The Telephone-Pole Sized Steel Rods Dropped from Space

[@thomasarchambault9463]

These would be a perfect thing to drop on DAVOS this week for the WEF meeting.

[@columbiabasincorp5685]

Did you see this year's?

[@argonunya6768]

ANYONE HAVE George Soros address? Rothschilds/Rockefeller/ Wallenberg/Tri-Latteral-Commision, Anyone who SUPPORTS GLOBALISM, ONE WORLD RELIGION/ MONETARY/ GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS????

[@cumminsfj4586]

Best comment on the internet.

[@stuartmarkman769]

The beauty of these rods is there is no nuclear fall out. Great idea,

[@markw.2106]

You had me at "steel rods the size of telephone poles dropped from space" :)

[@nonjaninja4904]

They're tungsten though.

[@BeReal918]

​@@nonjaninja4904 That makes it twice as awesome!! Tungsten is WAY heavier (more dense) than steel = more energy on target!

[@larrybrugger9959]

In 1966 Robert Heinlein released "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". In it the lunar colonies rebel against earth control. Their primary weapon is containers filled with lunar material, rocks, essentially 'dropped' from the moon. Jerry Pournelle was a big fan of Heinlein.

[@someguy5035]

"The catapult."

[@Kltpzyxm17]

Larry, also read Larry Niven's "Footfall"

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

Have you read the Expanse series by James Corey? It's a similar story, Earth controls the entire solar system and the outer colonies don't like it, so they coat asteroids in a radar and light absorbing stealth material then attach large thrusters to them and send them towards Earth, killing billions. It's an incredible book series, and Amazon made a TV series on it but predictably fucked it up unfortunately.

[@unionsquaregrassman]

Loved that book

[@madsam0320]

It’s a good idea, the moon has a sixth gravity of earth, and no atmospheric drag. If they have maglev between cities, they can just adjust them to launch projectiles. And they don’t even have to build too high if they aim tangentially towards earth.

[@plastruk]

I had a friends father and physicist who would get drunk and tell us kids about working on this. From what I remember they had dreams of far more uses and sizes. Sadly I was too young to ask the right questions and he died decades ago. It’s seriously disturbed him.

[@DougieBee]

They've been up there since the late 80's early 90's.

[@QIKUGAMES-QIKU]

Remember when the Chinese Docks exploded ? Search it and see why he was so worried.... He knew

[@TyLockton]

I've read of what you mentioned. If it was the size of a crowbar it would destroy a tank.

[@jessemills3845]

It should not have bothered him! His work was to protect his and everyone else's families and country! No other country has people trying to get in the the US!

[@curtisducati]

USA has had this 40 years ? THOR weapon system , Just need to use it on the commy problem

[@sc7502]

I'd like to see digital modeling of a low altitude version that delivers fire extinguishers get into forest fire

[@nickjones6065]

A weapon described and used by the invading aliens in the excellent si fi book Footfall. (Larry Niven, Jerry Poulnel) Also an excellent description of not only the concept/planning and building of an Orion craft but actual deployment and service.

[@gregorysagegreene]

Jerry Pournelle: Works in weapons lab, "Hmm great sci-fi idea for a book."

[@thegreatcornholio2940]

It’s been about 12 years since I read that book, but it was definitely worth reading. Larry Niven wrote some excellent books.

[@exerciseforidiots2296]

Loved Footfall! As a young artist, I loved all of my Dad’s books and eventually got into Sci Fi too!

[@Joelthek]

i remember that book from decades ago. if i recall, the alien invaders looked similar to elephants.

[@GoodandGone]

Hail the Thuktun Flishithy!

[@thatguyrich9822]

I'd be shocked if these aren't already in orbit. I'm just curious how accurate they'd be.

[@A_piece_of_broccoli]

not very. in order for them to actually be launched, the craft has to be in an uneven orbit, one with a high enough apoapsis and low enough periapsis to be able to do a gravity sling at apoapsis. basically, people are right that they need to be deorbited, but those people are claiming rockets are needed. at apoapsis, a simple retrograde push can cause an item to plummet back and smash into the ground. the problem though, is that with an uneven orbit, velocity changes exponentially, making target aquisition extremely hard. alongside that, there's also the time it takes to get from apoapsis, (the highest point and also the slowest velocity,) to ground. with such an uneven orbit the distance from the actual launch to the point of impact is huge, and then on top of that time it takes to reach the ground you also have to account for earths spin. so yeah, not very accurate, which is why they scrapped the idea officially. unofficially we have 5 stations with stealth launch capabilities only to be used in extreme situations.

[@arthurjohnsonjr6638]

They are

[@gen-xboomer9489]

@@A_piece_of_broccoli love how you ended this comment😁👍👍

[@nutty_tv2967]

@@A_piece_of_broccoli With modern GPS and electric fins you could easily hit targets from orbit accurately.

[@alitlweird]

@@nutty_tv2967 Yep. We can already send a tomahawk cruise missile into a specific window or down a chimney. Why would ordnance dropped from a space platform be any less accurate?

[@bradleyswaney6100]

With what we spend on our military budget, we better have them already.

[@HarmonRAB-hp4nk]

with what you spend of war you dont spend on education... yep. give it a few decade the USA is going to be one huge swamp ppl land... you knoqw the inbreeders, cuz they dont know inbreeding screws your genetics up..... egypt fell because of it LOL

[@JohnDorian-j7x]

The overwhelming majority of what we spent on the us military is for soldier's paycecks, health insurance, and retirement plans... the majority of the remaining funds is spent on sustainment... probably less than 100 billion is even spent on acquiring new systems let alone the rnd.

[@robertosmith1]

“Penetrated seven steel plates” now that’s informative. Guess he didn’t think it was relevant to include thickness of those plates.

[@steveluberda295]

🙄oops

[@lucast3006]

Haha

[@doeverything7997]

Don't sweat it... this channel doesn't provide accurate information, anyways.

[@iofs3338]

Each of the seven steel plates were as thick as a steel plate

[@dask1516]

It's his speculation.. if he said thickness it would be speculative anyways..

[@jerrykernic5898]

It's very hard to say what menace is up there orbiting the earth this very minute.

[@mattmarzula]

I would think that as soon as anyone puts anything up there resembling an offensive weapon of mass destruction, their adversaries will call them out all over the world. The fear of a space based weapon is enough to do the trick. ICBMS actually exist. They're able to target and destroy large cities without syncing orbits. They're not as vulnerable to a counterstrike form anti-satellite weapons.

[@jdiluigi]

Seriously.. No telling what the x37B cargo was.

[@benpriest007]

What menace is up there orbiting the earth this very minute. - wasn't that hard

[@DH-.]

Space chuck Norris is orbiting earth slamming his fist into the palm of his hand... waiting, writhing,

[@genericalfishtycoon3853]

True. Even if you know exactly what's up there you can't actually say it.

[@chadwik4000]

This was mentioned in Frank Millers follow up to the graphic novel the Dark Knight Returns, the Dark Knight Strikes Again. Lex Luthor is the President behind the scenes and is telling Batman of all the horrible weaponry they have. "We even have.." Batman interrupts by finishing what he was saying, "You even have simple steel rods that you can drop from orbit, releasing the same destruction as a nuke...." Lex finishes with "You're smart to know that... damn smart...."

[@ervendanielray3136]

This weapon was also used to kill the main character in the series Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans.

[@xenophagia]

@@ervendanielray3136 IBO was great

[@alanwestmoreland6152]

And in the first g.i joe movie

[@Energine1]

Quoting that garbage woke companies picturebooks for adults is so cringe its vomit inducing. Go outside, take some testosterone supplements. Be a man.

[@trc8197]

Interesting how pseudo science entertains us through media. Then either never talked a out, or suddenly in our doorstep.

