Testing the US Military’s Worst Idea

An engineer came up with a plan to drop tungsten telephone poles from space - the idea has been seriously considered on multiple occasions, so we tested it. Head to brilliant.org/Veritasium to start your free trial. The first 200 will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription.
Special thanks to our Patreon supporters! Join the community to help us keep our videos free, forever:
ve42.co/PatreonDEB
Massive thanks to Archisand for building such a beautiful sandcastle. / @greglebon
Huge thanks to John and Angie Miller for helping us with securing the shooting location and going above and beyond to make this shoot happen - highdesertlocations.com/
Thanks to Inland Empire Film Services and the San Bernardino County Film Office for portions of the video shot in the County of San Bernardino.
Massive thanks to Dr David Wright for the interview and providing invaluable guidance during the research for this video.
Here’s a great video about space-based missile defense - www.ucsusa.org/resources/spac...
Massive thanks to Adam Savage for being part of this video.
Additional photos from NASA and ESA.
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References:
USAF. (2003). The US Air Force transformation flight plan.
Preston, R., Johnson, D. J., Edwards, S. J., Miller, M. D., & Shipbaugh, C. (2002). Space weapons earth wars. Rand Corporation.
Wright, D., Grego, L., & Gronlund, L. (2005). The physics of space security. A Reference Manual, Cambridge.
DeBlois, B. M., Garwin, R. L., Kemp, R. S., & Marwell, J. C. (2004). Space weapons: crossing the US Rubicon. International Security, 50-84.
Baucom, D. R. (2017). The Rise and Fall of Brilliant Pebbles 1. In United States Military History 1865 to the Present Day (pp. 329-376). Routledge.
Hitchens, T., & Samson, V. (2004). Space-based interceptors: still not a good idea. Georgetown journal of international affairs, 21-29.
National Research Council. (2012). Making sense of ballistic missile defense: An assessment of concepts and systems for US boost-phase missile defense in comparison to other alternatives. National Academies Press.
Borger, J. (2005). Bush likely to back weapons in space. The Guardian, 19.
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Special thanks to: Bernard McGee, James Sanger, Elliot Miller, Brian Busbee, Jerome Barakos M.D., Amadeo Bee, TTST, Balkrishna Heroor, Chris LaClair, John H. Austin Jr., OnlineBookClub.org, Eric Sexton, John Kiehl, Diffbot, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Mike Schneider, John Bauer, Jim Buckmaster, Juan Benet, Sunil Nagaraj, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi
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Written by Petr Lebedev, Derek Muller, and Emily Zhang
Filmed by Trenton Oliver, Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, Emily Zhang, Raquel Nuno, and Eddie Lopez
Animation by Mike Radjabov, Fabio Albertelli, and Jonny Hyman
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Slow Motion Camera: Shawn Sanders and Anthony Corrales
Sandcastle Timelapse by Greg LeBon and Archisand
Phantom rental from Panny Hire LA
Helicopter Pilots: Rick Shuster and Cliff Fleming
Helicopter Safety Officer: Ryan Hosking
FPV Drone Pilots: Sammie Saing and Josh Ewalt
Production Assistants: Roman Bacvic and Eddie Lopez
Intern: Katie Barnshaw
Additional video/photos supplied by Pond5 and Getty Images
Music from Epidemic Sound
Thumbnail by Ignat Berbeci
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang

[@sungi7833]

As someone from the military. I assure you, this is not their worst idea.

[@Paul_Bedford]

Probably in the top half of ideas because at least with this, there isn't any chemicals or radioactive materials that can become uncontained when things inevitably go wrong.

[@raimuresan8998]

Wasnt their idea to begin with

[@ihavetubes]

worst one was allowing females to have combat roles in the military.

[@austinduong-van6071]

Their worst idea was reducing the Jalapeno cheese spread to 1 ounce from 1.5

[@samirs8140]

Worst in terms of costing

[@uncensoredpilgrims]

The fact that they didn't seem to anticipate that a weight dangling from a helicopter on a tether would be swinging all over the place is ... odd to say the least.

[@AgeDrain]

Things like these in a video like this seems like it’s scripted

[@qprett]

Sometimes a genius is so into the genius stuff, that he forgets about the basic stuff. Whenever I try to do something smart, a rookie mistake just screws it up.

[@qprett]

@@AgeDrain What exactly should be scripted about this?

[@Mizanur28]

Also the weight was not pointed on one end. How much more could have cost them to weld some steel fins to it?

[@psycheameliorate7446]

ikr, like they can make the rope shorter or something to increase precision.

[@xYxColeTrainxYx]

Well... watched 30 seconds of this video and realized that them testing the "rods from god" idea was actually just them dropping a subsonic projectile, that lacks stabilization, onto a sand castle.

[@travis6228]

It's like testing the destructive power of a bullet by hiring a guy who can flick pennies really super hard.

[@That_Lamer]

@@travis6228A pretty accurate analogy in multiple ways. Bullets have rifling and can be precisely aimed by placing them in vices. Dude flicking a penny is 100% just "trust me bro I'll hit it" Which is an accurate summation of their "launch system" on this one. Rods from god have mathematicians calculating deorbiting trajectories, and precision burns to reach those trajectories. Not a piece of steel on the end of a towing strap, swinging in the wind while a pilot does micro adjustments on the launch vehicle. Which adjusts by tilting left/right/back/forth...

[@MRL8770]

Yeah, it's even worse given how they say themselves that kinetic projectiles like those rods are explosive thanks to the energy generated by them being sufficient to ignite the target and the difference it makes can be seen on the surface of Moon. Their kinetic projectiles have energy way below the threshold required to demonstrate that effect and its potential impact on the effectiveness of the weapon. By Veritassium's logic, this should be the main source of the destructive power, as suggested by the crates on Moon.

[@sowishful]

I was trying to figure out wtf they were testing for 8 min. Then realized there’s people like this and shut it off

[@DeeSease]

yeah its really lame

[@erobertt3]

*rod swinging wildly back and forth on the helicopter* everyone: "wow I can't believe that missed the target."

[@ToBeIsWasWere]

OMG it can land sideways if you have no fins? How could we possibly know that before renting a helicopter?

[@RichUncleGhostMutt]

The drop at 17:35 was ridiculous. If it was rigidly mounted to the base of the chopper and had fins it would've hit the middle of the city.

[@watermelonsavage2914]

I'm shocked at how little thought went into properly testing this idea, especially when compared to the amount of money and number of people involved.

[@hellomark1]

Honestly I wish they had just dropped one from the max height they wanted to do, just to demonstrate how big of a crater it would make. But also, even with the height they were dropping from, everyone needed to be a LOT FURTHER back. They took some really dumb risks.

[@watermelonsavage2914]

@@hellomark1 The dumbest thing to me was that they saw how they weights were swinging around like crazy below the helicopter and NOBODY thought to shorten the tether, if that tether was 3ft long it would've been much more accurate. What they really should have done though is make a mount/drop system strapped tight to the bottom of the helicopter that would lock the weights in place before release. That, coupled with fins, would have made an enormous difference.

[@sheldonh4341]

@@watermelonsavage2914 not as much of a difference as it would have made with the way the helicopter itself was fidgeting, but it'd still have been better.

[@hellomark1]

@@watermelonsavage2914 Yeah that bothered me too. They could have made a solid mount, or stabilized the strap with a few more anchor points... or ANYTHING really. Like you said, I'm surprised at how little actual engineering went into this.

[@loafuskramwell8747]

Haven't watched the entirety of this video since I've seen everything I need to know it's not worth finishing, but my impression is that they just tacked this on as something they thought could turn into a video while shooting footage for another video which came out just before this one (so they didn't blow all that money exclusively to film for this). Disappointing quality control to say the least

[@SoniasWay]

I like to imagine that Adam Savage just materializes whenever something fun like this is happening in the desert

[@nateking6629]

lmao yeah

[@mohitrahaman]

I imagine like they run into Adam randomly, like he's taking a stroll in the desert and find these Veritasium guys testing stuff, sharing his wisdom along the way.

[@Shrooblord]

Adam's just busy on something in his workshop, when suddenly something twinges in the back of his mind. With a jerk, his head shoots up and he faintly cocks it, as if to listen for something in the distance. His eyes narrow and his brow furrows, and with a slightly defeated -- for the distraction -- but otherwise classically enthusiastic "It's time. I am needed!" he fades from the workshop and surprises Derek with a clap on the back and a "Hey there! So I heard you were doing some science experiments out here..?"

[@jaysonhinds6838]

Funny. Had me laughing. Haha. And i actually needed to laugh with the night I'm having so thanks.

[@bentboybbz]

I mean I'm fairly sure anyone attempting an experiment like this is required to get permission and supervision from and by Adam by law in the United States lol 🤣 I Hope You Are All Doing Well And Having A Great Day/Night!!

