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Strategically this is huge for the US and NATO. Being able to put orders of magnitude more payload in orbit at a fraction of the cost of the competition is a hu
by efxhoy 2y ago
Strategically this is huge for the US and NATO. Being able to put orders of magnitude more payload in orbit at a fraction of the cost of the competition is a huge advantage in controlling space. Starlink and starshield are already years ahead of what china and russia has, starship is going to widen that gap even further.
- baw-bag 2y agoPutting zero payload into space?
- qaq 2y agoWell if US would deploy global kinetic bombardment system that would def. be a game changer.
- polemic 2y agoTo get an inert object through the atmostphere and do real damage it has to be very large. That's a very inefficient way to use mass that you've boosted to orbit, even if it's relatively cheap to get there. So any weaponary they put up there will likely look fairly conventional. The speed of deployment and difficult of intercept would be the game-changer.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 2y agoa 20 foot long Tungston rod hitting at 10km/s would release 416 gigajoules of energy. Pretty much a small nuclear bomb or about 100 tons of TNT. It's impossible to intersept something going 10km/s.
- vl 2y agoBut why not a kinetic weapon though? 1000kg tungsten rod coming at 5 km/s and 3000K will sink any ship. A bit tricky to aim though - basically the moment you initiate the burn for re-entry, you give 15 minute warning.
- kaliqt 2y agoWell you answered it yourself, anyone competent can dodge that. It's useful for attacking existing installations, but well, you can do that with any weapon. Plus it's easier to intercept orbital bombardment since you know where it is ahead of time and have plenty of time to intercept.
- vl 2y agoBut it’s true for any orbital-based weapon that needs to de-orbit for striking. Once it starts retro burn you know it’s going for strike and know where it’s going to strike.
- qaq 2y agoit takes few minutes for it to reach target so no it's not easy to intercept also what exactly are you planing to use to intercept a solid tungsten rod with exactly?
- grecy 2y agoAim it at something that can’t move
- TMWNN 2y agoMy understanding is that rods from god are not easily detectable during reentry the way an ICBM's warhead is.
- pfdietz 2y agoI don't see why that would be.
- snek_case 2y agoYou could also just put a ballistic missile on a satellite, then you'd have a guidance system.
- vl 2y agoAny warhead needs guidance system. The question is if passive kinetic payload is enough or it should be something with explosives.
- restalis 2y agoThe most expensive part is to support the risk and cost of research & development. Sure, that renders you the first place for a while, but expect others to move easier (and thus faster) after you marked the trail.
- joejohnson 2y agoAmen! If it turns out we can’t make humans a multiplanetary species in any reasonable timeframe, at least we can make the last few decades of livable earth climate a friendly atmosphere for US business interests.
- sharlos201068 2y agoEven the worst expected impacts of climate change will leave earth tremendously more habitable than anywhere else in the solar system.
- pfdietz 2y agoEven a nuclear war would have that outcome. Even a KT boundary scale asteroid impact would have that outcome. The rest of the solar system is just hell.
- whimsicalism 2y agoThere are plenty of imaginable events where being multiplanetary would help.
- pfdietz 2y agoLike what? Gray goo?