[@DasGoodSoup]

The issue with the navy trying those railguns is the sheer friction makes them last for like 20 shots or something insane

[@nokiot9]

I’d imagine the ship it’s mounted on has several ‘barrel inserts’ and it can be swapped out relatively quickly. Maybe in a few hours.

[@DasGoodSoup]

@@nokiot9 i dont think they have any fielded the ones ive seen are all on land

[@nokiot9]

@@DasGoodSoup oh hell you’re right. Just looked it up. They never mounted them to any of the three zumwalt class destroyers that could conceivably hold them.

[@thomashenshallhydraxis]

Magnetic 🧲 rail guns float the object being fired in rail; there is no friction. I think one day magnetic rail guns will become a thing on navy ships; along with laser weapons for anti-drone warfare. Electric magnetic rail gun system is pretty cool concept. Imagine flinging a one or two pound tungsten steel dart from a rail gun sitting on a warship. Less noise, less smoke, stronger impact with no use of explosives. Could carry more rounds; smaller in size and no explosives weight, and weapons would be lighter then a bunch of fire and forget missiles. One ship should be designed as just a rail gun launcher; nothing eles but just rail guns and projectiles that are used on said rail gun; with little drone launchers for target spotting.

[@muskokamike127]

@@thomashenshallhydraxis Yeah, you are 100% correct. The projectile has a n/s and floats inside the barrel. Then the magnetic field inside the barrel switches from n/s to draw the projectile along instead of using a charge behind it. I'm trying to remember where I read it, but they also experimented with an air buffer...where the gap was so small between the projectile and wall of the barrel that it rode on a cushion of air and never actually made contact. It's a similar principal to ceramic pistons and cylinder liners in engines. The difference is that the gap between the piston and cylinder is so small that gas pressure during combustion can't get past it so no blow by BUT they don't actually ever make contact.

[@peters972]

Im glad to hear they have got a use for all those old telephone poles.

[@djrmarketing598]

Could you imagine what it would do to a car hitting a pole if they had 9 ton tungsten telephone poles on the road? Pole 1 Car 0...

[@Bob_Shy_132]

Lol

[@KLove89]

Mach 10 = 7672.69 MPH Mach 874030.4 is the speed of light Mach 1 is 767.269 mph The ISS travels at mach 22.678. Just a few random stats I found interesting and thought maybe someone else may as well.

[@Cult1022]

I find mach a strange value, since it is the speed of sound. And in space there is no medium to carry sound. Also, dependant on the density of the medium (altitude in this case) the speed of sound changes. I think calculating anything in mach is plainly useless when talkibg about these rods.

[@kristopherdetar3552]

@@Cult1022 like it or not, that is what the aerospace industry uses for speed.

[@mrmeestah6177]

@@kristopherdetar3552 a retarded standard is still a standard I suppose. How do you personally feel about imperial measurements?

[@kristopherdetar3552]

@@mrmeestah6177 It makes me feel less Imperial.

[@zerogrey3798]

@@Cult1022 "mach" is calculated at sea level. So mach speed is the speed of sound at sea level. Air density changes at different altitudes, but that measurement is used regardless.

[@MrJoshuaValentinebaby]

If I've learned anything about our military weapons is if we are just hearing about this now it's probably been in use for years already

[@rtqii]

I first heard about this system from a VIP pilot at Scott Air Force Base back in 1986.

[@thebobloblawshow8832]

TR3B.

[@TheJagjr4450]

EXACTLY! My dad and his brother were on an experimental Naval vessel in the late 60's - early 70's. He said he reviewed sat photos of an exercise they performed in the dry tortugas in late 1969 and in a number of images you could clearly make out names and numbers on the ship deck as small as 1 inch tall. He would always say :"If they had that in the 60's, imagine what they have now."

[@MrJoshuaValentinebaby]

@@rtqii by the way, that is one incredible name

[@thebobloblawshow8832]

@@TheJagjr4450 I remember when people thought CD’s were new. Apparently, they used them to transfer information during the Vietnam War because if it fell into enemy hands they couldn’t possibly read it. I cannot be 100% accurate on this information.

[@tangentarc7477]

Big boy lawn darts.

[@spaceranger3728]

Kelly Johnson proposed a similar weapon-an inert sharply-pointed heavy bomb made out of tool steel-that could be carried by an SR-71. It could be used as an anti-ship missile because, if dropped at the cruise speed of an SR, it would have enough kinetic energy by the time it hit its target to take out a large ship. There was also a defensive application of telephone pole-sized rods back in the cold war wherein the missile silo fields would be surrounded by acres of rods pointed upward and close together. The incoming nuclear warheads at that time could not hit an individual missile silo, but relied on blast effects from their landing spot somewhere within their circular error. When the incoming would hit one of the stationary rods, between the time they were pierced by the top of the rod and the ground, the warhead would have been destroyed or at least rendered ineffective enough that the missile in the silo would still be capable of providing that 2nd strike response. Cold war gamesmanship was in play, and defensive systems didn't necessarily have to completely shoot down everything incoming, but instead destroy the enemy's confidence that he could pull off a first strike which meant that our capability to retaliate would be preserved. Good night Herman Kahn, wherever you are!

[@nokiot9]

Dont most nukes trigger above the ground before impact? Or are bunker busting nukes a thing?

[@joelcorley3478]

@@nokiot9 - Bunker busting tactical nukes are probably a thing, but from what I understand most nukes do an airburst to maximize the damage they cause.

[@nokiot9]

@@joelcorley3478 how would these telephone pole spikes on the ground protect the bunker if most nukes explode high above them?

[@spaceranger3728]

@@nokiot9 These were to protect our buried ICBM's, which were hardened enough to withstand anything short of a direct hit. Anything less accurate than that would have to go underground before detonating. Since the guidance technology at that time could not assure a direct hit, breaking the warhead up before it penetrated the ground added uncertainty to the other side's planning. Oh, when I said "there was a defensive application," I meant a defensive concept. To my layman's knowledge nothing like it was ever deployed.

[@MadScientist267]

@@spaceranger3728 And it still doesn't make any sense

[@JerryHawkins-rr3ry]

I read an article about these decades ago. They called it "Thor's Hammer."

[@icollectstories5702]

You can't just throw these from a satellite, you have to de-orbit them! Essentially, you need to add a rocket motor to cancel the orbital momentum, and this motor scales with the mass of the rod. (I say solid-fuel motor rather than liquid-fueled engine because liquid fuels are troublesome to store for years.) So this mass needs to be added to the launch weight and cost.

[@1ndragunawan]

Just launch them using Falcon 9, no need to put them in orbit.

[@j.muckafignotti4226]

Actually a quick burn burst engine…at about 1300 G’s.

[@Tman0517]

Its really not hard honestly. In space something moves in the direction its pushed untill an oposeing force changes that. So simply launching the rod with a rail gun type system would push it right onto atmosophere where gravity would take over and a simple guidece system would put it on target.

[@icecold9511]

@@Tman0517 No, it would push the satellite out of orbit. The rod that massive wouldn't move much. This weapon it a theoretical exercise, but not practical.

[@DonVigaDeFierro]

This. Plus, satellites have extremely predictable orbits, and it's not terribly difficult to shoot one down... And if you want to change the orbit of a satellite, you need additional energy, which means additional engines, fuel, etc.

[@anythingrandomlytaped8288]

Mach 10 (at sea-level) and 9 tons, in my calculations comes out with the energy equivalent of about 12 tons of TNT, and given nukes are often given a TNT equivalent of kilotons it isn't even close although still nothing to scoff at. Edit: for anyone saying they mention it in the video if I'm being honest I stopped watching the video around half way to do the calculations and then didn't continue watching afterwards as I thought I had watched it all but KZbin shows that I clearly didn't as the red bar is only half full, this is entirely my own fault but if it is what they said then I guess I validated their numbers. Sorry for being a bit thick.

