WEBVTT - Space Weapons: Rods From God 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.160 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop works 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:14.080 dot com. Are you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind? 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.720 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian Savior. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:21.840 Today we're gonna talk about even more ways that humans 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.400 have devised to kill one another. In fact, I think 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:26.720 this is one of the most creative ways I've ever 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.120 heard of. Yeah, and we're talking about weapons here, a 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.600 crazy weaponized scheme that this will disguise ultimately doesn't really 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.000 hold any water, but but it's a It just shows 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.159 to what extent we'll we'll think about what are our 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.479 greatest technological achievements and then how can we use those 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:48.320 as a grandiose means to reign death on our enemies? Yeah? Yeah, 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.600 and I will get into it, but I can sort 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.720 of understand the justification for guys sitting around the room 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:55.520 trying to come up with all these grizzly ways to 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.400 destroy one another. Before we get into that, though, I 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.680 want to remind our audience that we are periscoping every 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.119 week now. So we did our first episode last week 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.560 as of this recording, and we are going to be 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.319 doing it every Friday at noon. You can find us 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:16.199 at Blow the mind on Periscope and Twitter and Facebook 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:20.040 and Tumbler, all those platforms will be letting people know 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.120 when we're periscoping, giving you a little bit of a 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.240 preview of what we're gonna be doing that week. I 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.360 think this week coming up, which will be in the 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.440 past for our listeners, Uh, we're going to be talking 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.520 about our favorite horror films and perhaps uh some of 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:39.080 our favorite gateway drug horror literature. Yeah, for for Halloween 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:40.800 and certainly as we we go far with you know, 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.039 it's we're having some fun with it. It's very loose, 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.919 very free form, very casual. We're just shooting the breeze 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.720 about some stuff that we're into, both on topic, uh 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:52.760 stuff with all your Mind material and sort of the 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.800 sort of jibber jabber on the side. Last time we 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:59.280 shot from within the podcast studio, we you know, will 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.880 hopefully be able to talk to you about what we've 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.440 recorded this week, what we're recording next week, behind the 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.320 scenes stuff, get to know with stuff. Uh yeah, so 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.120 check it out if that's your thing. And in addition 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.960 to that, we have heard and uh you know this 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.440 may or may not be true, but we've heard that 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.240 if your iTunes reviews are if you have a large 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:20.760 quantity of them, and obviously I would assume if they're 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.160 positive that it helps your rankings and iTunes for other 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:26.880 people to discover your show. So if you listen to 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.120 us on iTunes, if you have time, leave us a 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.480 review and help that algorithm out. And also, we just 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.600 found out yesterday that we are now available on Google 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.480 Play as well, so if you're using an Android device 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:41.639 or or something else, I believe you can download or 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.600 stream right through Google Play. Now. Yeah, yeah, it's exciting, 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.240 another great way to check out the your favorite episodes. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.120 So let's get into Let's let's get into the meat 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.880 of this episode though, which is something that's referred to 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.920 as Rods from God. And I know that sounds like 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.320 a horrible title for our pornography film, but it is 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:08.800 actually a space weapons system that has been devised and 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.600 has not actually been built to my knowledge. But but 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:19.160 the the idea is basically as simple as this um 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.200 space is already weaponized. Okay, so we know, like the 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.200 Corona was launched in the early nineteen sixties, is the 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.040 u S is for spy satellite so they could gather 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.160 information on the Soviets and their military arsenal uh Global 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.600 Positioning System, the GPS that we use in our cars 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.560 and on our phones that was originally designed to offer 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.600 navigation and timing for the U. S military. So the 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:47.720 idea here is that because space is becoming a an 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.800 area that is getting weaponized not only by the US 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.960 by but by other large nations like you know, uh, 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.320 former Soviet Union. We'll talk about China in a second, 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:05.040 these military teams are actually assigning the goal of trying 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.600 to find out other ways of developing technology for both 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.280 range and accuracy from space in the same way that 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.640 they did for land, sea and air. So space is 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:20.080 becoming a war zone and weaponized, right, And that's where 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.560 Rods from God came from. Yeah, a k A. Project 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.680 thor or. This is the more technical title that I like, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.120 hypervelocity rod Bundles, not to be confused with pro wrestler 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.040 Rod hypervelocity bundle, um who I couldn't help but created 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.880 my own head when I was reading this, uh, but 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.120 hypervelocity rod bundle. And it all comes down to just 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:47.839 this single stupendous idea. As a as a superpower, I 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.680 have the ability to put things into orbit and then 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.440 bring them back down again, which is just god like 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.159 in terms of human technology. So god like is this 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.600 power that