The Insane Plan To Nuke From Orbit - United States Kinetic Bombardment

Rods From God - The most destructive weapon that humanity can create isn't nuclear... not antimatter... not even biological - its dropping rocks from

That's right, nothing beats the annihilation power of dropping matter from orbit onto unsuspecting landmasses below. it causes no radiation, it cannot be detected until its too late and it causes no radiation. It is so versatile and incredible that its a miracle no country has yet deployed a kinetic bombardment system.

Or have they?

Today on escape velocity we will be discussing the incredible destructive power of orbital bombardment, and how the US might have put such a system in orbit called Project Thor.

Be prepared to witness the power of the rods from god!

The idea of dropping a heavy weight from above is a concept as old as time itself, with examples from siege warfare from the medieval period, to small munitions dropped from planes and balloons in world war 1.

But it wasn't until the Korean war that it became its own type of ballistic - called a kinetic projectile.

Called a lazy dog bomb, or a flechette, it was a simple piece of sheet metal folded over itself into the shape of a conventional bomb. When dropped on enemy troops it would have the same effect as a large caliber machine gun that could penetrate 9 inches of concrete- all thanks to gravity!

This concept sparked the minds of those working with the US nuclear program at Boeing, as it solved one of the major flaws of strategic defense. The fight against gravity!

After all, if the soviets launch nuclear rockets toward the united states, the defense system would have to launch itself to get up to the incoming rockets.

However, if the defensive systems were already in orbit and could launch using gravity and simply fall down to intercept the ussr's weapons before they could deploy any decoys or get within striking distance.

This system was dubbed 'smart rocks' and ticked all the boxes. As part of Regans star wars defense program, it would put the US countermeasures in low earth orbit away from any EMP strikes, hard to target with conventional weapons and have no radar signatures. Plus once up there, it would require very little fuel to maintain.

During the presidency of George H.W. Bush, it would evolve into a program called Brilliant pebbles, and be used as a cornerstone of the US defence network.

However, there were some flaws with the idea. The system itself would be more expensive to build and put into use, than the enemy's ability to launch an interception strike and take out the platform. Namely, if the enemy can handle it better than you can dish out, then it is useless.

Combined with the cost of a ground-based deterrence as well, it ended up being a multi-billion dollar program that would only last 10 years- with a complex decommissioning phase.

You wouldn't accidentally want any of these space rocks to miss the landing zone as you broke apart the station.

Or... do you?

You see, so far we have been discussing the use of these kinetic weapons as defensive tools to intercept Russian nukes.

But what if they were instead used as offensive weapons?

And that is exactly what the US government came up with in 2003, with an airforce project called the Hypervelocity Rod Bundle!

The idea was simple. A space station would have a few long rods made of incredibly dense material, such as tungsten, which they would drop onto enemy targets as the station flew over - with a few adjustments during flight.

This 6-meter, or 20-foot-long rod, would drop at a speed of Mach 10 through the atmosphere, going from launch to impact in only 12-15 minutes.

Upon impact, it would transfer all its orbital kinetic energy into the explosion, with a yield similar to a small tactical nuclear bomb, or 11.5 tons of tnt - without the radiation!

This is fantastically economical when compared to the weight of the rod - around 8.2 metric tons

The shape of the kinetic projectile was chsen to be an elongated rod to increase its penetrative abilities - to be able to hit mountain nuclear bunkers with ease and be a true bunker buster.

With such a fast closing velocity and a tiny radar cross section - not even any emissions, it would be nearly impossible to detect and defend against.

If say the United States had a series of 8-10 of these stations in orbit, they would be able to strike any location in 15 minutes from the command - half the time a traditional ICBM takes.

In order to secure the station, the stations themselves would be equipped with sensors to detect any anti-ballistic weapons, or anti-satelight weapons to move out of the way in time. If not, it would also have some anti-missile rockets or a large megawatt laser onboard that could melt the warheads.

The whole insane project was given the nickname "rods from god" and would render nearly all other forms of warfare obsolete.

Well, kind of- you see there are some flaws.

[rapidthrash]

“Hey SpaceX, we need to borrow a couple of starships from you.”
“For what?”
“It’s classified.”

[vin]

USMC/army: we have m1a series
USAF: we have darkstar
USN: we have DDGX
US space force: ROD

[veuriam]

I really like the idea of this video, but there are some major factual inaccuracies that I think needed to be addressed. The main issue I have is that the rods from god are described as game ending weapons which were on par with nukes, rather than the relatively weak but extraordinarily fast weapons they really were planned to be.

In addition, it's important to note that it is in reality very close to "dropping" the rods, as you actually don't need a very large orbital adjustment at all to drop below the upper atmosphere (~50 m/s compared to the 7800 of orbit). Most of the deceleration from mach ~25 to mach ~9 just comes from atmospheric drag, and aerodynamic control surfaces can be used for most of the steering.

This channel shows is incredibly engaging and explains these topics in a very fun way, but I would recommend a healthy dose of Kerbal Space Program for some of the hands-on-understanding of these types of things which you can only really get through trial and error.

[Chris-okzo]

I can just imagine this is like a space giant chucking spears from the heavens to devastate entire cities. That would be like a fantasy take on the idea, I guess.

[johannpatrickvillena]

All i can say both of ur channels is vastly underrated

[JohnJBrowne]

I believe science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle worked on this in the 1970s. And kinetic weapons were not covered by the Outer Space Treaty

[adamfrazer]

🤔 figure if the Outer Space Treaty hasn't already been legally-loopholed by now, it's not far off.

[lonestarwolfentertainment]

This would be the perfect Anti-Kaiju weapon.

[BacksteinAA]

What game was the scene in 3:40 from and from waht movie was te ending scene?

[ThatAsianGuy]

Reminding me of MAC guns of Halo just getting shot a the ground lol

[peppapig]

When did this channel get a new voice over guy?
Where is nick!?

[jimsvideos]

Oh yes it can be detected, the satellites would be easily tracked on radar and the RVs would be nice and toasty warm on re-entry.

[chesspiece]

I wonder if you could use a kinetic projectile with a delayed explosive. Let it's initial energy get through the target like the 9" of concrete and then explode. Imagine if you could deploy it with a small nuclear bomb. It could breech your target like say a concrete bunker and then detonate once inside. Especially if you could use laser guided targeting and hit the same spot repeatedly. If you had more than 9" to get through and could hit the same spot repeatedly you would be able to break through any type of bunker with ease?

[dataso]

Muy buen video...soy de argentina pero me encanta tus videos 👍🏽

[thomaseubank]

What you really aught to do is the piggyback shuttle flyback booster variants.

[atankersview]

The cost to put one fully loaded odin into orbit is north of 3 trillion.

[blurglide]

Uhhh....yeah....nuclear and antimatter are far more destructive.

[robertfoster]

The rods won't fall they need to be reduced from 8 kilometres a second orbital velocity

[Megames]

While this video is entertaining, I believe The Fat Electrician made a more factually correct video.

[lucidmoses]

Do you have any information on how they solved the control issues? Other then just generals pipe dream because he doesn't know the sciences. I'm looking for an actual solutions that doesn't leave the control system blind and melted. Oh and I guess the options to slow it down to a relative crawl kind of defeats the purpose.