[@ashen9381]

What is hillarious about this. Is that they took no steps to make it more practical. Like how hard it would have been to add fins to the rods. Or even reduce the tether length to reduce the pendulum motion. Hell even install a camera to the belly of the helicopter so it can be aimed that way. This feels like they were only barely prepared for this. Which is shocking considering how much money went into making it.

[@Chpow01]

I mean, centerline support, you know, like a bomb mounted to a solid object, it seems like that would be pretty easy to setup, especially if they are paying to have pro sand castle people be there. Bad video, would not watch again.

[@locomotive9000]

I think this was an impromptu add-on to the penny drop video. You can see they are in the same location with the same helicopter. He probably just wanted to get in two videos for the price of one helo rental.

[@Chpow01]

@@locomotive9000 Not really a good excuse as I see it. He took zero scientific steps during this shoot. He did not even have a simple range finder to aim that the helicopter... He instead just kept questioning it's height.

[@locomotive9000]

@Chpow01 Not a good excuse?? You want a refund for the $0.00 ticket price or something? lmao 🤣

[@Chpow01]

@@locomotive9000 It was a crappy clickbait title from a "science channel". He should simply know better and do better.

[@pontushaggstrom6261]

This might be one of the most unproffseional carried out experiments ive ever seen

[@ToBeIsWasWere]

Not just unprofessional, every single step was executed and/or planned sooooo badly if there was any planning involved at all beyond renting a heli. They rented a chopper but didn't even think about welding fins on their "darts"? They used extremely long rope in windy conditions and nobody said "maybe we should shorten the rope a bit or use another system"? They used GPS to hit targets less than 5 square meters big (civilian GPS is not that accurate) and were surprised when it wasn't accurate enough? Nobody thought of using a friggin laser pointer or something to aid the aiming? Those are just the things that immediately came to mind, seriously did nobody involved in this video think for just one damn second? I like veritasium but this is insultingly bad.

[@zguesss]

I refuse to believe no one thought about stabilization of a falling projectile before dropping one. It's like they were paid to convince us that it's not possible.

[@qv43v]

​@@ToBeIsWasWerebut but Adam savage!

[@4tdaz]

What is more, when the idea was conceived, they would have known every single fact covered in this video. Therefore, resurrecting the project years later must mean they had other ideas. For example, I would be interested in many rods and seeing what it does in an area. I also would not have ANYONE NEAR the drop site and then go for much higher distances. I think they went low for fear of not getting their objects back ever, or there were other limitations. But then what are you actually testing?

[@locomotive9000]

I think this was an impromptu add-on to the penny drop video. You can see they are in the same location with the same helicopter. He probably just wanted to get in two videos for the price of one helo rental.

[@Sonicalex0]

Wish there was a point in the experiment that the goal switch from accuracy to "lets see how big crater get from dropping really high" and proceed to have everyone really far away until it lands.

[@BestCosmologist]

They got scared. lol

[@IceSpoon]

@@BestCosmologist You can tell that by the final shot (the 500 m one) they were terrified lol. I would too, honestly.

[@ChadwickHorn]

Fan of mythbusters, I take? ;)

[@PinnysVids]

I suppose they could have dropped from higher while staying safe, by not dropping it anywhere close to people, and just using the handcam footage from the helicopter

[@iFix.]

Thought the same, fly the helicopter really far and drop it, would love to see it

[@joshuaheadey9670]

My favourite part is where Adam Savage appears out of nowhere, as if desert explosion tests just summon him 😂

[@ericpmoss]

“As if”? :)

[@informant09]

@@ericpmoss As if

[@insectwarfare8681]

@@ericpmoss As if

[@filipsperl]

Derek probably did a couple of expensive videos with helicopters at once. In previous videos, Adam Savage was there as a guest. Here, I guess, he didn't have that much to add to the experiment so he just watched.

[@skm9420]

You mean they don't?

[@69CamaroSS]

Dangling heavy objects from ROPES high up under an undulating, gyrating, helicopter and expecting ANY degree of accuracy. *UMMM…..*

[@ToBeIsWasWere]

they wouldnt last a day in ukraine

[@svankensen]

Yep. This is WW 1 tech at best. Seriously, even 19th century artillery would do a better job simulating a rod of god.

[@goofy851]

@@svankensen Even during WW1 when pilots were using what were basically lawn darts against infantry they knew they needed fins for the tip to actually stay pointed in the vague direction of their target. This was at best a terribly researched project and at worst tax fraud so he can write off everything used and everyone paid in this video as a business expense.

[@ajegelin]

Imagine going through all of this work, spent all that money, and got all of these people together to make this video and not thinking of putting stabilizing fins on the object you are dropping from 500m

[@Dogsushi42]

Kinda surprised that nobody realized that this was never going to work. Id expect this from a Mr. Beast video but not Veritasium. Usually he simulates outcomes with equations before going into the field to test.

[@leomullins]

Big little boys playing sand castles?... Why not!

[@iFix.]

Yeah, actually it really surprised me too, derek usually plans things really well, since Adam was there maybe this was at the same time they tested the pennies and the dropping of really big thing was just and afterthought?

[@gasper5223]

I expected he would mention the "Iraqi bunker busters" the US used against Iraqi bunkers in the Kuwait invasion. They did contain explosives, but still used the kinetic energy to penetrate really deep, at least 15 meters (45 feet). Probably not feasible to be recreated by a youtuber tho.

[@pyropulseIXXI]

@@iFix. This is what happened. They just decided to milk this and release this video, which is going to make insane money; this video got 200,000 in 1 hour. So they got two videos out of this 'project' they did. Easily making over $500,000 from both videos when you consider the sponsorship as well

[@Real28]

So many of you really don't understand the point of this video, and it's sad because his audience is usually fairly educated.

[@TheBradszone]

Genuinely shocked at the scant amount of forethought that went into something with a budget this large.

[@simonprice8638]

Yeah... Like I would have thought Derek would have welded some fins on or somthing to get it to fly true.

[@Nullified573]

Physics vs engineering

[@piele1982]

If they would've dropped it out of a tube that would have in part cancel out the swaying. A lot more accurate.

[@davesomeone4059]

@@piele1982 or just not let it swing from a copter. Anyone who's played a video game knows what would have happened.

[@docprune9922]

They are playing about for Likes. Sort of "Myth busters very lite for KZbin"..

[@Texxx114]

This was a fun watch but the fact they watched the weight swing around and yet just kept thinking they were missing cause they weren't lined up was infuriating

[@dougcox835]

The thing that gets me is how they were so focused on the aiming (I guarantee that the military has aiming figured out) and never just took the heaviest rod up to the highest altitude and dropped it at a safe distance in the desert. Everyone could hop in their cars and drive way far away if they were worried about it and leave cameras running to catch the impact.

[@nicolaspeigne1429]

Easy to mesure a crater indeed.

[@dougcox835]

@@nicolaspeigne1429 I got the impression that the entire experiment was setup to purposefully demonstrate how silly the entire concept was. So they made sure to focus on the hardest parts of the problem rather than showing how effective it really could be. The guidance would be just like any of the current bombs out there. Just because it doesn't have propulsion or explosives doesn't mean it wouldn't have guidance and fins. They have bombs now that can glide down and using GPS hit the target exactly. Fins could be made to pop out once the missile gets slowed down enough. Things like that. But he seemed hell-bent on making it look like a lame idea.

[@nicolaspeigne1429]

@@dougcox835 they probably got worked up and spent a bunch of money before considering the basic problems, after that they had ro make a video out of it somehow

[@dougcox835]

@@nicolaspeigne1429 The funny thing is, the problems they had are not the problems that the real system would contend with. Satellites don't exactly need to deal with a pendulum swinging and even not the wind really. The projectile at those speeds won't be in the wind long enough to matter. And you can bet the military knows how to account for all the variables and make it land on target. The impact would be like a nuclear blast so exact aim wouldn't actually be much of a problem in the first place.

[@nicolaspeigne1429]

@@dougcox835 i was talking about the basic problems of testing an orbital weapon traveling at hypersonic speed a few hundred feet off the ground

[@wunkewldewd]

why on earth did you hire a team of pro sand castle builders, and then have them spend all their time making more accurate looking buildings, rather than just 10x the number of them so you wouldn't have to worry about missing them??

[@WayStedYou]

Yeah I would've just gotten massive buckets to make a premoulded one and made 10x as much area.