I don't even need to use a weapon. Theoretically, 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.640 I could just put some tongusten up there. I could 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.120 put some steel up there and then just drop it 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.800 on you, and it's reintrigud alascity would be enough to 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.320 take out an enemy encampment, to dig down into a 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.440 bump bunker and blast that out. Doesn't even need any 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.880 explosives or munitions, just a big beam of steel. We're 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:25.200 literally talking about telephone pole sized bars of tungsten or 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:27.520 the other one that is proposed as uranium, and I'll 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.920 get into that in a minute, but that you just drop, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.640 uh like handing a bus to god Zilla getting him 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:36.640 to throw it a well. One of the alternatives you 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.000 wrote was death pennies from Heaven. I mean, the idea 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:43.839 here is essentially the same principle as that old urban 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:45.760 myth of the Union throw a penny off the Empire 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.280 State Building and it kills somebody, right, So it's the 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.880 same kind of principle here that that the idea being 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.640 that they would take two satellites, they'd launch them into orbit. 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.039 These two would work together several hundred miles above earth. 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.880 One of them is for targeting and communications back to 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.760 the ground. The other one carries a bundle of twenty 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.159 foot long tungsten rods that are one foot in diameter, 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.960 so these are pretty big. Between the time that somebody 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.040 on the ground says, uh, drop the rods, it takes 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:21.080 fifteen minutes for them to hit their target. They followed 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:25.159 a speed of thirty six thousand feet per second, and 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.800 when they hit they have the same destructive force as 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.880 a meteor strike. So that's essentially what we're talking about here. Uh. 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:36.040 The math goes like this. The energy is greater the 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.400 higher the orbit that you drop them from, right, but 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.839 so is the fall time. So in order to get 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.480 the energy the same energy of like a high explosive munitions, 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.719 you would need a material speed of three kilometers per second, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.440 and to do that you have to at least get 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:56.320 up to an altitude of forty four hundred and sixty kilometers. 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.800 This corresponds roughly to about twelve minutes falling time, and 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.160 that I think they probably added another three minutes for 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.480 you know, I'm assuming communications and mechanics of the technology 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.600 and such, But that's how this idea works. You're literally 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:15.960 dropping telephone pole pulls of metal on people on your targets, 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.320 and it just hits so hard that it will supposedly 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:25.320 just create this incredible explosive impact digging down into the earth. Right, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.880 And like you said, the idea here is that if 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.480 somebody like you're, you know, Osama bin Laden style target 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.280 is in a deep underground bunker, this is the way 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.840 that you get them without radiating the entire land around them. Yeah, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.760 and again it comes back to that it's very reminiscent 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.000 of the myth of the penny off the top of 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.400 the Empire State Building, which again, as you pointed out, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.000 wouldn't kill anybody. It's it's only a gram. It tumbles 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:50.960 as it falls, so there's too much air resistance for 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.320 it to do any damage. But even still, if you 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.480 were to throw a fifty gram nut off the Empire 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.920 State Building a roll of pennies, which is certainly more 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.400 like a rod um a bullet now you're talking, that 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.800 could actually kill somebody. And so that's the basic idea 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.320 here is just an epic death pennies from having kind 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:13.000 of scenario. And the other so I mentioned uranium. So 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.600 the tungsten and uranium, with the two materials that were 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:20.880 specifically listed. I originally wrote about this on a sister 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.720 site for How Stuff Works called Stuff of Genius, and 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.480 one of the readers they're actually suggested that titanium would 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:32.320 be better. And I don't have any inkling about materials sciences, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.560 so you know, I'd love to hear from the listeners 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.640 on what they think on this. But they were saying 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.600 that basically, tungsten is flammable, so of course it's going 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:41.720 to burn up on re entry, which we'll talk about later, 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:46.880 and uranium is reactive. Uh So it seems to defeat 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.079 the purpose because the gist here is that you want 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.000 to have the same explosive impact as a nuclear weapon 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:58.280 without leaving behind radiation, right, and essentially having that kind 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.200 of high powered explosive weapon without actually having to use explosives. 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:06.680 Now we're talking about guys sitting around thinking up ridiculous 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.120 high tech ways to tosh out some death. Who thought 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.680 this one up? So this is guy named Jerry Cornell, 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.120 and you out there may be familiar with him because 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.400 he's primarily known as a science fiction author. I was 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.000 gonna say, that's that's this name ring a Bell from 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:28.240 Path to Sci Fi section Perusals. Yeah. So Cornell, he's 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.000 an engineer. He's a science writer. He's primarily known for 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:36.479 science fiction. H He has degrees in experimental statistics, systems, engineering, psychology, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.240 and political science. He worked for Boeing in the nineteen 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.839 sixties and the idea was that he was going to 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.240 help develop the aerospace industry. But this is where he 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.160 came up the idea