect at least parity with the enemy. So... while there's use for paratroopers for smaller powers it is more marginal, and only of value against other small powers. For the most part, paratroopers are _appealing_ to major powers which expect to routinely be intervening in their own colonies or proxy conflicts. In other words, if you're the United States, it makes a lot of sense to focus on being able to drop a brigade combat team anywhere in the world within 24 hours. If you're say, Syria, you're never going to get the opportunity to actually use this ability, so why bother? It's not a lack of ability that makes minor countries not invest heavily in paradrop capabilities (though per en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paratrooper_forces most countries have at least some), it's a lack of use. Orbital drops suffer... similar problems. Except this *really is* much more expensive - if not that difficult in terms of soldier skill, so the number of troops you can land is commensurately smaller. And... what situation calls for it, in the real world? If you're in position to do it... what makes this so much better than just using paratroopers? Well, it's harder to prevent landing, that's true. However, if you're fighting a nation that can strongly contest air superiority, you're fighting another major power. If you're launching a large number of suborbital rockets at another major power... It might be useful for like... immediate crisis response, embassy sieges, that sort of thing, but it's very expensive for a limited role. However... for a nation that expects to routinely be deploying large forces into hostile territory against inferior powers (remember that, like almost all of the UNSC's arsenal, it was designed for fighting insurgents, not the Covenant), and which *already operates in space*... orbital insertion is a ready issue. Obviously, you can't just parachute out of a spaceship, so you need a vehicle to get down. You could use some kind of shuttle (like the pelican), but it's relatively slow and vulnerable. Great for moving troops en-masse but if you've got a hostile landing zone, you need some way to secure it. I mean, I guess you could pacify the LZ by firing your spinal MAC at it, but even the UNSC isn't quite that bloodthirsty. Hence, the drop pod, a vehicle that goes in fast and stops just short of impacting the ground at orbital velocity. The real question is if you want a single-trooper pod or a squad-sized pod ala 40k. The latter means your forces are more concentrated when they arrive, the former is more resistant to being shot down entirely. On that subject: I'm guessing that's the purpose of the droque chute: An object reentering from orbit is likely to be travelling at significantly higher than terminal velocity. The droque chute slows it down *to* terminal velocity, arresting it's horizontal momentum and placing it over the target, at which point it can freefall a much shorter distance, beneath enemy orbital (and ideally air) defenses.

[@wowcool454]

Just to comment on the "Your not going to be able to see a spaceship with the naked eye" thing. Yes in most situations you wouldn't see most of the ships here on Earth but in the evening, night, and dawn they would look like a satellite, which look like fast moving stars. I've seen the ISS going across the sky and even got to see it pass through my telescope. The ISS is 356ft(109m) across while the ships in question are in the range of 500m. Now they could just go farther out in the orbit to be less noticeable but that also extends the drop time or use some clever material or paint to direct less light at the body they want to attack. Otherwise at night they would be like a small star moving quickly across the sky as tons of metal burn through the atmosphere at orbital speeds to absolutely destroy the enemy encampment.

[@JRyan-lu5im]

The biggest limiting factor is the logistics behind it. While drop pods are feasible in concept, what isn't so feasible is the training or ability to have to drop pod assets available in a way that is affordable. The cost to send artificial objects into space, not even to account for the space research stations, are massive. ODST's would need to bring something of strategic value to justify the costs, bringing so little to the table for so much investment.

[@Zak0True]

The first time you ever see a drop pod is in Halo 2. This particular scene shows that drop pods DO have reverse thrusters that lessen the impact. Halo 2 - Helljumpers (Cutscene): kzbin.info/www/bejne/l5-rn3mnpKmipZI For some reason, 343 removed them in Halo 2 anniversary. (because they're stupid I guess (sorry for my negative bias lol)).

[@schumerthd]

Not mentioned, but used to day are GeForce suits. These help pilots from g locking during high speed turns. Also, I would be surprised if the soldiers dropped in the Halo universe have cyberenhanceors installed in them to assist with the drop pods.

[@Accept_Any_Bribe]

I always say something like this about individual droppods. They are impractical. All those electronic and safety features and all the thrusters gonna cost a lot of money to manufacture and maintains. They most realistic approach will be drop ship like in The Expanse or just uses Airplane as i recall in this universe, Pelican can fly inside and outside atmosphere

[@lt4753]

Yes they can survive and it would be badass!

[@earlwyss520]

If you think about it, the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo crew capsules were drop pods, so yeah, drop pods are possible.

[@thorshammer7883]

Good video. If I may make a suggestion I have had on my mind, could the UNSC & Covenant stop a Cabal ship such as the Almighty from Destiny? And could Forerunner ships defeat Oryx's Dreadnought?

[@212caboose]

The drop pod design described in Starship Troopers (Heinlein's book) is probably MUCH more attainable than Halo's design...

[@lorenbecker8876]

When doing your calculations you should start with the pod at orbital speed at checking to see if it would have time to decelerate to terminal velocity before impact.

[@smiledfire6323]

I came here just for background noise and I was surprised that I kinda understood what was happening. I like this content. Keep it up my guy

[@TheBigCabezon]

Thanks, will do!

[@theawfulspartan4557]

ODSTs are a powerful asset to have in warfare, but, I feel like SOEIVs are a bad decision, at least if ODSTs are being deployed in large-scale operations. If the UNSC made squad or fireteam-sized drop pods, ODSTs could be far more effective as a group rather than an individual.

[@EthanThomson]

The issue is if a pod is lost, you lose a fireteam or squad. With the SOEIV, you lose a single trooper

[@theawfulspartan4557]

@Ethan Thomson グミ SOEIVs definitely have a place, but not for large-scale battles like we see during the Battle of Earth where possibly hundreds or thousands of ODSTs were certainly being dropped at the same time into New Mombasa. SOEIVs are good for Special Operations, but not so much for "Shock Operations" Though, I suppose it also may depend on the time of day (nighttime is a powerful tool), weather, and enemy air defenses.

[@1234andrewjacksmith]

that is what the Pelicans or such is for to drop off much larger forces, sure it takes longer and has more issue with air defences but that is where the SOEIV it gets you to the battlefield faster and even if one or 2 get shot down, you still have most of your force or even the normal escape pods that ships have in addition to odst pods(which function as their escape pods) like you have your odst volunteers and your normal marine force, the odst can get in fast clear a landing zone or set up a temp base and/or look for a more long term one while the Pelicans come in with the main force

[@theawfulspartan4557]

@@1234andrewjacksmith but at that point, why not just use normal Marines?

[@1234andrewjacksmith]

@@theawfulspartan4557 for the most part they do use normal marines they only use volunteers aka odst for the drop behind enemy lines or through air craft fire where you have very good odds of dying due to the risks with the single drop pod Basically the risk of the job is great enough they don’t force people to do it

[@Boombi_]

Yep solid rocket boosters that ignite a fraction of a second before touchdown like on Soyuz + a crumble structure that spreads the braking phase on a longer duration like we have on cars easily manageable with having the person lying down instead of being upright you could have a 20g deceleration for a second without any issue

[@MrSpaceMees]

i think once small drones become more previlent, it would make sense to have higher speed landing abbilities. what is to stop a couple of drones from just cutting all of the parachutes.