[@kma3647]

Yeah, but consider the area over which those 12 kilotons are dispersed. The kinetic weapon would penetrate the equivalent of a skyscraper into the ground, whereas the nuke's energy dissipates up and out. It's a bunker buster concept to get into deep underground targets, such as rumored nuclear facilities in Iran or similar structures that were built all over the western world during the cold war.

[@CHOPERUS23]

@@kma3647 Yes buddy that's correct. It would be like being stood on by an Elephant in high heels 😂

[@toupac3195]

I am skeptical. Rods are a well known thing, but as governments love to flex, I've never seen proof of impact capabilities.

[@KieraCameron514]

The video even agrees with you. Well done.

[@salec7592]

@@kma3647 It depends on how fast kinetic energy turns into heat and how much projectile mass evaporates as the remaining projectile mass advances further down the target's vertical profile. Skyscrapers are mostly empty space inside, but this weapon should penetrate a ground (dirt?, sand? gravel?, stone? how much water absorbed in them?) shield plus underground reinforced concrete bunker wall

[@dion6146]

I've heard one problem with this beyond limited deployment from satellite orbits is heating of the rod. Of course silicon shield handles such at least up to Mach 25.

[@baldieman64]

Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal, at 3,410 °C (6,170 °F), the highest tensile strength at temperatures of more than 1,650 °C (3,002 °F), and the lowest coefficient of linear thermal expansion (4.43 × 10−6 per °C at 20 °C [68 °F]). Its density is 19.30 grams per cubic centimetre (0.697 lb/cu in), comparable with that of uranium and gold, and much higher (about 1.7 times) than that of lead. It's pretty much ideal for this application, if you can get it into orbit and work out how to steer it to its target.

[@frankcampeau1033]

God mod rods are tungsten tipped we have no issue with heat

[@jimhulme8321]

The biggest problem. Lazers. Why would you need to drop heavy rods. A satellite with lazers and solar panels. Could essentially have unlimited fire time. Under ground might be safe.

[@tylerdowling]

Can’t imagine the accuracy of these rods, especially against moving targets?

[@richardbossman9875]

Reading a lot of the comments it seems some people do not understand the practical applications of such a weapon. They could reach much deeper into buried/fortified complexes and because there is no nuclear fallout a force at ready could quickly blitz the area without the threat of radiation. Also this technology allows us to skirt the boundaries put in place by the treaty.

[@murphymmc]

There are several videos about the Navy's rail gun. Impressive results. Implementing the electromagnetic tech for aircraft catapults means a much faster deployment rate than steam catapults. With the guidance systems available, guiding these kinetic bombs isn't a big stretch. Thermal entry issues have already been addressed in other application.

[@manga12]

yes and those railgun bolts had a guidence system that could withstand the shock of being accelerated like that that was gps I thought we could never get something that sensitive to withstand the jolt or the emp of launching but they did it and a handful of years ago too, before the blitzer railgun was canceled but it dont mean they dont already have something in use or up there, I fact I bet they do and I would put money on it, when a realist libratarian computer programer I talked to says he thinks its likely I would belive they got more then just spy satilites up there even if its not start wars as those have too many problems, and that conversation was around 2016 or just before.

[@NoticerOfficial]

@@manga12 armed anti-satellite satellites. Projectile satellites. Mechanical, circuit-less projectile satellites. Laser weapon satellites. And satellites disguised as telescopes armed with warheads

[@Aciarr]

Gundam's Dainsleifs....

[@manga12]

@@Aciarr kind of like that those were basicly magnetic accelerators railguns that is launching the hard projectile that was enough to go though the armor of a gundam

[@robertkubrick3738]

When you are made out of tungsten, thermals aren't a problem.

[@TheBeefSlayer]

Love the footage shows Cobra logo on satellite! 😂😂😂GIJOE! Knowing is half the battle!!!!

[@marshalljulie3676]

😂😂they destroyed Europe's nukes by firing their own then aborting self-destructing the missiles promoting Europe to do the same and ended up defenseless against the satellite weapon from US

[@scoreboardntlie]

Tungsten is so dense it's crazy.... Once saw someone bring a shoebox with scrap tungsten from the machining shop he worked for into a scrap yard That shoebox weighed more than 100 lbs and they used a forklift to move it

[@nedelwre]

scrap tungsten will make a good bait for replacing gold shipment about to be robbed. also make heavy vest for weight training.

[@AndroSpud]

United States - "Everyone sign this treaty to keep weapons out of space!" Also United States - "We are going to exploit this loophole to put our weapons in space"

[@salec7592]

Nation led by lawyers ...🤷

[@hcf1956]

...AND YET...SPACE IS WEAPONIZED and U.S. space assets are being threatened by both Russians and China. The Garden of Eden, is no more.

[@patrickkenyon2326]

USSR did the same thing.

[@robburdack4361]

i remember hearing from project thor in the early 90s from my uncle whom worked in the government ... it was a interesting convo and id be very suprised if itt had not be built and is floating around up there listed as space junk or some kind of other satellite

[@Dubanx]

The issue with rods from god is that the energy for these tactical nuclear weapon sized blasts has to come from somewhere. Namely, you need a rocket that can get these super heavy tungsten rods into space which, due to conservation of energy, will need more propellant than the explosive blast it creates would require.

[@RogueReplicant]

Maybe they're not using chemical rockets?

[@tylerharry6319]

You realize we already launch objects the size and weight of "rods from god", right? A Falcon Heavy can already get 140,000 lbs into LEO, Starship Superheavy is going to nearly double that to 220,000 lbs. There's a lot of energy in burning literal tons of methane and oxygen together. So no, there's no "issue" with the concept as far as the physics behind this idea, it's a purely monetary and international relations problem at this point.

[@Dubanx]

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying its impractical. Just sticking a nuclear warhead on the rocket and could accomplish a lot more and need a much smaller/cheaper rocket. These rods from god are impractically expensive due to their weight.

[@tylerharry6319]

@@Dubanx with a nuke you're creating an uninhabitable wasteland for decades to centuries depending on the nuke. Rods from god are non radioactive, are as powerful as a very low yield nuke, can't be shot down, and can penetrate bunkers better than anything else the US has right now. As launch costs keep dropping due to reusable rockets being built, sending up heavy rods could be quite cheap in 5-10 years. Like $1000/kilo or less vs today avg rates (depending on the rocket) around ~$3000-$10000/kilo. The biggest problem with space weapons is that if US has put a rod of God system up there, China will certainly follow suit as fast as possible. Then space is no longer a war free domain, which would also probably anger the EU.

[@donaldcornley9963]

Plasma material has a similar effect when launched from space, neither solid or liquid but still has the same weight and density of a solid object.Rods of God tech is a bit older than you might believe.

[@441rider]

30 year old story, Art Bell even covered them.

[@rschiwal]

This is insane. All the energy deployed in the drop would have to be put in by a rocket. If each rod would produce the same explosive power as a small nuclear explosion, a satellite with a dozen of them would require a rocket with the power of a large nuclear explosion.

[@witsend177]

Yes but if they were small, imagine the destruction you could get away with. No one would have a clue, no trace. Scarry shit.

[@derrelllipscomb693]

SpaceX’s Starship could lift 100 tons per launch so it could convey 4 or 5 into orbit per flight.

[@Ieo9017]

A Saturn 5 can lift ~150 tons into orbit and each one of those theorized tungsten rods would weigh about 9 tons. A single Saturn 5 could bring around 16 of them into orbit. There's a launch with a classified military payload of some kind almost weekly. Thank god you didn't become a rocket scientist.