with dropping metal from outer space 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:52.040 to kill people. Um. I don't know if that was, 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.360 you know, on his action item list from a meeting 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:56.400 or something, but this is where it came up. So 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.800 the idea is a kinetic energy weapon. That's kind of 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.959 the herm that's used for these style weapons. It's been 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:08.720 around since something called the Rand Corporation proposed placing rods 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:10.920 on the tips of I C B M s way 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.480 back in the nineteen fifties. And we'll get back into 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.839 that later because that seems to actually be the more 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.240 plausible method of kinetic energy deployment. Yeah, attaching to the 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.120 front of an intercontinental bollistic missile. A little bit more 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.000 about Jerry Parnell. I want to get into though, before 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.680 we get into to the rest of the science behind 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:28.800 Rods of God. So he's, like I said, he's best 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:30.400 known as a sci fi novelist. I haven't read any 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.400 of his books, but I'm really curious about them. He 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.880 maintains a pretty active blog. Uh. He attracted attention from 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.880 politicians in the eighties. Ronald Reagan actually applauded a tract 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.240 that he wrote that was called Mutually Assured Survival as 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:49.320 space age solution to nuclear annihilation. And then he and 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.720 Newt Gingrich actually teamed up and worked together on a 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.560 novel that is so far unpublished. I want to read 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.440 this though. It's called The Faction, and here's the premise. 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:06.560 The Yakuza worked together with big corporations to overthrow the government, 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:08.920 and the way that they do it is by using 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.360 kinetic kill type weapons. They use Rods from God. So 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:16.640 he's repurposed his own idea for for this novel that 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.760 he's working on with Nuke king Rich. Unfortunately, he suffered 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.240 a stroke in he's still writing. My understanding is that 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.200 he's still active, but not as much as he used 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.360 to be. By the way, and I have not read this, 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.800 but apparently he wrote the novelization of the movie Escape 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:35.280 from the Planet of the Apes. Oh wow, Which that's so? 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:37.960 Is that the one that has a nuke in it 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:39.439 as a central theme? Is that the one with the 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.839 undergo cool letter ground stuff. Um, I always get them 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.760 mixed up. I later escape from Planet of the Apes, 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:48.679 the one where they go back in time and they 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:52.880 actually two Apes come to present day America and they 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.320 end up trying to convince like Congress or something like 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.560 that that they shouldn't uh, you know, proceed with war. Yeah, 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:02.920 that was I timed out before they really got to 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:04.839 that point. In my viewing, this one would be the third. 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.400 I've just looked it out. Yeah. The first one that's 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:09.440 Planet of the apeses we know and love it. Second 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.640 one is Beneath the Plant of the Apes is a 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.439 few of us know and love. But I love it 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.920 because it has those more locky in creatures that live 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.760 underground and worship the bomb. This would have been the 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.200 third one he wrote for the So, so keep in 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.720 mind that the guy who came up with this idea 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.720 and that the US government has actively worked on, and 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.040 also the weapons industry has has actively worked on, also 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.040 happened to work on the Planet of the Apes franchise. Uh, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.439 and So in particular, in the last decade alone, there's 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.400 been two big reports that are public and have been 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.400 written about this. The first was in two thousand three 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.160 and it was the U. S. Air Forces Transformation Flight Plan. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.040 And then in two thousand two that RAND Corporation again, uh, 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.400 they wrote a report called Space Weapons Earth Wars, which 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.560 were probably gonna reference a lot in this because we 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.040 read it for the podcast. Um and I'll link to 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.240 some of these resources on the landing page of this episode, 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.440 at least the ones that are easily accessed by everyone. 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:06.880 So this is a concept that people are taking seriously. 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.600 They're they're doing the math, they're doing the science. They're 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.920 trying to figure out can we drop these telephone polls 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.320 on our enemies and destroy them without irradiating them. And 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.400 there's one other benefit to this too. The other benefit 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.960 is that weapons like this wouldn't technically violate the nineteen 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.719 seventy two Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty. So if you put 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.160 them up and you were dropping them in the way 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.680 that we're we've described, I think you could you know, 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.439 work your way around that. Now, I want to point 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.000 out that just just as this relates nicely to dropping 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.160 pennies off the mentire state building. There have been a 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.600 number of missile weapons that achieve the same ends, though 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.319 in a smaller scale. You know, make a payload go up, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.840 bring it back down. Uh As for achieving enough altitude 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.680 that the descent speed weaponizes the payload, well, we have 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.720 a couple of interesting examples from the twentieth century. Um 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.839 in World War One that you saw air dropped fletchets, 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.560 which were essentially just look like metal arrowheads that were 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.960 dropped out the same ideas. So you dropped them from 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.560 an airplane, they can achieve enough velocity