[@David-qs7yv]

As if professionally sand castle makers would allow a quantity first approach

[@1ogic948]

Because it’s fun to have fun

[@fernandon3926]

because its fun

[@powertechgrows6093]

Quantity wouldn't need professionals, and that part of the video is gone, so thats why

[@RPGillespie]

This seemed like a "lot of money, not a lot of thought" video. No one thought about how the rods were going to hit their targets until the day of?? Fins are a bare minimum, you could have even done some gps-based bang bang course corrections with an arduino or something. Of course then you are basically designing a precision guided bomb like Mark Rober noted in his egg drop video.

[@ttopiass]

This felt like a producer made video, with mr. Veritasium just hosting. Sub par quality for this channel

[@matthewp4046]

Very underwhelming.

[@HaydenLau.]

A precision guidance system with accelerometers dropping longer thinner rods with fin stabilization from heavy lift drones on much, much bigger sandcastle city from much higher. That would have been cool to see.

[@Kantuva]

Yeah, the producer not doing a good enough job

[@dude157]

Big blimp tethered to the target, have the tether act as a zip line to target. Wait for a less windy day.

[@gameoverlordN7]

I still find it funny he called it Project Thor, given how he was the only "Thunder god" to NOT throw lightening bolts at people, ever.

[@noeschaeffer2167]

I’m not sure that it’s alluding to lightning bolts at all, but rather to a really powerful hammer

[@Daniel.Hollenfurst]

As a retired military aviation specialist, I've had firsthand experience with the complexities of dropping objects from altitude, particularly missiles. When you release something from a high altitude, it doesn't simply drop straight down. Various factors influence its trajectory. First, there's the forward momentum; whatever you're dropping is initially moving at the same speed as the aircraft. Then, wind plays a significant role; higher altitudes can have stronger and often different wind directions than at ground level. Additionally, Earth's rotation affects trajectories over long distances-a phenomenon known as the Coriolis effect. Lastly, the design of the object, such as a missile, includes aerodynamics intended to guide it towards a target, but this guidance must account for all these factors to be accurate. It's a complex interplay of physics, requiring precise calculations and adjustments for successful deployment.

[@miaouew]

Someone promote Captain Obvious here to Major.

[@dheigl]

I'm a little shocked that no smaller-scale testing was done prior to the full-scale "helicopters and sand castle professionals" part was brought out. A drone with a piece of rebar would have taught you a lot about the need for targeting apparatus, the lack of fins, etc.

[@randohm8464]

I dont know this still probably got all of our views which is the real success

[@Davidautofull]

arrows work too.

[@MichaelIreland]

This new format, focusing on hype and false drama like on Discovery Channel is really hurting Derek's videos, IMO. If the next video follows suit, I'll be unsubbing, and that's sad because I've followed him since he had less than 10k subscribers. I think it's probably due to the sheer size of the production team. IMO he needs to return to his roots. But that's just me. Also get off my lawn. Rawr.

[@shaider1982]

Yup, no small scale test first.

[@unliving_ball_of_gas]

@Adrian Molière Because then it would miss the point of this video (no pun intended). The video was trying to prove or disprove that the Rods from god was a feasible idea. And they disproved that. I mean, what's the point of having a missile when you would miss the target by a kilometre away? Althougth I still think it was a bad idea he didn't do a small scale test first

[@erictheepic5019]

I find it funny that Adam Savage is in this video, and it's not even mentioned. I'm just used to him being the one talking to a camera out in the desert, busting a myth.

[@jordancarter8310]

Smart to reach out to him! He’s probably the global expert on these things!

[@CouldBeSaladFingers]

@MrBeest is ruining the planet[recent vid explains] 100%

[@WayStedYou]

@@jordancarter8310 and yet he didnt reach out to him and missed out on the vital "you should put fins on it" that noone else involved seemed to think of

[@curiouscommand5916]

The man needs no introduction, hes that iconic lol.

[@joaomrtins]

"We should have had this conversation yesterday..."

[@OzzyBoganTech]

Almost like you made a video about a subject without even thinking about it for a second 😂

[@l3zl13]

It doesn't matter. It got the views anyway.

[@KaavjeSahe]

When using GPS, there's a problem. The GPS system thinks you are on the ground because it doesn't have prior information at what altitude you are, and 500 m above te ground, the deviation would be around 20√3 m or around 35m, that is why Aerospace Station or Aircraft Stations in US use GPS systems with account to Altitude and then provide accurate directions to pilots. Add it with air rotation, and all, the target would according to my calculation assuming wind at like 7 miles/hour; would hit the ground around 56m far from the intended target. If you use proper calculation and account for wind, the target positioning would be far easier.

[@KaavjeSahe]

Also, when they saw they were right above; they were not because of a phenomenon called 'Refraction of Light in Atmospehere' basically, you see everything 2.3 to 2.4 degree off, and at 500m that amounts to a deviation of about 20.082 m, so, updating the calculation, they deviation would be a little bit more than 75m.

[@n0denz]

There are so many errors in the design and execution of this experiment, that one would almost think it was intentional.

[@lost524]

for fuckin real

[@bensprink9943]

Almost like the govt was like hey bro, do this experiment so it'll discredit the rods of God idea and people will think we don't have them.

[@TheChillestEver]

Exactly what I was thinking. Could’ve made the impact end a pointed end. Could’ve added wings. Added vents, more straps to stop the swinging. Just downright horrible execution

[@marcferraro6949]

Author oversteps literary license with misleading statements many times.

[@sireuchre]

Considering that shortly before this video was published, Mark Rober put up a video where he was well on his way to designing a system to do exactly this kind of guidance dropping an egg FROM SPACE (way higher than shown here), and he was already dropping from 10k feet (3048 meters) with an accuracy in a reasonable ballpark of what was achieved here, in scale, I'd say that with the technical resources of the US military contracting industry, this definitely COULD be done. It would be fairly costly, but uh... if Mark Rober with a few engineer friends and something like a Raspberry Pi or Arduino and a not absurd amount of code can get that far, that relatively fast, I'm sure it wouldn't take too long or too much money to develop a working system. Deploying the rapid response coverage is the issue, NOT making the projectile control be precise enough. Communicating a target would be trivial, and once loaded, no actual guidance from the ground would be needed - as demonstrated by how well Rober did so quickly. They only stopped from developing their system because of the snares of legality and ethics, when they realized they were developing a guided missile. Yes, this concept is functionally possible and on a smaller scale with less time response definitely feasible.

[@williambalogh4495]

Honestly I'm surprised about how elementary this set up was

[@aleksanderczajka6072]

I wouldn't attempt it without an arduino based targeting system tested in KSP. Since it's not meant for combat, image processing can be simplified a lot by placing a few bright lights around the target.

[@nathlindemann381]

What do you do?

[@wyattroncin941]

I'd drop it on a wire guide. A few hundred meters of 3mm steel wire and a set of roller guides could get it reliably on target

[@aleksanderczajka6072]

@@wyattroncin941 There is absolutely no point. You are needlessly increasing resistance and weight carried on the heli while the same could be achieved over radio. Wifi might lack the range. Idk, whatever drones are using would do.

[@wyattroncin941]

@@aleksanderczajka6072 a rope rail system would certainly be heavy and expensive, but it would be simple to get opperational, and wouldn't be destroying $200+ in hardware per drop, and it's practically guaranteed to work.

[@tcust0078]

Tell us you don’t understand how any of this works without telling us you don’t understand how any of this works.

[@ToBeIsWasWere]

They messed around with a bit of sand and call it science, what happened to this channel?

[@OGHumorBot]

When I was a kid, we lived near the base where they did the first test of the MOAB. I remember we went outside school when they did the test. Even miles away, we could still see the explosion, and heard the roar a bit over two minutes later. It’s one of those things that really helps me put explosion sizes in context

[@Sentient.A.I.]

This is about as good a test for rods from god as me sitting on my roof dropping marbles onto army men in my front yard.

[@AnEnderNon]

so accurate

[@wilfdarr]

Meh: rods from god were a piss poor idea from the get go: the fact that you can deliver a bunch of energy without it being nuclear was about the only thing they had going for them, the fastest weapon ever devised was constrained by the slowest kill chain conceivable!

[@jasonlovi8745]

Pencils would be better since it’s more rod-like

[@flotsamike]

I would watch that.

[@Sentient.A.I.]

@@wilfdarr Don't under estimate the Rod from God concept. The original idea was rods the size of telephone poles made of 100% tungsten 20 ft long by 1ft diameter. These would hit a city with the impact force of a ground penetrating nuclear weapon and destroy any underground facility hundreds of feet underground. When dropped from orbit it would reach up to 10x the speed of sound without violation of the 1967 outer space weapons treaty which prohibits nuclear, biological and chemical weapons attacks from space signed by 107 countries. These rods would destroy an entire city just like a nuke and any bunker, base or silo under it for hundreds of feet with none of the nuclear fallout. While the targeting system and cost for something like this was near impossible at the height of the cold war its much more feasible now. Especially with advanced AI and the cost of moving things into space diminished It is more possible than ever before ! Unfortunately some weights would have to be dropped from space to gather data for the AI and I would not want to be the country those tests are landing on lol.

