5 ms·

SpaceX could throw in kinetic bombardment to clear traffic ahead of you during jams.

• javajosh 14y ago
  "Kinetic bombardment" == throw shit from space. </jargon police>
• jlgreco 14y ago
  I never quite understood how orbital kinetic bombardment was supposed to make sense. I mean, say you have a satellite in orbit with a ton of nice depleted uranium or tungsten rods to skewer things with. Standard "spears from heaven" setup or whatever. It can't just "drop" them, if it lets go they will just stay in orbit. No, it has to fire them 'backwards' fast enough for the rod to deorbit itself and then the satellite has to apply some orbit correcting thrust. In order to keep it accurate you basically need to construct a full reentry vehicle around the thing, both to guide it through the atmosphere and to just rocket it away from the satellite fast enough and accurate enough. Before you know it your DU spear becomes so complex that you may as well just make a proper MIRV system with real warheads out of it and be done with it. Get the most bang for your buck that way.
  • WildUtah 14y ago
    You're supposed to use the satelite to aim them and then shoot them from the ground and let them ballistically smash your target. It takes about twice as long but it's really sufficient to smash anything the size of a warship. Seems like half the cars on the road are SUVs, so that should be big enough.
  • AndrewDucker 14y ago
    You don't use spears. You use rocks. And you drop them in so that they impact on the spot you want in the first place, rather than adjusting their route multiple times.
  • gregpilling 14y ago
    You may find the book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein to be interesting. The main weapon in the battle between the Earth and Moon was shipping containers full of rock. These were launched by catapult to specific targets. Throwing rocks in a high tech fashion.