[@ecoshah]

In order for any satellite or object to stay in orbit, it must occasionally be boosted back into position or risk re-entry. What if the system and boosters wear out, and the rods start falling with or without any guidance? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot or much worst.

[@Know2Much_]

The x37b is up to something, pay attention

[@tlambert3030]

True that

[@cliffordbaxter1992]

Then duck your head ✝️🇺🇸😔

[@robertlee4809]

More like, shooting yourself in the city...

[@timthorson52]

Yeah, there are definitely concerns with them. Most sattelites are pretty lightweight and would burn up on an uncontrolled entry, posing a significantly reduced risk. They'd have to have extra safeties on a solid heavy rod.

[@phred196]

Pournelle, the weapons inventor, talked about these in his sci-fi novel Footfall 40 years ago. It was largely an abandoned project back then. It's much easier and less expensive to Simply build a cruise missile. In fact I could probably build 100 cruise missiles for the price of putting one of these hammers in orbit. The idea is workable. I just don't think it's ever going to be financially viable versus other lower Tech Solutions

[@patrickstapleton381]

A few advantages are they can potentially be used anywhere around the planet at short notice, and there is no defense against them once they are launched (although the orbital platform is vulnerable to attack). Also, as the price of orbital launches continue to become more affordable, the placement of these weapons becomes less impractical. This is, of course, reliant on all other developed nations allowing them to be placed in orbit in the first place.

[@carlwessels2671]

@@patrickstapleton381 They (even if they existed) wouldn't be practical,much less usble "on short notice". Why?. They would have to be de-orbited with a big energy cost,or launched from the peak of a very eccentric orbit(to greatly reduce the energy needed to de-orbit,either of which means greatly increased energy needed. This is fiction and will remain so. In the video he stated it cost 10,000 dollars for each pound in orbit. I think it's more like 1,000,but O could be wrong. At 1,ooo dollars it would cost 18,000,000 dollars for 1 rod and 180,000,000 for the higher estimate,or almost 1/5 of a billion dollars per rod. Fiction.

[@sundragon7703]

As scary as the weapon may be, its platform would be very fragile. Like the International Space Station, the platform would be vulnerable to something as small as nuts & bolts in the same orbit. Whether by chance or directed, a small mass traveling at orbital velocity colliding with the platform could neutralize a multi-billion dollar orbital weapons platform. So, not cost effective but a great plot device for a spy novel.

[@Dubanx]

When this was imagined it wasn't possible to shoot satellite out of orbit effectively. Even now it's extremely difficult, and the few countries with this capability don't have good coverage anyways. The real issue is conservation of energy. The energy for these tactical nuclear sized explosions have to come from somewhere. Namely, you need a nuclear explosion's worth of rocket propellent to bring them into space and accelerate them to orbital velocity. Which is going to be huge, expensive, and difficult. Alternatively, you could just use a significantly lighter nuclear bomb to get the same effect, and require a much smaller and cheaper missile to get the smaller payload to its target.

[@allanrickard2117]

it is useless it cannot be reloaded it's a one off .. it could hit a nuclear silo .. probably not a moving aircraft carrier unless they add laser guidance then might be worth the cost i.e cost of weapon cost of target aircraft carrier $5 billion to $10 billion china has 3 so i think they will make with with guidance system .. and lanch 9 .. 3 per each carrier while having full time tracking which they already do

[@saltynadsack]

Not only the financial loss, but I'm not sure what the impact to the people underneath this weapon system would be If it was intentionally taken out of orbit.

[@johndumarney1630]

The space station moves out of the way of debris, controlled from the ground

[@carlwessels2671]

@@johndumarney1630 The bigger pieces. A lot of the small stuff ,no.

[@harpo7226]

The ancients had something similar to these. They were made from wood to avoid radar and I believe they were called arrows.

[@painhertz]

The ancients dropped arrows from orbit? Interesting.

[@gregorysagegreene]

Our ancient pre Ice Age Super Civilization had this, which is why there was huge destruction in myth stories but no apparent radiation evidence.

[@muskokamike127]

How archers worked is a similar method: they shot the arrow up into a trajectory that used gravity to give it the penetrating force on the way down. Same as modern artillery.

[@painhertz]

Ok, and horse drawn carriages work similarly as Ferraris because they both have wheels. ::eyeroll::

[@maxguod]

They were called quadranarrows . I checked it out -

[@stevej7139]

I would guess the X37-B has been testing this for a while now and if we have put one of these in the sky it would have been launched on a Delta IV heavy or an Atlas V. I worked on a couple of the old SDI projects back in the late 80s and early 90s but none of them had to do with kinetic weapons, just lasers in the tera watt range that were destined for space, never heard if they made it to space or not though. SPAWAR tends to be tight lipped about some things and while we had an ongoing relationship with them they didn't talk about the projects much other than to give us an idea of what is critical and what isn't.

[@williebeamish5879]

Oh of course, why have any transparency when it comes to weapons of even more destruction? Trillions of dollars. Just smh.

[@BilalHeuser1]

Launch very heavy payloads into orbit is both expensive and difficult at best. Wouldn't be easier to deploy these rods from a stealth aircraft?

[@stevej7139]

@@williebeamish5879 I guess that's why they label things "top secret", tough to be transparent when it's a secret and it's likely in the 20 to 50 billion dollar range including launch vehicle since that's not all the X37-B does. The work I did was done mostly under Clinton although started under Bush so it's not really a party thing just homeland defense or offense I guess.

[@truthseeker8123]

Take a second look at Tianjin Harbor incident, and the suspiciously deep, small, crater at the center in the later aerial photos, almost like battle damage assessment. Just sayin

[@dakkuri1]

I've heard unofficial reports that satellites armed with energy weapons we're working but a limited capacity. Just limited by the technology of the 80's in the 90s the Airborne laser would of workout I bet if it wasn't cut due to the budget

[@gamedeathmatch]

A telephone pole sized piece of tungsten weighs 8.2t Starship, the new spacex rocket system in development can carry 100t to orbit which is roughly 12 rods. the length of the payload bay is 18m so you would have to fold the 36m long poles in half to fit them. This is assuming the poles are even that long.

[@OzMacro]

Don’t know of any 36m long telephone poles. 20m perhaps.

[@A_piece_of_broccoli]

starship is meant for people, there are literally hundreds of other rockets developed by spaceX and other companies meant for sending heavy loads up. trying to say they would use starship for this is crazy. that's like saying they would use lambos in war as tanks. it's unreasonable to even think that you would know the name of the rocket that would carry something like that up, especially since we like.... tested this... with success on impact, but failure on accuracy.

[@morganking3004]

What are you guys talking about?

[@tedtomoyasu8438]

@@A_piece_of_broccoli Actually one of Starships primary missions is to launch many starlink satellites into LEO at one time. 100 to 250 tons of satellites per flight.

[@OneZoNinja]

I'm always intrigued by the military operations and experiments. Just think of all the things that go on that we have no idea about. The technologies that are being implemented into these killing machines is mind boggling. Next to unimaginable.

[@atomicwedgie8176]

Money laundering

[@BigMacBook1300]

@@atomicwedgie8176 that's about it.

[@huletnadof313]

The kinetic weapons talked about in this video are the fever dreams of survivors of MKUltra. Mostly the fantasies of brain-damaged experimental subjects.

[@goinhot9133]

Dropping warheads on foreheads We can drop em down your chimney or sit one in your lap while you drive down the road. Just insane

[@dask1516]

1trillion dollar defense budget annually you can certainly speculate the USA is hiding some badass weapons

[@FriendjaminDanklin]

This weapon was used by Cobra in one of the recent GI Joe films. Looked pretty badass

[@CueDriver]

I saw that and laughed. Yo Joe…….