[@rethla]

"We gonna drop rods from several kilometers up" Ok well that sounds hard but Veritasium probably knows what hes doing. **Pulls up mobile to get target GPS and gets into a helicopter with the payload just dangling freely a few meters under** Im surprised they didnt hit themself...

[@hunterahudson]

Yea or rig up steerable fins with a live FPV camera so you can guide it.

[@VitaKet]

I don't know how this guy has so many subs if this is how he operates...

[@dadawoodslife]

Error margins on GPS being bigger than the target.

[@GamingWO-]

@@hunterahudsoninstall the GPS right into the body, and just launch it like an actual rocket. That’s how you’ll test it.

[@TheInfectous]

@Karl with a K just as competent as experts in any and every single field out there. no more, no less. regardless of how many we educate, truly intelligent people remain in short supply.

[@hristoalovski8048]

Nothing happened, elaborates, nothing happened, leaves without elaborating

[@tonypapas9854]

16:40 Another mistake other than not adding fins was not having an aero nose, but a flat front that encounters so much more air/wind resistance.

[@jeffwalston8110]

Pretty much all they proved is that they put minimal thought into this and that it's hard to drop things precisely from a helicopter.

[@garyl6031]

Gee who would have thought? Apparently them.

[@ulizez89]

I know! I'm surprised how much money was spent with so little care as to why.

[@DauntlessX23]

Agreed, I thought the purpose was to find out the destructive force of the rods and scale it up, not find the most inefficient way to destroy a sand castle.

[@noahjanowski9646]

My opinion they should try to make it work and less on accuracy bc the accuracy can always come after you figure out how to drop the rod straight

[@noahjanowski9646]

At least do a test drop before making a video😅

[@dvrrwd307]

I find it hard to believe the engineering problems couldn't be worked out. At one time it was thought you couldn't hit a missile with another missile.

[@anandaditya479]

At one point we also thought that re-usable rockets are far-fetched.

[@JasperJanssen]

KEW on that scale essentially fall under the nuclear disarmament treaties. They’re not mentioned explicitly, but any nation developing them would find itself negotiating soon.

[@chiefgully9353]

The engineering problems have been worked out. We have tables based on windage for dropping troops out planes been doing it since nam. We know exactly how far a t10 or t11 chute will fly given altitude and windage. Its not that hard to calculate the same for a rod. just add stabilizing fins. and walla

[@davesomeone4059]

@@chiefgully9353 pretty much but there have been artillery charts for much longer than nam.

[@raithneachdavisson6156]

Well the video explains pretty clearly that the issue isn't launching a projectile and hitting a target. The issue is maintaining accuracy as weight, distance, and velocity increase exponentially. Launching a howitzer round 2 miles past the horizon is nowhere comparable to dropping a 10-tonne rod from 22,000 miles altitude, accounting for the change from a vacuum to entering the atmosphere and still trying to maintain enough accuracy to cripple installations. Artillery actually requires less accuracy than kinetic weapons, and it's cheaper and more accurate.

[@djayjp]

Pro Tip: use a very short cable/rope to prevent it from swinging....

[@scoutMaster97]

To be honest, their rods are swinging on a helicopter that's why they are so inaccurate. The concept is that they would be guided by rockets from space and then released closer to Earth once they have enough velocity. Once the projectile has enough velocity it becomes more accurate. So idk how accurate this experiment is, I would like to see the real thing in practice, launched from space.

[@brookswift]

I am so confused by how thoughtless this "experiment" was but how well researched the rest of the content was, even with the lamp shading by adam savage and later admitting to "screwing up", it felt more like a drunken idea hastily executed without anyone stopping to think than a high budget science demonstration.

[@fluffylittlebear]

I'm flabbergasted by how dumb this entire test was.

[@chance2716]

@@fluffylittlebear Same. I mean this is the worst Veritasium video by far. A city built of sand? What?

[@dirkmohrmann8960]

Honestly thought this was some sort of spoof after the first few minutes

[@Mutantcy1992]

Yeah this looks like it cost a ton of money for basically nothing. Why not build a little 25% scale house or something and do all the drops on that. Wtf was the point of the pool?

[@HalOBrien]

@@Mutantcy1992The point of the pool was probably just what you saw: If there was a hit, it would make a splash. Remember, this is video, and you have to have an interesting image.

[@m1k3droid]

Your aiming problem was because your rods were pendulums, so they had significant lateral velocities that threw them off target. you should have had them in hardpoint mounts under the chopper so they'd be dropped with zero lateral velocity.

[@Bimmer_MD]

Don't forget about the drag that was caused by the massive strap that was trailing behind it.

[@m1k3droid]

@@Bimmer_MD negligible at that velocity and mass, esp given that straps 'drag" didn't prevent the posts from falling sideways.

[@InfernoViperz123]

Needs fins as well to keep the center of drag begin the center of mass, so it stays straight rather than drifting off to the side. Realistically it needs GPS guiding with fins as well because there will always be wind hitting the rods broadside. imo this video was really poorly done, many of these issues could have been mitigated with just an hour or reviewing potential issues and small scale tests, and a week of implementing the fixes full scale.

[@m1k3droid]

@@InfernoViperz123 at the speeds they are testing at, the fins would need to be large, and the larger they are, the more wind will blow them off course as well. Now they are realizing why bomb zones in WW2 were often miles wide from a single wave of bombers. yes, GPS or laser buiding would be necessary. A real THOR warhead would have GPS and inertial guidance, as well as active radio guidance from a spotter either on the ground or in space, particularly for hitting moving targets like aircraft carriers.

[@DavidStruveDesigns]

The problem with a hard mount, is that the object would _still_ be affected by the turbulence caused by the heli rotor the moment it was released. That turbulence extends downwards for a fair distance beneath the chopper before it even starts to ease away. And then once it does you have the general motion of the atmosphere to deal with - which in a hot desert area is probably a fair amount at that height. Only fins can counter this issue - especially adjustable fins whos angle can be adjusted to counter any spin/lateral movement.

[@davidmenasce6614]

You could certainly compensate for position of the rod and relative movement of the earth. However I think one of the most practical issues with this is how you even test it feasibly... and how on earth you'd go about reloading.

[@Spartan536]

This was not only a terrible "test" it was horrifically planned, setup, and executed. There is a MASSIVE difference between subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic, High-Hypersonic and Re-Entry speeds. Not only dealing with projectile shape and construction but also in drag factors and Delta V. Why does Delta V matter with a "Rod from God", because they were not simply dropped from space, they were SHOT BACK AT EARTH USING ROCKETS. By having a guidance system, control surfaces, and powered flight you can control a lot of targeting variable that make a weapon like "Rods From God" not just viable but practical based on the intended use. Now lets say the intended use is to hit stationary high value targets only, well that makes the targeting considerably easier as you are not changing the flight path once calculated and input, it's literally a "solve for X" problem. Contrary to belief nukes are not designed to hit the surface and then detonate, they have a "burst height" to them to cause as much damage as possible by creating a double shockwave effect, this is all calculated based on the nuclear weapons explosive force size, target altitude, and desired blast attributes.

[@knallpistolen]

Impressive how little research went into this.

[@viliml2763]

It was all planned just for the punchline at the end. "I would say it is my biggest failure of all time, which as it turns out, is also something you could say about the actual weapon Rods from God." The whole setup is so crappy it's obvious he never intended for it to succeed.

[@L1ft0ff]

Did you see all the producers that were involved? lol, so embarrassing.

[@robobrain10000]

@UCiUl8dZIzCkGUyB6nrTpOTg Ye, or instead of having the weight tied outside the coptor, have the guy chuck it. So, you don't waste so much fuel to reload.

[@BestCosmologist]

@@L1ft0ff They're all 20 somethings from prestigious universities. You can't expect them to do anything except hate everyone beneath them.

[@bonob0123]

@@BestCosmologist calm down, edgelord

[@ezmoore27]

There are two main problems I see with Derek's setup: 1) Dropping the payload from what is effectively a pendulum is going to make it nearly impossible to aim, and 2) as Adam pointed out, you need some fins on the rods if you want them to land perpendicular to the ground.

[@skarlath7940]

Can't it be dropped at the height of the swing when it has 0 velocity? Correct me if I'm wrong but don't pendulums work based off turning gravitational potential energy (GPE) to kinetic energy (KE) and at the top of the swing it has no KE and thus no velocity?

[@SoloPilot6]

I'm trying to find a part of this was WASN'T a problem.

[@kilansgames556]

Didn't Mark Rober just do a video of trying to make an egg survive a fall from space. Think they could've collaborated

[@OldBuggaboo]

@@kilansgames556 Mark Rober and Adam Savage casually testing failed doomsday devices for KZbin.

