Space Doomsday Weapon

In 2003 the US Air Force proposed Project Thor, a space weapon that remains in development. The project seeks to drop a massive tungsten rod directly from orbit, Measuring 20 feet long and 1 foot in diameter, the “rod from God” weapon could achieve the force of impact from a nuclear strike but with none of the radioactive fallout utilising the kinetic energy it acquired on the projectiles way to earth. Or in other words, a man made weaponsied asteroid
A system described in the 2003 United States Air Force report called Hypervelocity Rod Bundles was that of 20-foot-long (6.1 m), 1-foot-diameter (0.30 m) tungsten rods that are satellite-controlled and have global strike capability, with impact speeds of Mach 10.
The bomb would naturally contain a large kinetic energy because it moves at orbital velocities, around 8 kilometres per second or mach 24 With 6–8 satellites on a given orbit, a target could be hit within 12–15 minutes from any given time, less than half the time taken by an ICBM and without the launch warning. Such a system could also be equipped with sensors to detect incoming anti-ballistic missile-type threats and relatively light protective measures to use against them (e.g. Hit-To-Kill Missiles or megawatt-class chemical laser). The time between deorbit and impact would only be a few minutes, and depending on the orbits and positions in the orbits, the system would have a worldwide range. There would be no need to deploy missiles, aircraft or other vehicles. Other concepts include the deployment of smaller geo synchronous satellites, carrying smaller warheads or ‘pebbles’ to intercept a nuclear launch by a hostel nation… look familiar?
#military #history #militaryhistory #space #weapon #classified #secretweapons #nuclearwar #airforce #spaceforce #usarmy #usnavy

[joshuawheeler]

This seems like a brilliant concept. However the energy released by such an orbital strike is nowhere near even the early atom bombs dropped on Japan which are nowhere near as powerful as modern thermonuclear Warheads the cost of production plus the cost of placing these installations plus the energy required to deorbit quickly and the complication of targeting killed the idea.

[frustrateduser]

Youtube's AI transcription program hasn't quite figured out the Irish accent.