[@zakknight7371]

"the ice is coming down from the surface!!"

[@williamjones391]

BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL !!!

[@ajm2872]

After the numerous rocket launches necessary to build this weapon in orbit, each rod would have to be individually deorbited with its own rockets to reach their targets... so this just seems like an ICBM with extra steps ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@jacksparrow3490]

Guess you missed the kinetic part.. they just fall. Calculating earths rotation and speed they can literally "let go" of the rod at the right time and it freefall to the target

[@glenn_r_frank_author]

@@jacksparrow3490 right but you still have to deobit them to "fall"... nothing just falls straight down out of orbit. you have to provide a form of retrothrust to slow it enough to fall out of orbit. os @ajam2872 is right.

[@rtqii]

@@jacksparrow3490 They use a booster motor and they launch like a recoilless rifle.

[@jacksparrow3490]

@@glenn_r_frank_author well considering there could be mechanisms that push the projectile out of the satellite you really dont need rockets to get them going. There are different types of orbit. If the satellite were to be instructed to lower orbit as to allow the projectiles to free fall and then be pushed back to higher orbit then no, you really dont need rockets on the projectiles themselves. Just a way to move the satellite when needed. And these would be much harder to detect and stop considering their altitude and location above earth. Icbm fly up, then down.. which can be tracked and intercepted much easier. So no they arent even close to being correct in the comparison.

[@glenn_r_frank_author]

@@jacksparrow3490 if you had a "mechanism" like a hydraulic ram or a spring o whatever, because both the projectile and the satellite are not braced against anything (free floating in space) the projectile would be decelerated for orbit by half the push force and the sat would accelerate by half the push force into a higher more eccentric orbit (or varying proportions based o the mass of the sat and the rod). And you would also need some maneuvering jets to get it to drop on the ballistic trajectory to the proper target. so yes you would need rockets or cold gas thrusters of some kind to do it.

[@DarkHorseSki]

I remember reading about this back in the 80's in one of Jerry Pournelle's collections of sci-fi stuff (not all the stories were his... Ender's Game being a great example of a story I first read in that series.)

[@twicedubbed]

This sounds crazy, then you look at the payload capability of orbital lift vehicles, and it’s ridiculous that they are putting payloads like this in orbit.

[@Rms2015]

Soo, a couple things deserve to be mentioned, I think. First, if you put an RFG satellite in a stable orbit, you lose the ability to “drop” the RFGs in the traditional sense: they would require a change in velocity to leave the stable orbit and enter a ballistic entry. They could still be launched, for example with a coilgun, and the vast majority of the weapon’s delivery energy would still come from gravity, but it’s worth noting. Second, the expense problem with RFGs and other extraplanetary kinetic bombardment weapons only applies if their mass is launched by conventional rocket from the bottom of the Earth’s rather substantial gravity well. If the weapon is composed of mass taken from a source that doesn’t take as muck rocket power to get in position, or if the mass is transferred using a more efficient ascent system, the cost can be reduced considerably. Interestingly enough, the amount of rocket power (referred to as delta-v, short for change in velocity) that it takes to get from the surface of the moon to Earth orbit is considerably less than the amount needed to reach the same orbit from Earth’s surface. To a lesser degree, this can also be said for getting mass from the asteroid belt to Earth orbit, though this takes vastly more time. Thus, if a facility capable of manufacturing both projectiles and fuel were established on the moon or in the asteroid belt, RFG-style bombardment would become vastly cheaper for targets on the surface of any planet or moon in Sol’s area of influence (including Earth, ofc). Similarly, the construction of a skycrane, space elevator, magnetic orbital launch facility or laser launch pad would also make this technology more feasible by reducing the cost of getting mass into orbit. In short, any space infrastructure whatsoever has the potential to help enable kinetic strikes in one way or another, even ones that seem only to generate electricity or redirect light. This can be said to be in muck the same way that sea travel enabled the movement of armies across vast distances, that automobiles and trains enabled the ability to crash those vehicles into things to cause damage and that airplanes can be crashed into things for more damage; the same higher energy travel systems that allow us to reach further and gain access to resources to better our lives also pose increasingly higher threat to those lives when used as weapons.

[@robertkubrick3738]

Laser launch, steam rockets fueled by water with a nuclear reactor to power the laser, reasonable to build, cheap to operate.

[@debbies3763]

LIKE THROWING A JAVILN FROM A MOVEING PICK UP TRUCK, SEEMS THE ACCURICY WOULD BE OFF.

[@flyingbeaver57]

Bravo. Rather than focusing only on dropping rude surprises on the neighbors, we might do well to consider what resources are available to use one we're out of the "Gravity Well" - and what we might do with those. One could hope that the same technology would bring resources, knowledge and prosperity. I can wish for it, as I have done all my life. I even tossed a few useful bits annd bobs into the collective "toolbox" during my engineering research days - and I know of at least one that actually turned out to be useful in the wider world. I'm sure there are many other people who have done the same, or done something far more important. Let's hope we can look up and out.

[@robertkubrick3738]

@@flyingbeaver57 I think you are commenting on the wrong video. You would probably do better on a space exploration video.

[@orthicon9]

Robert Heinlein proposed canisters of unrefined ore fired by railgun on the Moon at specific targets on Earth, in his excellent novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

[@ofb7212]

Jerry Pournelle is my favorite Sci fi writer. He wrote the best military Sci fi ever.

[@HowardMessias]

Not forgetting Larry Niven.

[@sartainja]

OK, I read his biography. Which book are you referring to? All of them sound interesting. Especially the one about the comet.

[@HowardMessias]

@@sartainja Niven & Pournelle were both friends of Pres. Reagan, they told him the plot of Footfall over dinner (urban myth?) and that led to Star Wars!!

[@cat22_a1]

Didn't he also write for Byte magazine?

[@HowardMessias]

@@cat22_a1 sorry, don't know.

[@Scorpion75_]

I read about this tech in popular mechanics I believe about 20 years ago.

[@RandoWisLuL]

They talked about this on Ancient Aliens like a decade or so ago and people kinda dismissed it as crazy hair alien talk lol My friend worked with an ex engineer on that was on this project and he was super surprised A&E even got info on it because it was supposed to be kind of hush hush but said yea its all real and he wouldn't be surprised if it weren't already up there as when his contract was up( his contact was up a good decade or so before that, think early 2003-2006), they were close to being done with it.

[@RedcoatsReturn]

Thor‘s Hammer…is already up there ⚒️

[@ashjones7576]

Once SpaceX's Starship flies this weapons platform will be possible. Cargo version of starship will be able to put 100 tons into orbit enough for a small magazine satellite of this type.

[@A_piece_of_broccoli]

we have bigger more capable rocket systems than starship. starship is meant for people travel, and it will literally have entire habitual quarters through the ship making it impossible for such a payload to fit anywhere on it. as powerful as starship is, it's only the most powerful people carrier, we have many military rockets that can deliver way more than what it can.

[@Dan007UT]

This reminds me of the big laser beam you could use in Command and Conquer

[@debbies3763]

IN THE 80S MISSLE COMMAND ARCADE GAME.

[@TheTuttle99]

@@debbies3763 relax

[@akjohnny5997]

@@debbies3763 easy, debbie

[@J069FIX]

Ah, the Ion Cannon. GDI's ultimate weapon. But this concept of these tungsten rods is used as the W.M.D the US can use in Tom Clancy's EndWar.

[@travman2863]

This would be better used for planetary defense or Asteroid Defense gravitationally slinging around the planet and then impact Target👍

[@danielbarkess7964]

This truly is terrifying. Imagine a telephone pole rocketing to the earth at mach 10! Scary man.