[@Fernando-ek8jp]

I think the (incredibly flawed) reasoning was that since the rods from god weren't meant to have them, these ones didn't need it either. Completely forgetting that launching something from space has way more variables that could allow for such a thing: -little to no air resistance from orbit (no duh) -no swinging motion from a satellite moving at orbital speeds -once in the atmosphere, the speed would be so high that the air resistance would be more than enough to cause the rod to fall vertically (at so relatively low speeds from the helicopter, the density of the metal is more than enough to overcome the wind resistance)

[@Scott.B70]

"It ripped right through the pool, amazing!" Amazing? You think? Lmao

[@misterspiff7288]

I'm pretty sure that the swinging is not the wind. I think it's more likely a resonant oscillation of the system induced by micro-corrections made by the pilot or autopilot that is working to keep the helicopter station-keeping over the target. Those hovering corrections cause the weight to counter-swing. The pendulum and the hover-pilot soon begin to resonate with each other at a characteristic frequency which will always grow to a rather pronounced amplitude unless something is actively done to damp the resonance. If the projectile is released while it is passing through the bottom of the swing, it will have a translation added to its velocity. If the pendulum weight were a simple ball, it would land a possible distance vh off target (where h is the height of the helicopter and v is the swing velocity of the pendulum at the bottom of its swing). Perhaps the easiest way to defeat this pendulum-induced drift is to time the release at the top of one of the swings, where the pendulum has zero translational velocity. To get that timing right, you could mount a go-pro on the bottom of the helicopter so the release guy knows exactly when to pickle the release. A problem there, however, is that at the top of one of the swings, the cylinder will be canted off-angle, and begin it's drop while leaning sideways. Perhaps another way to mitigate the pendulum effect would be to mount the object with a shorter sling, close to zero length. But a long cylinder will still swing and may still achieve a resonance. Releasing with a very short sling will eliminate a lot of the translation, but will still start out with a tumbling cylinder (because the swing in that case will be mostly angular momentum of the cylinder rather than linear momentum). Another mechanism to use might be a rigid downward rail that holds the cylinder steady before drop. This would have to be folded flush to the bottom of the helicopter until in the air when you unfold and lock it pointing downward. You'd need to be able to fold it again so the helicopter can land, or just release the rail before landing. Fin stabilization could be used to help right the cylinder into a vertical orientation. The fins would have to be pretty large if the impact velocity is low. Also, the fins could be canted to spin-stabilize the projectile, which should help to mitigate tumbling and precession.

[@Saladicious_]

Im an engineering student and my first thought was to add fins to these rods, with a bunch of other stuff that would easily make them way more accurate. This whole thing feels very under prepared.

[@black7844]

LOL yeah he says its a bad idea but i dont think he really understands what the concept is, Fins as well as a design to make it accelerate even faster on the way down seem pretty simple

[@klnine]

USA BS, or Hollywood?

[@Simoxs7]

I‘m a Industrial Design and Informatics Student and this was also my first thought + maybe a arduino with a gyroscope that controlls the rod to point straight down… what would that‘ve cost? 50-100$ and a few hours of testing? Definitely nothing compared to chartering a Helicopter for a day

[@Squidbush8563]

@@Simoxs7 and a small rocket engine to increase acceleration. There's no way the real thing wouldn't have had some sort of initial acceleration.

[@JT-lc7dp]

No comparison since one is the speed of a meteor the other is just a plop

[@jamessunderlandseventh7410]

That was possibly the worst and most flawled "Testing" Veritasium has ever done, what a shitshow.

[@Shotakovicz]

I would have to agree. Equating a weight swinging from a helicopter with all the pendulum swinging and zero guidance to a space-launched kinetic strike weapon with computer guidance and fins is ludicrous. A massive false equivalency.

[@Shotakovicz]

Where are the MythBusters when you need them?

[@TheBoeboe]

this, and the selfdrving cars is some of the worst videos they have ever produced

[@Rob-bn9ib]

@@Shotakovicz "As you can see, by throwing this lump of lead at a tree from a distance of 100 feet, I have proven that firearms are a gimick weapon that will never work."

[@Machine_Age]

​@@Shotakoviczone of them was present tbf

[@dethbymetal]

That pendulum motion is called drift. Ironworkers sometimes put structures together with a helicopter and have to account for drift when lowering an object or structure element. I suggest working with professionals in that field for optimized results

[@toonarmycaptain]

Ironically, we've now seen there's potential for communicating/controlling a falling projectile like this, with one of the major impracticalities mentioned; the thousands of Starlink satellites allowing signal by lining up the satellite/s above the plasma cone. Arguably the tech allowing steering and landing of F9 rockets also shows the targeting might be plausible. But thousands of heavy tungsten rods in orbit where some of their station-keeping systems will fail and either deorbit uncontrolled or be unable to avoid collisions...that's terrifying.

[@thetoyodacar2264]

So you hired professional sand castle builders but not a physicist or some kind of engineer?

[@Schmitzelhaus]

😆👌

[@marvinkweyu5206]

Price. Lol

[@thetoyodacar2264]

mate they got a helicopter, how's price an issue?@@marvinkweyu5206

[@QueenJan-kq5vu]

Yeah well you’re a doo doo head military bad derrrr

[@captain0080]

Priorities.

[@DemsW]

I appreciate the honesty and I understand why you had to post it. But brother if you had spent an hour with a ballistic expert enquiring about a good way to showcase this it would have worked a million times better. And like everyone is suggesting, dropping the biggest weight from the heighest height you can just to see the crater size would be a much more enjoyable video than this. I won't think less of your content from one failure and i'm sure it's a very complicated process but this one felt really like a lack of forethought

[@abavariannormiepleb9470]

What irks me about the whole thing is it demonstrates an extremely shallow understanding of the topic at hand while oozing “self-satisfactory professionalism”, my next thought then is the question “On how many other topics that are less obvious did they do similar mistakes?”

[@MichaelButlerC]

It's to try to get more youth interested in the USA military. I hope it's not working!

[@GuidoAmbar]

Ir tie a crash Cam tied to a long rope to the weight with a small stabilizer parachute so you can record it no matter where it goes

[@glitchsister]

@@MichaelButlerC so it's just propaganda then? If so then wow boy is the FCC going to have a field day

[@dakotareid1566]

@@MichaelButlerCyou say that till you need them

[@mandowithfullbeskarbolter]

12:00 As you assumed to be like a pencil, you forgot the principles of aerodynamics. While the pencil has the pointy face helping it to pierce the air, the rod's flat face only pushes the air, thus creating a stronger resistance, which means that it will have a worse precision.

[@zandemen]

If you do something like this again I would suggest using a long line under the belly hook. it's a bundle of lifting cable and electrical conductors with an electromechanical hook and bell at the end. You can detach the load from it just like you're doing from the belly hook, but with the load 100' or so under the helicopter the oscillations will be dramatically reduced, and give you a sight line indicating windage as well as position.

[@sergioortiz8219]

15:11 "It ripped right through the pool. Unbelievable." That's actually the most believable thing ever.

[@musstakrakish]

I put this knife to my skin and now I'm bleeding. Purely amazing and mind blowing. So happy we have science channels like this to show us that plastic pools will in fact rip when dropping a 150 pound piece of metal from thousands of feet in the air.

[@darksu6947]

@@musstakrakish Who'd a thunk it?

[@edwardpaulsen1074]

Indeed, talk about a face palming "Well DUH" type of moment...

[@culwin]

They have to over-act everything.

[@carami6442]

I can feel Adam Savage's pain when he asks if it has fins and this guy says no. How could you not think to put fins on it??

[@kkrauter1]

This would not have made Mythbusters...

[@grinandferret]

@@kkrauter1 Ghostbusters? I'm dying now! 🤣 Whoopsie!

[@kkrauter1]

@@grinandferret Yikes!!! My bad...MYTHBusters!!!

[@ShinM.]

​@@kkrauter1well, it probably wouldn't have made Ghostbusters, either.

[@kkrauter1]

Too true...I got my "busters" mixed up!

[@Agent_N7]

i think math and cg would've been better, or just trying to make it more accurate like adjusting your drop for wind. the engineers designing kinetic orbital weapons are probably looking for ways of countering that

[@thomasrebotier1741]

"The highest dive from a diving board is 58.8 m (192 ft 10 in) and was achieved by Lazaro "Laso" Schaller (Switzerland/Brazil) in Maggia, Ticino, Switzerland, on 4 August, 2015." Guiness Book. So, 50 meters drop, haha. Also, you forgot to mention that Jerry Pournelle was a prolific science-fiction writer.

[@noeschaeffer2167]

They mentioned that at the end.

