virtualgirl
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Rods From God
Rods of tungsten, stored on an orbiting platform [top], would be released
to strike buried targets on Earth. However, each rod would take several minutes to reach
its target and would be difficult to steer, limiting the weapon to attacking fixed positions. There is also
an upper bound on the rods\' velocity, which means their destructive force would be similar
to that of cheaper conventional explosives. Illustration ? 2005 by IEEE.
ANOTHER AIR FORCE SPACE PROGRAM NICKNAMED 'RODS FROM GOD,' THE NEW YORK TIMES SAYS, "AIMS TO HURL CYLINDERS OF TUNGSTEN, TITANIUM OR URANIUM FROM THE EDGE OF SPACE TO DESTROY TARGETS ON THE GROUND, STRIKING AT SPEEDS OF ABOUT 7,200 MILES AN HOUR WITH THE FORCE OF A SMALL NUCLEAR WEAPON."
IS THERE ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS EXPERIMENTAL WORK NOW WITH THE XSS-11 AND THIS AMAZINGLY TITLED 'RODS FROM GOD'?
Not really. They are for different missions. The USAF has also been studying that concept which is formally known now as the 'Hyper Velocity Rod Bundles.' Since the late 1980s to early 1990s, when I was at Defense News, I did a story on one of the programs. It was at that time called the 'Long Rod Penetrator Program' and the idea is that you have the tungsten rods that would hurtle out of space and supposedly be able to bury themselves deep in the ground and hit hard at a target. It's actually not very simple to do that. The laws of physics are against you in many ways. You have to go so fast to get down, but if you are going too fast you are not going to be able to penetrate because you're going to burn up in the atmosphere. So, there are a lot of physical problems with that and it's not a new concept. It's something the USAF did study in the 1990s and sort of put away on the shelf and said this is not doable.
It's now been resurrected in some papers of the USAF. The mention of this system comes from something called the "FY2003 US Transformation Flight Plan," which is a document the USAF does every year that looks at where they intend to be ten to fifteen or twenty years down the road, the kind of capabilities they want to have. This system was cited in the 2003 document as something the USAF would like to have in the 2015 to 2030 time frame.
I don't know of monies being spent on this program in the same way as the XSS-11 has already been spent and is operating. I don't know of any monies in the budget for the Rods From God that are in a planning paper.
DO YOU KNOW WHO NAMED IT?
(laughs) Well, the nickname has been around forever. That's not its real name. Its real name is Hyper Velocity Rod Bundles (HVRB) and it used to be called the Long Rod Penetrator (LRP). But even back in the 1990s, the nickname for it was the Rods From God.
WHICH GIVES THE IDEA OF A METAPHOR OF JUPITER UP THERE THROWING DOWN...
Throwing down lightning bolts, exactly! I think that's exactly why it was nicknamed that. I don't think it's an official USAF nickname.
Rods of tungsten, stored on an orbiting platform [top], would be released
to strike buried targets on Earth. However, each rod would take several minutes to reach
its target and would be difficult to steer, limiting the weapon to attacking fixed positions. There is also
an upper bound on the rods\' velocity, which means their destructive force would be similar
to that of cheaper conventional explosives. Illustration ? 2005 by IEEE.
ANOTHER AIR FORCE SPACE PROGRAM NICKNAMED 'RODS FROM GOD,' THE NEW YORK TIMES SAYS, "AIMS TO HURL CYLINDERS OF TUNGSTEN, TITANIUM OR URANIUM FROM THE EDGE OF SPACE TO DESTROY TARGETS ON THE GROUND, STRIKING AT SPEEDS OF ABOUT 7,200 MILES AN HOUR WITH THE FORCE OF A SMALL NUCLEAR WEAPON."
IS THERE ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN THIS EXPERIMENTAL WORK NOW WITH THE XSS-11 AND THIS AMAZINGLY TITLED 'RODS FROM GOD'?
Not really. They are for different missions. The USAF has also been studying that concept which is formally known now as the 'Hyper Velocity Rod Bundles.' Since the late 1980s to early 1990s, when I was at Defense News, I did a story on one of the programs. It was at that time called the 'Long Rod Penetrator Program' and the idea is that you have the tungsten rods that would hurtle out of space and supposedly be able to bury themselves deep in the ground and hit hard at a target. It's actually not very simple to do that. The laws of physics are against you in many ways. You have to go so fast to get down, but if you are going too fast you are not going to be able to penetrate because you're going to burn up in the atmosphere. So, there are a lot of physical problems with that and it's not a new concept. It's something the USAF did study in the 1990s and sort of put away on the shelf and said this is not doable.
It's now been resurrected in some papers of the USAF. The mention of this system comes from something called the "FY2003 US Transformation Flight Plan," which is a document the USAF does every year that looks at where they intend to be ten to fifteen or twenty years down the road, the kind of capabilities they want to have. This system was cited in the 2003 document as something the USAF would like to have in the 2015 to 2030 time frame.
I don't know of monies being spent on this program in the same way as the XSS-11 has already been spent and is operating. I don't know of any monies in the budget for the Rods From God that are in a planning paper.
DO YOU KNOW WHO NAMED IT?
(laughs) Well, the nickname has been around forever. That's not its real name. Its real name is Hyper Velocity Rod Bundles (HVRB) and it used to be called the Long Rod Penetrator (LRP). But even back in the 1990s, the nickname for it was the Rods From God.
WHICH GIVES THE IDEA OF A METAPHOR OF JUPITER UP THERE THROWING DOWN...
Throwing down lightning bolts, exactly! I think that's exactly why it was nicknamed that. I don't think it's an official USAF nickname.
)