[@markw.2106]

Amen!

[@garyc1384]

Especially if there was a fracking TELEPHONE attached - wow, that would be utterly terrifying. And then,........but NO (what if.....the telephone started ringing?...........

[@rtqii]

I first heard about this system from a retired VIP pilot at Scott Air Force Base in 1986... This has been operational for over 20 years.

[@MrJoshuaValentinebaby]

Ya it's pretty wild to think about but the powers that be have a lot of crazy stuff far out ideas. Time travel?

[@williamtrueman7898]

What if these rods go to far into a sensitive seismic zones and causes an earthquake or a super valcono. Just saying messing with kinetic weapons could have unanticipated consequences. I also think they may splinter the earth's crust, and destroy things like water dams, and create new tectonic fissures.

[@robertkubrick3738]

They were never intended to be that big. Ten Tons is a red herring. 300Lbs was the proposed weight, enouh to take out a hardened silo or go through an aircraft carrier or battleship top to bottom. Not world destroyers.

[@JasonMazzulla]

Just penetrating an existing volcano could be awful

[@L_Train]

I wonder if we could replicate this with railgun technology? Probably not now that I think about it. The speeds reached by objects entering the atmosphere and plummeting to Earth are fantastic

[@yoggz]

Alright

[@neobaggins3718]

Rail guns are probably faster. They definitely fire projectiles beyond their terminal velocity, but the mass is much lower. You wouldn’t be able to fire a telephone pole sized object, because it’s converting electricity into an electromagnetic field that moves the object. From orbit, you have to lower its orbit until it reenters and gravity supplies the energy.

[@darren_anscombe]

And with today's technology, not achievable. The whole thing is one the back-burner for now.

[@Ack19771]

You don't even need that kind of speed, if you target the enemy's fault lines you could create casquading earthquakes leveling their entire Country all at once.

[@enigma9273]

The power sources needed for a projectile that size would be astronomical

[@robabiera733]

The most obvious problem I see with this is aiming an unpowered weapon from a moving satellite that is constricted to a specific orbital path which may or may not take it over the desired target. It takes a lot of energy to change an orbit and I would hope that this has been taken into account.

[@Jiuz]

Jdam?

[@grimmlinn]

Even unpowered jdam bombs can glide miles when dropped from a plane. I imagine it would be much farther from higher up.

[@sulevturnpuu5491]

@@grimmlinn If you want to glide to target then you are loosing all the vertical speed thats supposed to make the big bang.

[@grimmlinn]

@@sulevturnpuu5491 You could do most of your gliding in space, before you descend. You’d just need some maneuvering thrusters.

[@sulevturnpuu5491]

@@grimmlinn Well, thats what people are saying - you need thrusters to move to target and the to remove your orbital speed. Nevermind gliding, it'll be slamming into atmosphere to remove most of that speed.

[@iainburgess8577]

I'm a sci-fi fan, so have encountered the concept; it's really interesting in the right setting. I cannot believe any are functional or that the Chinese balloon test was directly related; The space lift capacity for even a single 10-shot system won't exist until SpaceX Starship at earliest; every part of the system is too large & heavy for any earlier launch system; the platform could be sectioned, launched & assembled, but the rods Can't; there's also not enough spare manned spacetime for construction. Concealing or disguising the number of launches to get the above up to orbit would be nigh impossible, all for a stupidly unimportant number of shots; assuming nothing bent before assembly. Just not worth it. W that balloon test, those Chinese items look more like a cheap method for atmospheric weapon testing, and the test items seen are too complex to make sense as rods from god. Atmospheric drop kinetics, maybe, but they look more like missile or hypersonic test bodies to me. Then there's manufacture; the quality & scale of tungsten manufacture required doesn't exist. It's hard to mine, is chemically refined, and the melting temperature is higher than the surface of the sun. Most "tungsten" anything is sintered or ceramic as far as I know; the 99.9 is 1% another metal holding the powder together. All of it small & expensive. So the materials for the rods doesn't actually exist in the required form, certainly not at a scale of manufacture to produce in numbers to make it worthwhile. Finally; satellite intercept missiles exist on all sides; defences against them don't. Any rod from god platform is a sitting duck until that gets solved. All of that said, the possible wars of my lifetime look scary AF.

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

If you drop one of these from a spacecraft, it's going to just sit there and fly in formation with your spacecraft. There has to be a rocket motor involved one way or another.

[@Coasterlocity]

So correct me if I'm wrong, but if you were to "drop" something in orbit...won't it simply continue traveling sideways at 17,500mph until something slows it down. Or was a method of deorbiting the rods also part of the plan. Smells like Sci fi to me lol.

[@BarefootPhilanthropist]

They’d have to find a way to deorbit it along it’s intended trajectory without violating the terms of the space treaty.

[@Coasterlocity]

@@BarefootPhilanthropist yea and keep it from burning up in the atmosphere, or behaving as a lifting body and going off course with no control surfaces. The concept just says it drops them though. It's depicted in Call of Duty Ghosts with the ODIN satellite. It defies all logic. I'm trying to think of how it could be done. Dropping them would just place them in orbit. Maybe aero braking, but it would still need to be deorbited independently. You'd likely need a separate propulsion device attached to the rod itself, or put the whole craft on a collision course with the target area, release the rods, then reboost to orbital velocity. That would be terribly inefficient though, require regular refuelings, and endanger the entire satellite. The whole concept is kinda dumb tbh. You could achieve similar results with a hypersonic missile or conventional ICBM.

[@ravenrock541]

Yes, the Rods would need a push to begin descending from orbit. Easily achieved with a small detonation. Once entering atmosphere the air drag itself would cancel most lateral movement. Considering the size of these rods, flight fins and a computer could be installed to give it trajectory guidance and the ability to alter course. Finally, there are options for the payload. Solid tungsten is great for penetration of hard targets. However, change the rod to deliver a payload of particles (simple sand for example) above ground level and you have a Daisy Cutter that could eliminate large areas of ground troops, or create an instant airfield.

[@ratatatatata5290]

@@CoasterlocityComputer guided fin stabilized dummy bombs are already a thing, and a large rod like this would likely need need to be both fin stabilized via a discarding sabot and computer guided, but considering it’s being launched from a satellite that shouldn’t be an issue. For how to launch it? We already use gas propellent to cold launch ATGMs and surface to air missiles before their main burners activate in some systems.

[@ratatatatata5290]

@@ravenrock541the rod in the mock up also appears to have its own rocket engines as-well.

[@snafufubar]

Thors Hammer was the code name in the book Footfall. Kinetic strikes are very common in sci-fi books. And were used in Iran by filling bombs with cement. Almost every book in space warfare involves holding the high ground to win.

[@LordOmnissiah]

11 tons of tnt is roughly equivalent to one of the earthquake bombs developed in WW2. So if the rod managed to retain most of its energy until it had partially buried itself then expect a small localized earthquake when its used.

[@davidhope5875]

You're forgetting the speed, Energy = mass X velocity SQUARED

[@comment8767]

The rod will yield on impact about the same energy as was used to put it into orbit. So, it would be similar to a launch pad explosion.

[@lonihollenbeck4654]

The problem with this kind of technology deployed is that one never knows who can or will be controling it.

[@metalwolf112002]

sometime in the future: "Why did that direct tv satellite park itself over the middle east?" more likely... "spaceX is working with tesla to deliver electric vehicles near instantly after order... bugs are still being worked out as some deliveries report malfunction of air brake/ parachute and are hitting the ground at top speed"

[@sam23696]

One thing that has always interested me about this weapon system is how small could you make them? Taken to the extreme what about one the size of a pencil? Calculate the impact on the head of a dictator in some isolated nation and you can drop a pencil from orbit that can slice clean through reinforced concrete. Not sure if that's possible, but everyone always focuses on the large scale application of this weapon system, rather then the small scale potential.