[@tracyhunt4753]

this is "testing" rods of gods, like shooting a spitball at a wall is testing a bazooka

[@rangerfurby]

TRUE

[@icejuice9316]

not a wall but a pile of sand could give a good idea about a bazooka impact on broken particles probably

[@ashscott6068]

The difference being that a bazooka exists. How seriously do you want a KZbinr to take a subject this silly?

[@Spiceodog]

The point is that this isn’t a efficient way to distribute energy as the force is to focused to effect a large area . I’m sure it would do great work in the case of a giant kaiju or robot though

[@tracyhunt4753]

@@ashscott6068 by saying "this has nothing to do with rods of god, we just wanted to drop stuff from a helicoptor, they explain the rods work by hitting hard enough to create actual explosions, whis would be like testing grenades by throwing rocks at a wall, you are skipping the whole bit that makes it effective, the explosion

[@mjiii]

All this crew and no one stopped to think about how hard it would be to hit the target? I think the story would have been just as interesting (or maybe even more interesting considering how underwhelming the impacts ended up being) without any targets, just going for the maximum drop height and letting it fall wherever. That would have at least demonstrated the power of kinetic energy, assuming you designed a projectile with high enough terminal velocity.

[@wowisthatgami8293]

Yeah I get why this video was released considering the cost but... The high cost could've been reduced AND you could've better tested kinetic energy. Makes the video quite pointless. Also really not a fan of this editing/production.

[@Bob_Adkins]

My thoughts exactly, though it would be hard to catch on camera!

[@jimhorner19]

Exactly. If the point was to demonstrate the release of the maximum possible kinetic energy, there was no need to do the whole targeting thing. Just take the rod really high and drop it. Film the results. One other issue is the effect the lift strap had on the aerodynamics of the object. Maybe rethink this a bit?

[@xger21]

Yeah, I think the best drop was when the rod just completely buried itself, I think that showed a lot of power on it's own

[@nanoflower1]

The other problem is knowing where it might hit. It's clear there's going to be some drift as the object falls so you need more safe zone space the higher you go. At 3 kilometers I would want a safe space of at least a kilometer. Finding that sort of space where the land is flat enough that you can see the object hit and catch it on film is going to be tough. Plus actually having a camera close enough to the spot it hits to catch the impact point close up is going to be nearly impossible with a helicopter. What you need is something that can go up and drop the object over the target with no wind blowing the object around like some sort of UFO. Maybe on of those drone platforms designed to carry people might work. Only with the fans extended out another ten to twenty feet so that their downward force is far enough from the object that it isn't impacted by that turbulence. Which requires someone like Bezos to fund the development.

[@chrisbanbury]

@Veritasium didn't really talk about the rockets and fuel required to redirect an orbiting RFG to its target. You can't just "drop" it vertically since it is traveling at 18,000 mph horizontally. You have to pay for the horizontal-to-vertical conversion at which point it is more like "landing" than dropping. The steering system would be larger that the RFG itself.

[@babuokatula]

Hi, given the fact that the length of the rope attaching the rod to the Helicopter was causing the swing, you could reduce the winging by using a much shorter rope. Similarly, in any case, if it were possible, then having the rods released from inside the helicopter would help you achieve a better percentage of on-target. This is just an eye-opener for Helicopter manufacturers to think with me in the direction of releasing objects from the Helicopter rather than attaching them on ropes.

[@SonikDethmonkey]

I’m honestly a little bit dumbfounded that they went through the whole process without considering down wash, swaying, and the rod’s stability. They didn’t even have a backup plan? (Pivot to just creating the largest impact possible, since this is all about the explosive potential of a KE weapon, not accuracy)

[@thomasparkinson9404]

They could have created a larger impact but they were so inaccurate they would not have been able to position a camera to film it without endangering the people operating the camera

[@99Plastics]

Mate the fact they used SAND to showcase destruction of KE weapons might be the most moronic thing in this video. The substance that is LITERALLY known for its ability to do a good job stopping bullets because of it.

[@stoniebro-nies]

Yeah, it seems like an 8th grader did the math and planned this out. It’s hilarious that physicists didn’t think about physics 😂

[@theParticleGod]

To be fair he does admit it's his biggest failure, but yes you'd need a very thin, very long rope to not have to deal with wind from the helicopter blades, in turn the helicopter is buffeted by winds, it can't be steady either meaning that the projectile is always moving in a vaguely circular motion modified by the difference between where the helicopter was at this point in the last rotation and the current location. Setting the rod spinning with impeller-like fins would steady the trajectory of the rod but wouldn't help with getting it pointed at the right target and not imparting some spurious steering input as it's dropped. Probably the logical thing to do would be to put a "tungsten warhead" on a conventional missile and fire it on a "kinetic trajectory" (ie: straight down) from a great height (orbit, hopefully). Normal missiles have already solved all the problems rods would face, and could impart more energy as well as actively steering towards the target.

[@iHopeyoure0ffended]

This whole documentary is an embarrassment.

[@thanksfernuthin]

Not ONE person suggested shortening the strap to nothing so it would swing much less? Not ONE person suggested just dropping the real weight from the real height to see the result? Very confusing.

[@Entroper]

I think they didn't go to 3000 meters because their accuracy was so bad that they feared hitting something they didn't want to hit.

[@dante2037]

@@Entroper Hitting something they didn’t want to hit in a completely empty and flat desert? They could have easily dropped it far enough away from people so that there was 0 chance anybody would get it.

[@romanuskov9670]

And he also keeps saying about the wind when it has nothing about the wind but about inertia instead. Very disappointing tbh.

[@VeritasEtAequitas]

@@Entroper yes , a very poor experiment. The real thing would be semi-guided

[@thanksfernuthin]

@@romanuskov9670 No doubt. Something like that gets swinging it take an hour to stop even if the helicopter was dead still. Quite a headscratcher. He's better than this. I'd say he has a good answer for both but I think he would have included that in the video.

[@okami..]

this feels like a bad high school presentation where you didn’t read the book you are presenting on.

[@pahom2]

Starlink is just a cover up to a kinetic weapon with thousands of projectiles orbiting the earth waiting for the command to deorbit and hit the target

[@RyanLynch1]

8:15 I like to imagine that Adam Savage just materializes whenever something fun like this is happening in the desert

[@Schulstand]

Well, that's my headcanon now too

[@JonMahn]

Are they so firearm averse they couldnt have spent a few grand to get a 20mm single shot gun and 4 or five rounds and made it a real experiment? Jeez.. Adam Savage probably suggested this...

[@MrAPCProductions]

Derek needs to speak with Darrel Barnette who worked for several years on projects like this for DOD. The videos that are public from the railgun and gravity weapons for DOD were taken by or with Darrel.

[@MrAPCProductions]

@@JonMahn You can buy a 20mm for a lot less than a grand, also, pretty sure Derek lives in Cali so...... no. Lol.

[@IstasPumaNevada]

@@JonMahn Using a gun doesn't demonstrate the basic principle of "just dropping a big weight from high up is powerful". It would kinda defeat the point of the video.

[@sleepingkirby]

Adam: "Does it have fins?" Derek: "Why didn't we have this conversation weeks ago?" I just hear Jaime in my mind. "Should have done the engineering." Shortly followed by, "When in doubt, lube."

[@stevenlynch3456]

*tub of lard

[@Cundalinis_Hand]

Yes, there's always time for lube.

[@CrownRock1]

Quack, damn you.

[@colenewton5183]

I was thinking the same thing as soon as I saw it??? everything that's a tube and is sent to fly has wings, except for bullets but they usually don't go that far

[@ALRinaldi]

@@colenewton5183 Bullets are spin stabilized.

[@takeeto9894]

You've come to the same problem engineers have since the idea was first posed: how does one make an inert rod of metal aim like a missile in a reliable fashion, from orbit, at 20 times the speed

[@EbboHima]

Let's be honest here I think we all want you to do another redo video of the experiment targeting the problems you faced here.

[@ShannonJacobs0]

The original business model of KZbin stank, but at least the ads were reasonable. New flood of invasive, repetitive, and offensive ads are EVIL. Google is now fully dedicated to doing any evil that seems profitable. And censoring complaints, too.

[@lucasng4712]

@@ShannonJacobs0 loser

[@DarkMug]

@@ShannonJacobs0 what

[@daftpanda6533]

Personally, I'd like to see Laser guided rods

[@bombomos]

@@ShannonJacobs0 I agree with you, but that literally has nothing to do with the OP

[@tymz-r-achangin]

"it ripped right through the pool. Unbelievable!" What's so unbelievable that a chunk of steel being drop from the sky goes right through a shallow plastic pool?

