Of all the far-fetched space weapons hyped by the Times last month, “Rods from God” are probably the most dubious. That doesn’t stop the Weekly Standard from panting about how totally wicked awesome it would be if the Air Force really could drop giant tungsten slabs from orbit, however.
The system could represent a tremendous leap forward in the military’s ability to destroy underground, hardened facilities of the type that have allowed Iran and other rogue states to violate the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty with impunity…
Iran has used deeply buried facilities to shelter its nuclear program… This has limited America’s options for intervention. A conventional attack on such facilities might succeed in setting the Iranian program back a few years, but due to the presumed dispersal of equipment over a number of sites across the Islamic Republic, only good intelligence and a great deal of luck would eliminate the threat entirely. And while a nuclear attack could be tactically successful, it is politically unviable. A few well-placed tungsten rods, however, would guarantee the destruction of the targeted facilities.
And so on. It’s not until the 9th paragraph (of a 12-graph story) that the Standard reveals, “the likelihood of the rods, or any other system, being deployed in space over the next decade [are] next to nil.’” What’s never mentioned at all is the opinion of many physicists that the rods would only be a small fraction as effective as conventional bombs.
There is room, however, for a wee scare tactic before the story is through.
It’s likely that space will be weaponized. The only question is whether the U.S. Air Force or [China’s] People’s Liberation Army will be at the vanguard of the revolution.
(Big ups: Geek Press, Dr. J)
THERE’S MORE: Interestingly, the most sober moments in the Standard story read an awful lot like Popular Science’s June ’04 take on the rods. Here’s the Standard:
[The rods are] at least 10 years away from being operational, and the cost of launching heavy tungsten rods into orbit would be, well, astronomical. Other financial challenges include the satellite’s “absentee-ratio,” which refers to number of satellites, or in this case bundles of rods, which would be necessary to assure proximity to the target.
Furthermore, it may be necessary to slow substantially the rods’ rate of speed to prevent them from vaporizing on impact–though retrorockets might offer a solution to this problem. Simply attaching a tungsten rod to the tip of an ICBM would overcome many of these hurdles.
And here’s PopSci:
If so-called “Rods from God”… ever do materialize, it wont be for at least 15 years. Launching heavy tungsten rods into space will require substantially cheaper rocket technology than we have today. But there are numerous other obstacles to making such a system work.… The rods speed would be so high that they would vaporize on impact, before the rods could penetrate the surface. Furthermore, the “absentee ratio” — the fact that orbiting satellites circle the Earth every 100 minutes and so at any given time might be far from the desired targetwould be prohibitive. A better solution, Pike argues, is to pursue the original concept: Place the rods atop intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would slow down enough during the downward part of their trajectory to avoid vaporizing on impact.
Hmmmm.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh pleeeeeease…….it was such a good concept in those science fiction novels…..can we at least have the intelligent tanks with the energy disruptor bolts
Does it really matter that the rods would vaporize? I would think that the effect would be based on energy transfer, not mechanical penetration, and that would be essentially the same regardless of the phase of the material striking the target.
I am sure that is wrong for some reason – enlightenment please!
Cranky
You can count on it: they might advertise the God Rods as tungsten, but they’ll most likely be depleted uranium alloy with a temperature-resistant ceramic outer coating to act as a heat shield and slow oxidation.
An ionized plasma might dissipate in the atmosphere and wouldn’t penetrate or transfer kinetic energy.
Ceramic-coated depleted uranium would penetrate, carry lots of mass for kinetic energy transfer, and burn ferociously. It might also leave a toxic radioactive residue for a final long term effect.
I read a Rand Corporation report called “Space Weapons, Earth Wars”; the report stated that liquid tungsten is pyrophoric, so considering that, and all the whining that would come from the use of “radioactive” depleted uranium, tungsten would be a better choice
I HATE CHINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
If excess velocity is a problem, how about hanging a cone on the backend as an airbrake? Figuring out the size needed doesn’t sound like it’d be rocket science.
In hearing about the exotic materials proposed for these things, well, I can’t help but remember that all the destruction that has resulted over the years from mother nature’s bombardment system has been done with rocks.
So, people still buy that whole “vaporizes on impact” thing? While there would be *some* vaporization and/or melting, mostly what you ought to have is simply a solid that’s past it’s plastic limit. BTW, the rule of thumb is at 3 km/sec, an object’s KE is the equivalent of that same mass of TNT (for reference sake).
The real argument against the Rods from God is: how do you target the thing and guide it in when the plasma sheath from plowing through the atmosphere at that speed will eliminate the use of GPS and you’d need a REALLY stable IMU to carry on from the last update. After all, we’re not talking 100 m CEP being good enough, you’re going to need something on the order of 10 m. And if you can locate the target that precisely to begin with, why wouldn’t you build something like a hypersonic cruise missile to take the target out, rather than put all that mass in orbit. Finally, if I’m the bad guy, I take apart the best tank I can and duplicate a scaled-up version of the front glacis over top of my underground facility.
Finally, on the bright side, the deeply buried target generally doesn’t move much, so, unless you get specific intel that person X will be in the bunker between 10:00 and 10:05, you don’t need to worry about the absentee ratio much. Just wait until the next satellite comes along and spank your target.
- Eric.
I would just say to all of you, that if it hasent been for Oncle Sam I would be speaking german or russian by now. I live in Denmark and somebody has to dominate the high ground, and I prefer Oncle Sam instead of China or Russia. They too has spaceweapons in progress so why not deter them with a weapon like rods from god ???. That would make a small nuke-explosion and a chockwave through the concrete, making the concrete pulverising, because the molecular structure cant hold together with such a sudden chockwave. Thank god for Oncle Sam resourching in such weapons so that we as a free west can deter others from doing bad things.
Hans-Ole from Denmark.
This is not a new concept. Way back in the '80s Lockheed worked on a system called "Spears from Space". They were designed to fit on the D5 missile so they could be launched from subs. That way they could have higher availablity for a variety of targets. They were designed with Be for reentry heating with a movable slug of metal inside the main tube to enhance the impact effects. They had a cone on the tail for speed/stability control. They were intended to take out Soviets subs by dropping a load of them in the general area. If one spear found the target it could easily go through all the decks and sink the sub. It was designed to hit targets within 150 feet or so of the surface. Never was deployed because of the "well, duh" effect when one considers that the Soviets would see the launch of a D5 and not know if it was carrying nukes or inert spears. In other words, if you used them, you'd be starting a nuke war, even if you weren't launching nukes. Bad concept then, bad concept now.
RODS FROM GOD YA'LL!!!