[@robertlee4809]

There is no way to obtain the accuracy required to hit a person from that height with a pencil sized projectile....

[@Turtles007]

@@robertlee4809 *John Wick* has entered chat

[@robertkubrick3738]

The Crowbars were meant to be 300Lbs or less.

[@timthorson52]

Plus a pencil sized one is probably less likely to re-enter the atmosphere intact.

[@patriot9455]

Imagine a carrier projectile with a hard shell, air pressure could launch the bomb load. It might not be able to pinpoint a particular person's body, butt if anyone has ever used birdshot at close range, you can see how it can work along that principle. Imagine a projectile 6 feet long, carried to the edge of the atmosphere (Mig 25 record altitude height) dropping 2, 4 or 6 projectiles designed to open up at specific altitudes over enemy cities, releasing how many projectiles ranging from a foot to a yard long. The size could be determined by the object they are seeking and the density of said object. the other ones could be to create collateral damage and slow the enemy response time. No fallout, fewer problems. Imagine using it for defense from submarines, where a single hole can doom a boat.

[@BrianBourgeois-]

the rod isn't shot, its dropped. Gravity does the rest.

[@AllanDeal]

That’s what she said

[@neobaggins3718]

Not completely true. It’s in orbit, so if it was dropped, it would just have its orbit shift slightly from the parent satellite. They would need to either be kinetically fired retrograde to the parent satellite’s orbit, or released, and then use a small onboard thruster to intersect its trajectory with its target. It would actually hit beyond the horizon from where it was fired.

[@knight1207]

the rods vibrate... When they hit the ground causing earthquakes

[@TheInsaneupsdriver]

@@knight1207 the impact causes that. vibration wouldn't change anything other then it's flight plan.

[@joelcorley3478]

SpaceX's Starship program should make this weapon system feasible from a cost perspective. It's a fully reusable launch vehicle with a 100+ ton to LEO capacity. Each launch would have a marginal cost (the incremental cost to refuel and provide ground support) of around $2-4M for a simple LEO delivery. I expect SpaceX to initially charge around $50M per launch, which is slightly cheaper than the Falcon 9 but about four (4) times the payload capacity.

[@Energine1]

So if your buying your "rods from god" from Elon.....

[@A_piece_of_broccoli]

we literally already have stations on uneven orbits with stealth tech that have been getting supplies from spacex. and the rods from god program was in fact tested, and found to be too inaccurate to be used as a first strike weapon. but it's still there, they tested it and it's up there.

[@carl9091]

So Elon Musk would be god in this case.

[@gregorysagegreene]

Absolutely, yup!

[@joelcorley3478]

@@A_piece_of_broccoli - What the heck is an "uneven orbit"? And I suppose we could have tested them, but it would have been almost impossible to hide it from other countries. Also we couldn't have deployed a usable system as that would have required a very noticeable amount of lift capacity by a US agency.

[@g.k.1669]

When I was a kid I always thought that a series of rods in very fast orbits around the moon and earth could become munitions of great strength. The combined gravitational effects of the earth and moon would propel a rod to far greater energy values than just the earth's gravity.

[@galewinds7696]

When you were a kid? Seems you had a super brain 🧠, I never heard of this until today 😕 🤔 😳

[@rogerszmodis]

@@galewinds7696 seems like a logical leap once you learn a big rock falling from space caused a global mass extinction Just make your rock smaller

[@toolegittoquit_001]

The impact of the moon's gravity to a payload destined for the Earth's surface is negligible Nice try for a teenager

[@dressedtosmellgood]

No you didn't

[@g.k.1669]

@@dressedtosmellgood Great retort. My thoughts were about how much damage a small asteroid could do to a city since one a mile wide can reset a planet. Originally, I thought about a chain of them in orbit around the moon so that they could be pulled out of orbit and directed towards an Earth target when needed. In college my lab partner and I developed the plans to have a missile full of paint home in on a police radar for our final lab project (but the instructor would not allow us to build it after we performed all of our engineering work) and told us to send our resumes to the U.S. government. Now that I am much older I think of theoretical things like inexhaustible energy derived from the imbalances of different dimensions that can be captured from portholes opened between the theoretical 10 dimensions and as to whether gravity can erode any component of the multiple dimensions that the same gravity interacts with over billions of years. However I am no where near smart enough to be a physicist.

[@TimothyRandall-cu2lh]

Project Damocles: at least 40 years old. Proposed first with Stainless Steel 2 feet in diameter and 70 feet long.

[@geargeekpdx3566]

It's a real surprise to learn we don't have enough money to feed and house our veterans but we have money for THIS

[@jasonhare8540]

When playing Tom Clancy's end war from back in the day on I think PS2 you could call in kinetic strikes . It was a great little feature in that game .

[@stevenlewisking1982]

you can use superconductor metals for the cone or the whole rods themselves. you only need a few rods with a sat. thats not much bigger. the no oxygen to low levels / super cold environment keeps the metals ablities stay active long enough for the rods to get through the area in the atmosphere to avoid burn up deactivation. Of course if their no friction due to zero electrical friction resistance you dont have to worry about it losing that ability. You can theard it through the object intended for use anyways. Also, useful for space travel when attemping to achieve warp speed / high volosty mass/matter movements in any environment with silimalr conditions. Also , these are weapons that can be used on other planets. The farther the R.O.D is launched from the target the impact it will have. Nuclear bombs are the past. But I would keep a few around under very safe keeps. Just in case some smarty pants comes along and figures out how to easily shut that new weapon down. I should be a ruler cause I come with the best / cooliest weapons. Thor , DROP THE HAMMER AND BRING THE LIGHTNING!

[@SilentKnight43]

"I know...we'll make spears. Spears as long as a man." "A man, you say." "Aye." "Some men are longer than others." - Braveheart

[@lesliegrayson1722]

even smaller ones would be very interesting and clinical.

[@BeReal918]

The fact that these giant metal rods reach speeds that are 10 times *faster* than a 5.56 round out of a full-sized rifle barrel (20") is CRAZY! 😮

[@baracke]

Every time I hear about this, the term used is always “dropped from orbit.” My brothers in Christ, orbiting bodies must be de-orbited. These massive steel projectiles would need to burn retrograde for some serious deltaV to move from an orbit to a sub-orbital ballistic trajectory to hit a target on Earth. They would still be chemically powered missiles by every conceivable physics assessment. There is no “dropping” going on. It’s nothing but an orbital missile battery using kinetic energy instead of a warhead, but they still need their own propulsion systems to hit a target on Earth.

[@PaulMetzler-c1b]

The considerable mass of the rods are in orbital motion. It would take considerable counter thrust to de orbit the rods.

[@douglasgriswold2533]

thrust to deorbit? Just puff them out of the cylinder or whatever with some compressed air at the moment you want it to 'drop' and having calculated the falling physics. just let it go. I does not need to be' deorbited', it just needs to be pointed and puffed out at the exact moment you need it to be... it can be already moving in the direction it needs to go.

[@ernestnichols5186]

Great idea, but a lot cheaper options are available that could be mass produced in wartime. Also, the simple confirmation of such a weapon in orbit could itself start a war instead of deter it as it is so clearly an offensive weapon.

[@heyhoe168]

In a perfect sane world yes. I am not so sure about our current world.

[@digafox]

What makes this idea work is based on what killed the Dinosaurs. Its basically a kinetic kill weapon. As far as accuracy its true the rods would need a decent guidance system however cause of the damage range accuracy becomes less important once its near the ground!

[@sipioc]

Rods from God. Scary stuff. But one cannot deny: We as a species are really good at making scary stuff.