[@PATOOFA]

🤣🤣🤣😂

[@boboverlord1]

I think their concern was about the accuracy

[@edwardchester1]

Yeah, that comment got me too. Clutching at straws for this car crash of a video.

[@skattyopt]

my thought exactly lol

[@dromitos3294]

why are these people acting smart when they cant even understand what people are tryna say

[@cyrusol]

In "The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat" it works flawlessly.

[@peterbuckley3877]

Thinking you can intercept a fast moving missile by dropping an uncontrolled road from space so it it intercepts it perfectly during its trajectory would require that much math and computing power while also factoring in every known variability is probably the military’s dumbest idea. This idea is best left for the realm of sci-fi movies where it belongs. You couldn’t even hit a stationary swimming pool from 500 metres and had to drop down to 100 metres to score a hit, now imagine that pool travelling at Mach 3 on a parabolic curve.

[@sethstinson1341]

When Adam "Does it have fins?" His laugh was like "this guy has never dropped anything from this high huh?"

[@Mr_Vosakisen]

It was so odd that a science channel didn’t think of this, like it seems obvious to me to put fins or to drop the cylinder by some type of rigid attachment to the helicopter or something.

[@MattH-wg7ou]

I thought that immediately.

[@vyvianalcott1681]

@@Mr_Vosakisen It's kind of weird how unprepared he was for this, like he's trying to be Mark Rober but doesn't realize how much thought and preparation goes into even his failures

[@AirNeat]

@@teflontelefon There are "fins" on the animated one, they go inward instead of outward

[@BryanHaddon]

@@teflontelefon Can't trust the marketing photos without seeing the actual engineering lol.

[@ilikaplayhopscotch]

*gets helicopter and world-class sandcastle builders before testing how cylinders fall* Derek noooo

[@quertbarbie62]

Adam Savage mentioned that to derek when they were doing the bullet/ penny drop episode.

[@MobiusPeverell]

@@quertbarbie62 I'm pretty sure that was this exact conversation, from the same shoot. They tried to make two videos at the same time, only got one good one, and then posted the bad one too, just for kicks.

[@Cssfiend]

​@@MobiusPeverell surely you aren't calling the penny one good.

[@emwhaibee]

@@Cssfiend False. NOW they posted both so your presumltion has now been invalidated.

[@grantjones2863]

not surprising since this show has turned into click bait and tv type videos.

[@Thesebjustseb]

If it were possible for the helicopter to reach the target coordinates just under the target and then move vertically upwards, the force acting on the tether from the lift force of the helicopter would straighten out the rod. If pure vertical acceleration could be achieved for a period of time long enough for the vector of the "straightening" force to diminish to zero (so that this component does not affect the rod's fall), the results could have been better (if still inaccurate). It would also be helpful to calculate the coriolis effect (for fall times exceeding a certain time value), and above all, the influence of wind speed and direction, in a similar manner to how we do it for ski jumpers. I love how this video made me think those things.

[@Salos1]

Tear drops are the best shape for aero dynamics. Rockets have round noses. Bullets after centuries are finally coming around and people are making “boat tail” bullets which are just tear drops

[@wlockuz4467]

I don't know if you can afford it, But this video needs a revisit. Ideally with more effort put into the rods than the sand buildings.

[@davesutherland1864]

If you ‘dropped’ a rod from geo synchronous, it would just orbit in geo synchronous orbit….You would have to launch it from orbit.

[@probablyinconsistent4756]

It would be relatively easy to make them gps guided. Some basic flight controller or even an FPV pilot.

[@JackoNorm]

if you need you appetite whet now, check out Mark Rober's egg drop from space

[@elementalist1984]

Honestly the only way to test this is in a silo using an overhead crane/winch and a quick release. The fact that the projectile was swinging side to side ruined the accuracy as much as anything else they failed to do in the projectiles construction. However that means they can't drop it from as high as they can from the helicopter.

[@samuela-aegisdottir]

Yes, the effort was wasted on a perfect sand city and not put in considering how to hit a target by dropping a not-aerodynamic rod swinging (!) under a helicopter.

[@QuasiDude]

I have to imagine this experiment was rushed or something, because I would've expected Derek to take a lot of these issues into consideration. There are a lot of good suggestions in the comments that would've given them a better chance, but I think the bigger issue is that they felt the need to do this at all. Veritasium videos are usually much more information-based; telling stories of scientists or interviewing experts in an interesting field. There's no need to do Mr.Beast-esque stunts like this, especially when there's such a high chance of failure

[@broncogrizz]

It's like he outsourced all of it to his interns and just showed up for filming.

[@smtx11]

Maybe he really isn't very smart, I mean he does make YT videos for a living?

[@Devorehardware]

100% gov contracted work. Where else do you see projects of this verbosity without any substance

[@jordibear]

@@QuasiDude He has a PhD in Physics Education Research. His thesis was "Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education", ie. creating educational KZbin videos. Still a PhD, but not in Physics- in education. And you know what they say about those that can't do...

[@samuels1123]

@@QuasiDude More of a Ph.D in education about physics through media as it is defined.

[@Ackbars]

They absolutely do work, this test just proves a metal rod dropped a couple hundred feet up doesn’t blow up sandcastles.

[@davefellhoelter1343]

As "I recall" the rods are so heavy a miss at a fixed target is as good as a hit with this mass at those speeds all while totally indefensible from an enemy aspect. I LOVE the Idea of this system and all the spin offs.

[@wolf1066]

I can't believe anyone would think that they were going to get any accuracy at all with that setup. I'm bloody positive they all knew about pendulums *before* they went out there.

[@the_regulator1145]

I’ve watched enough mythbusters to know that you always attach radio controlled aerodynamic surfaces to hunks of metal whenever your dropping them from a helicopter.

[@wolf1066]

@@the_regulator1145 I'd've thought at least a rigid "launch tube" or guide rail fixed to the side of the helicopter. Something other than a bloody-great pendulum

[@williamkowalchik572]

Shorten the strap up you don't need 50 feet of strap. Gees

[@wolf1066]

@@williamkowalchik572 That'd just make it oscillate faster 😁

[@mattches7791]

@@wolf1066 even just having a shorter pundulum arm.. Take out the 15ft of strap and put it right against the copter. Problem solved.

[@RockSolitude]

To save you 24 minutes of your life: no, he didn't actually do a proper small scale test, the sand castle city wasn't destroyed and we didn't see get to see any mini explosion or crater on impact.

[@JC_Stone]

You’re a blessing, thank you for saving me 24 minutes of my life

[@Igrowyourbiz]

I read this at 18 minutes in when i saw where it was going. They chose not to speak to any experts. smh. Thanks for trying to save us

[@RadicalEdward_115]

15m in shoulda read the comments 😅

[@studgangsta]

thank u bro I knew this was lame when dude tried to explain what was happening. “I’m a professional” “we were right on! “it didn’t hit” “thats weird” PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT -______-Then I read the comments. Your service is appreciated!

[@flamingphoenix824]

Thank you ❤

[@allend1982]

I could only imagine 1,000s of these dropping out of the sky at once and how terrifying it would be.

[@SquishEESpark]

The entire point of kinetic bombardment is that there's no terminal velocity in space. The rods can get up to insane speeds, so when combined with the density & durability of the tungsten, and the (relatively) tiny cross-sectional area of a rod / pole, they would barely get ablated by the heat, keep their speed, and cause massive damage.

[@dannydewario1550]

This video confuses me so much. Literally 2 months ago Veritasium posted a video about dropping pennies and pens onto targets. And in that video they discovered cylindrical objects will naturally turn sideways while falling, which maximizes air-drag. So it should have been obvious to add fins. This video must have been in production before that older one and took longer to edit or something, because this doesn't make any sense how poorly planned everything went. Plus how did no one think to directly attach the weight to the helicopter so it doesn't swing as much? Or just see how big of a crater you can make rather than hand-sculpting a city? What the heck even was this video????

[@mkesenheimer]

I think the two videos were filmed at the same time. Therefore, the "lesson learned" from the first project did not improve the second project.

[@AccAkut1987]

I'm very confused too. I mean it's stupid fun, but thats not what this channel is about, totally off brand

[@ZanHecht]

They probably filmed both on the same day.

[@jamoecw]

"What the heck even was this video" click bait.

[@mkesenheimer]

​@@AccAkut1987 Yeah exactly. So they dropped weights from 100m. Wow. Who could have thought how that will turn out. Still fun I guess. But nothing learned.

[@sushimamba4281]

15:08 "It ripped right through the pool. Unbelievable!" A 200kg cube of metal against a flimsy plastic membrane. Who would have thought?

[@ashutoshkumar3864]

Hydrogen bomb vs Coughing baby

[@Zukunft_]

@@ashutoshkumar3864 Hydrophobic acid vs cancer patient

[@Khylur_Getz]

Christ…this sums the video up wholly.

