• Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    The rods from God’s idea is insane and won’t work.

    We had this back when the Russians announced they were going to drop conventional ordinance from space, and everyone pointed out that they would be lucky to hit the right continent, let alone Ukraine. In order to make this actually work, you would have to have an active aiming system. Which you know, is a missile.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      1 year ago

      The launch platform can aim it and use math to account for gravity, the atmosphere and all that jazz to hit the target at least close enough. Just like we already do to safely crash/burn up space debris.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        No, they can’t. The atmosphere is an unknown state, different temperatures, different densities, different wind directions, none of which can be known ahead of time. That’s why weather forecasting is always approximate. You get a percentage chance that it’ll rain. You don’t get a definite time stamp with 100% accuracy.

        We cannot predict atmospheric disturbances to the level necessary to make this a practical system. When they burn up space debris they do it “somewhere over the middle bit of the Atlantic” That’s about the level of definition you get. It’s not accurate at all.

      • Spaz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Someone (veritasium?) Already did an episode on this and concluded even at like 500 feet up from ground, without an active guidance system, it’s up to luck to hit within a reasonable distance, IIRC.

        • Taringano@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Lol you can’t compare a youtuber 500ft up throwing weights with a full military and scientific effort.

        • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.deM
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          1 year ago

          tungsten darts from space sounds relatively sane already. what the boss of russian space agency came up with is putting pallet of FAB series bombs as a payload of an orbital delivery rocket, but instead of putting them at orbit, using it as a giant ballistic missile. take a minute to appreciate how stupid idea is this: at these speeds explosive provides something like 20% of total energy if not less, and you can’t target them really well without good guidance package. if you slow it all down to make aerodynamic guidance easier, you give up the primary advantage which is speed, making it a target for GBAD. all of these bombs would need to survive reentry, and russians don’t have IMX

          it’s not rods from god, conventional FOBS, or anything like that. it’s much more stupid: it’s rogozhin trying to make himself relevant again

        • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          It’d be less of a problem if an altitude rail could be set up to deliver the materials to space, but at that point all you’re achieving is making it very obvious what you’re sending into space since all anyone has to do is watch the cargo that’s riding the rail into low gravity orbit

        • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.deM
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          1 year ago

          Gram of tungsten has a mass of something like 15 grams

          I’m referring to Rogozhin’s idea of putting FAB-500s as a payload, boompaste doesn’t tolerate such conditions