[@weirdguy564]

I've known about these since I was a kid. I had the board game called Renegade Legion Centurion. Essentially tank warfare in the sci-fi future. One of the weapons are Thor Satellites. They even use the same name. Of course the game is sci-fi, so the launch satellite doesn't orbit. It just hovers above the atmosphere using anti-gravity.

[@JamesStreet-tp1vb]

Has anyone else heard of the new Mutant Morphing Missile? It can actually change its shape and bend during flight. According to the article, this thing is a beast and it should be flying by 2024.

[@CJMcNaSTy69]

Yuuuup

[@gabrieljohannson6777]

“Rods from God” would be a great name for an album.

[@charliehorse8686]

I don't know who would be the "supreme court" of such a decision, but it seems to me if kinetic force causes an explosion on impact, it should STILL be considered an explosive device.

[@lucassmith4524]

Holy shit. This is what was above our nuke sites. A balloon dropped Balistic Weapon. No wonder They didn’t want to shoot it down until it was over water.

[@i-love-space390]

If Starship lives up to its promise to reduce price per pound to orbit by orders of magnitude, such a system may become economically feasible. But I think we always consider the enemy implications whenever we decide to actually deploy something. Do we really want an arms race in space? We may do like we did with hypersonic cruise missiles and just keep working on the technology until we have a clear indication that another military is serious about the weapon. Look how fast our hypersonic programs are proceeding to deployment now that Russia and China are touting their hypersonic weapons. I have no doubt that our weapons will probably live up to the hype of the other countries, whereas their stuff probably is overblown. Never dick around with America, unless you can really do what you say. We will take you at your word and actually DO what you may only be bluffing about. I think that is why the Russians were shitting bricks about Star Wars in the 1980's. We had landed on the Moon and they knew better than to underestimate our abilities and resolve.

[@madsteve9]

Sometime ago, late zeroes, a former Nuclear Weapons engineer was interviewed in a UFO Magazine in the UK. Part of the interview included how US Nukes were now a lot cleaner, with less Radioactive particles released. Anyway, he said, of course the best thing is to Drop from orbit a solid slug/shot of Tungsten. Wouldn't matter if you used either Glide Re-entry Vehicle or a Mass Driver. In the modelling it doesn't burn up. And it producers a shockwave equal to a 2 Megaton thermonuclear explosion. But without any nasty Gamma, Beta or Alpha Radiation. On the 12th of September 2001, an NSA Weapons Satellite called "Thor's Hammer" was supposedly moved into Geosynchronous orbit over Saudi Arabia with the Holy Muslim cities of Mecca & Medina locked in to its targeting system. When it became clear the Muslim world wasn't united in the attacks against the USA, Dick Cheney sent back into high orbit. Of course, such a weapons system doesn't violate the Nuclear Weapons in Orbit Treaty.

[@andym595]

"I'll be back in a bit, just. gonna. go. drop. a. rod." Turns to you and makes direct eye contact. Stares at you in silence for 5 silent seconds. Farts and says "Carry on"

[@worldofnavy]

great content you produced here. Love the way your xplained. Who else loved it ? ❤

[@sirfoggy7682]

60s and 70s were choke full of "it would be great if we could built it" or "it would be great if it was possible" kind of projects... SDI initiative comes to mind. 5 miles per second roughly equates to Mach 158. I know, I know... Mach number is a relative number and means pretty much nothing in the vacuum of space... until the object traveling at that speed hits the atmosphere... which kinda changes the things... alot... and not in a good way for the "weapon". As a reminder, Space Huttle re-entry speed was "only" Mach 22, and yet just to to make it, it needed extensive and sophisticated heat shielding. Tungsten melts at about 3,400 °C. Hitting the atmosphere at these velocities creates a lot of friction aka a LOT of heat. The "rod of the gods" becomes hotter and hotter aka softer and softer. Softer it gets, worse in terms of aerodinamic shape it gets, which in turn makes it even hotter. The end result... rain of very hot but microscopic blobs spread out over a very large area. They might burn through some roofs and such but thats pretty much it... no massive nuclear-like devastation... not even close. On the other hand, putting a Thor-like station into the orbit and arming it with hundreds of tons worth of "telephone poles" is nothing short of a financial and logistical nightmare. Not to mention that object of that kind are nothing but a sitting ducks waiting to be destroyed by a missile costing thousands if not tens of thousands times less. Oh, and as for those naval rail guns... they 'might' become a viable option some day. Right now, they are only capable of firing nothing more than a few rounds after which they either need a massive overhaul or a new firing unit altogether. And from what's publicly available, due to their size and massive power drain, they could only be deployed to a very large, nuclear-powered vessels. Nothing to see here, people... move on.

[@Ieo9017]

To those that think this is just impossible…..a saturn 5 can lift about 150 tons into low earth orbit. Each theorized rod weighs 9 tons. It’s totally doable, and since when has money been a factor for the US military? Heck, for all we know the X-37B could just be a remote assembly drone receiving preassembled sections for weapons platforms stationed all around the globe.

[@predcon1]

Not just sci fi authors and fictional mass drivers. Rocks have been falling, naturally, from space for billions of years. This is just refining the principle.

[@johanrynjah8241]

According to a 2012 estimate, a one ton rod will cost around $20 million just to get it into orbit, consider that in 2024 it will cost more and delivering hundreds of them into space is out of the question and not practical at all especially when target precision is a concern because of their costs.

[@WHSmith-zk2ox]

INCREDIBLE!!!! Sobering at the very least..... Puts a great spin on the thought "HAMMERS OF THE GODS" Let's slap them up there!!!!!!!!!

[@warmasher]

the guy that thought this up, must have played with Lawn Darts as a kid and was throwing them straight up into the air lmao

[@singlefather01]

The problem is 1/2mv^2=mgh

[@JuggoJuggo]

If it's rumored there is probably 10 of them already, "It doesn't cost $500 for a hammer."

[@user-unfound33]

This!!! I was explaining this to somebody 6 months ago and they wouldn't believe me.

[@lesliegrayson1722]

I have an idea that would make space flight cheap but the initial price would be expensive..

[@MikailStoner]

The only real problem with this weapon system is getting those tungsten telephone pole rods into space.

[@crtinde]

Things don't just "drop" straight out of orbit like that. Think of swinging a bucket of water around in a circle ... if you swing fast enough the water stays inside due to the effects of inertia, what folks commonly refer to as centrifugal force. That's basically how orbits work, an object is moving fast enough that the centrifugal force flinging it outward offsets the pull of gravity pulling it inward. That's why we need to accelerate satellites and spacecraft to such insane speeds ... for something to remain in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) such as the space station,, space shuttle, etc. it needs to be travelling over 17,000 mph, which is also why those astronauts get to see the Sun rise every 90 minutes. To get out of orbit you need to fire retrorockets to bleed off some of that speed, allowing gravity to win the tug-of-war and slowly pulling you back down towards Earth. Then when you re-enter Earth's atmosphere still going well over 10,000 mph, the extreme air friction causes the surrounding atmosphere to turn to plasma (like the surface of the Sun!). That's why you need to rely on heat shields and possibly to some complex maneuvering until you lose enough speed to either deploy parachutes or glide to a landing like the shuttle. If you released one of these rods, it would just continue to travel right along with its satellite in orbit until you performed some de-orbiting maneuvers to get it back to the Earth's surface ... good luck doing that with any sort of speed or accuracy! This is straight out of bad sci-fi movies, I'm sure it was never considered by serious scientists who understood orbital mechanics.

[@serioustoday]

"dropped" from space is a curious concept considering the physics of orbits

[@AllyMonsters]

This video and the comment section has a real "Tell me you failed basic physics without saying you failed basic physics." kind of vibe.