[@BobbysWhip]

im convinced veritasium is specially educated

[@captaincrunch7944]

It could have been a magic pool? Mb with magic water?

[@TorstenLif]

Robert A. Heinlein explored this in great detail in "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" from 1966. They used a linear accelerator on the moon to launch rocks encased in steel (for the magnetic accelerator to have something to pull at). The impacts had energy comparable to nuclear bombs, but I think he overestimated the ability of their smart computer ("Mike") to hit a given spot with much accuracy. Still, at those energy levels you really don't really need to be very accurate.

[@WalyB01]

The inclusion of the sandcastle people is big props to this channel

[@samanasadi2746]

I think just one hour of consulting with a professional would make the results wayyyy different!

[@hereandnow3156]

I mean shoot Adam Savage magically appeared and within a few minutes of the helicopter lifting up thought to ask if it had fins on it lmao.

[@bryan__m]

@@hereandnow3156 Right? He had THE professional right there the whole time!

[@bconnler]

i mean he had adam savage there.. he could have spent 10 minutes with him and solved a lot of pain..

[@bryan__m]

@@bconnler yeah, and Adam almost looked in pain when he asked if it had fins on it.

[@speakstheobvious5769]

Just releasing the weights when it reached to the apex of the swing would have made all the drops a lot more accurate. Just like when you jump off a swing on a swingset at the apex you go straight down rather then jumping off in the middle of the swing.

[@ravenshrike]

It's not the wind causing the swinging, it's that you created a long pendulum which exacerbated any vibrations and movement from the helicopter. You would want a 3 or 5 point strap system that the quick release drops from. Combine that with a set of fins and you'd be able to pretty consistently hit the target.

[@bryan__m]

Yeah if it were the wind it wouldn't swing with an even periodicity, it would be biased to one side.

[@davidsoulsby1102]

The wind could start off the pendulum action and keep it going longer. Theoretically it could also stop the action.

[@MLEOTA]

Yes!!! Thank you Raven! I almost stopped the video purely due to his statement of it being the wind. I typically enjoy his videos, this was terrible and for such an individual to have a fair level of intellect to miss so many key points was very frustrating to watch. Possibly his worst video yet.

[@Kwisatz_HaderachXIII]

Curious…have you studied physics and what degree did you obtain?

[@_vindicator_]

or just use a plane and some rudimentary ww2 era bombing targeting system. if you lob it, not drop it, it's much more accurate, as long as it's fin stabilised.

[@Waterishloki100]

"Yes, mr president? Tungsten rod on his house? Okay sir." -an actual line from someone in a tf2 video

[@shibapatrol801]

Seeing people online gush over this channel as one of the few channels on KZbin worth watching, this is hilariously unprofessional and amateurish attempt at testing the weapon's idea. How do no one on the team realize that rods don't just magically fall straight down? I could have told you this when I was 12 years old.

[@LogicalNiko]

If you’re wondering why Adam is there, if you look at the details it’s the exact same site, helicopter, and crew from the penny drop video released 2 months ago. I suspect it was a pooled resource shooting multiple experiments at one time to minimize cost. Although it’s much cooler to think that Adam myth buster sense starts tingling and he just shows up whenever cool experiments are going down.

[@jessec4677]

Sniff sniff... I smell science!!!

[@jeremyowen1]

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

[@FlyinSparky]

Say, "Is it gonna blow up?" and Adam shows up behind you. He's the Savage Candyman.

[@LogicalNiko]

​@@FlyinSparky Watch out it doesn't always work as planned, last time I did some crazy science experiments only Bill Nye showed up.

[@trentrichards6490]

Entirely shocked that you didn't expect a cylinder to turn on it's side given the air resistance the end of the cylinder would be experiencing compared to the rest of the cylinder.

[@Jerald_Fitzjerald]

seriously, you can figure this out just by throwing a pencil up in the air.. it's very hard to get a pencil shaped object to land vertically in the dirt..

[@BobbysWhip]

@@Jerald_Fitzjerald but if you throw one really fast upwards with a half spin you can stick them in the ceiling 10/10 times - further research needed.

[@alh3328]

@@Jerald_Fitzjerald That’s why they should have added fins

[@lliaolsen728]

Even watching old Airforce or Nasa files on dummy drops, they show the payload with fins.

[@Khomuna]

If you ever want to revisit this experiment, on top of using fins on your rods I would also suggest using a rigid mount for them, rope sway was the main culprit here and a rigid mount attached to the fuselage solves that issue. If possible, use a gimballed mount, that way the heli pitch and roll won't affect the projectile. Finally, to minimize errors due to the heli drifting over the target you need an aiming system attached to that gimballed mount, a zoomed in camera with crosshairs, so you can pinpoint the target on the ground. Another alternative: Instead of the gimballed mount + sight, just have the projectile mounted like a bomb, attached to the fuselage and drop it while moving, as a bomber would. By having a consistent speed/altitude at the moment of the drop you get a consistent ballistic trajectory. You could even "math out" the necessary parameters beforehand and simply designate a "drop waypoint" for the heli to fly through during the field day in order to hit the preset target.

[@krazyriti]

I have honestly never seen something so overtly cartoon-villainish. This is something a Bond villain would do lol.

[@Tupley]

4 point rigging, fins, better weight distribution, and crosswinds are things I would have assumed would have been thought of for something this expensive. If it was just a backyard experiment type thing I get not doing all the bells and whistles and just trying to make a big hole. But I feel almost bad no one thought of this before dumping what appears to be a large amount of money into something of this caliber. You live and you learn.

[@MatthiasGorgens]

At a minimum, they could have made the straps much shorter. Less swing that way.

[@greasyclean]

@@MatthiasGorgens I can't believe they didn't talk about the swinging and the potential for harminic motion due to the helicopter pilot's compensation. He kept saying the "wind was blowing it all over the place" - something tells me the wind didn't have nearly as big an impact on that 450lb cubic foot of metal as the helicopter did. I was bothered by some of the other commentary as well. The cube punching straight through the bottom of the intex pool was "unbelievable"? Really?? For me this video was just a miss all around, pun intended.

[@MichaelIreland]

I feel like this was one of Derek's absolute worst vids for all these reasons. It was just dumb, unscientific, hype.

[@gaoutdooradventures]

@@MatthiasGorgens You read my mind!!!! Shorten the straps, have a 4 or 6 point harness to hold whatever they were going to drop which would exponentially minimize the swinging!!! They spent a ton of money prior to thinking everything through. Oh well........ next time (maybe.....)

[@michalrzmichalrz6656]

I don't like when they are all for example doubtful if the helicopter is actually at the right altitude. At the beginning of the vid. I mean, a pilot probably would know...

[@Vastin]

So, the issue I have with this video is that while it is an amusing concept, it really poorly conveys the effects of the kinetic energies involved which are way outside the domain these kinds of mundane drops can achieve. As noted early in the video, true hyperkinetic impacts result in violently explosive energies and liquefaction of the impact area, so the physical dynamics are completely different than low energy kinetic impacts from things like bullets or simple dropped weights.

[@99Plastics]

The fact he literally has video which explains why scaling things is so difficult in science and how it needs additional adjustments but then makes this trash ....tragic.

[@stabf2635]

Agreed this is baffling

[@natalyawoop4263]

That's the part I don't get - something coming in from orbit is way different than dropping a weight from a few hundred meters.

[@user-tr2dh4xx6u]

@@natalyawoop4263 terminal velocity is a thing but that doesn't scale well with this size weight

[@maxwellblackwell5045]

its because he isnt as smart as he would have you belive he is.

[@guwuber_]

He's taken knocking over someone's sand castle to a whole other level

[@joepeng3751]

Even if the rods can be aimed precisely, the explosion will not be as spectacular as you may think. Afterall, the maximum amount of energy a falling rod can exert on impact will be equivalent to the energy it took to be launched into orbit, minus the heat it generates through friction with air during re-entry. So all the rods together will at most amount to an explosion as if their launch failed at take-off.

[@sleptiq]

15:09 "it ripped right through the pool, unbelievable" Right, totally unbelievable that flimsy tarp couldn't resist a heavy sharp metal cube dropped from the air...

[@genericjonathan4115]

lol this video is one of his worst

[@vaughnsigal4560]

I’d say it is his worst, by a long way too

[@pdp11]

Pathetic video.

[@midn8588]

Water is really heavy and good at providing resistance, so it's not that shocking an observation. In particular, the more powerful a bullet you shoot into a pool the slower it travels.

[@MarwinSwe]

@@midn8588 I know what you meant to say, but using "powerful" and "slower" is a bad description of the situation. Faster and/or bigger bullets decelerate quicker in water would be more appropriate. If I wanted to destroy the pool I would use a more "powerful" bullet.