to do some 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:13.640 damage when they hit. Those are the things that the 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:19.240 X Men archangel shoots out of his wings. Yet yeah, 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:23.080 I feel like they flashettes show up his um as 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.360 immunition and the sci fi properties as well, Like I 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.560 think Gibson deployed them. Roment idea of using them as 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.720 kinnecticut like railguns or something like that is popular because 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:35.960 again the ideas of it's moving fast enough, there's enough 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.960 kinetic energy you don't need explosive energy. Additionally, there's something 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.080 called lazy dog bombs, and these are developed in World 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.200 War Two and deployed in Vietna and Vietnamic Korean wars, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.560 sometimes called buzz bombs, sometimes called lawn darts, because essentially 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.359 that's what you're talking about, a bunch of small, unguided 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:59.160 kinetic projectiles. They're not technically bombs. Often they're dropped in clusters, 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.560 sometimes for a mounted casings underneath the wing of an airplane, 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.760 other other times supposedly just hurled out in a bucket, 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.640 you know, very very loose, very Hey, we're up here 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.000 just by virtue of being in the air at a 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.760 certain altitude, we have the kinetic advantage by throwing these 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.480 things out. So the idea itself pretty simple. But when 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.120 you take it up, when you take it up to 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:26.360 an orbital level, that's where you get some real, essentially 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.480 cosmic destructive possibilities. Yeah, and so this kind of reminds me, 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.480 I know, this is like an actual explosive munition, at 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.320 least as my understanding. But around the time of the 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.280 beginning of the war in Iraq, Uh, there was a 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.520 lot of attention being paid to the Daisy Cutter. Do 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.480 you remember that it was a specific kind of like 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.280 bunker buster type weapon, uh. And I think the attraction 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.600 was that, like it was so incredibly powerful that it 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.359 could defeat our enemies, and yet it wasn't as horrific 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.720 as like the nuclear bomb right in off exactly, yeah, 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.360 shocking off. So I think this is the same sort 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.600 of principle, although it's kinnectic and not explosive. UM and 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.040 I do want to take a second here too as 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.000 an aside. These are different from what you may have 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.640 heard about in the news lately, being referred to as 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:21.040 anti ship ballistic missiles or a s b M. S UM. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.320 These have been They were something that the US actually 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.400 tested in the nineteen sixties and had two successful flights 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.800 with the Soviet Union developed them in the past, but 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.520 more recently, in January of two thousand and fourteen, China 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.320 conducted a test of a hypersonic glide vehicle that was 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:41.480 designed to carry missiles designed to sink aircraft carriers. UH. 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.640 This thing flies at mock ten. It isn't the first 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:46.440 time that they've developed an a s b M, but 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.800 it's thought to be like the stage, the second stage 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.600 of their program essentially, UH and the idea is that 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.640 it's very similar to this. It launches an I C 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.520 b M up into outer space and then sends that 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.840 back down at mock ten, so there's no satellite up there. 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:03.920 It just launches it up and brings it back down. 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.800 And the ideas that one of these things would hit 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.119 an aircraft carrier and just completely take it out, and 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.040 that uh they move. I think the idea here is 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.840 like that they move so quickly, uh faster than actually 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:21.120 like traditional munitions, that they're difficult for anti air defenses 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.480 to take down. So there's some concern about that. But 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.440 this is not the same not the same thing. Okay, alright, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.000 well we're gonna take a quick break and when we 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.719 come back, we're going to get into the feasibility of 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.359 rods from God's and this is where it gets a 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:45.080 little more fun and ultimately where everything falls apart. All right, 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:49.040 we're back, Yeah, so let's talk about how feasible rods 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.320 from God actually are. It's nice a bunch of guys 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.680 sitting around in a room smoking cigars, talking about sci 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.320 fi ideas on how they could kill each other. Then 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.600 let's get down to the nuts and bolts of this thing. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.000 So first of all, uh, there's some scientific reasons why 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.400 it wouldn't work. Uh. One is vaporization. So the thing 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:13.200 that that we see with with meteorites. Yeah. Uh so 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:19.360 even a giant tungsten rod would probably vaporize on impact. Um. 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:21.760 There's been some ideas that, like you could attach to 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.359 retro rockets to each one of the rods that would 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.240 slow their re entry slightly, but some the calculations basically 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.320 say that if you did that, the non explosive rod 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.080 would then be no more effective than the commit conventional 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.240 munitions that we already have it And you're kind of 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.080 betraying the spirit of the thing, right, because the whole 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.760 idea is I have all this technology and I can 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.000 use it to destroy up drop a big chunk of 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.840 metal lining. If we're putting rockets on that, then we're 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.440 kind of getting back into the area of just creating 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.479 a space missile. Yeah, and it's going to be more 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.600 expensive to which is another drawback that the physics just 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.800 wouldn't work. High velocity impact would limit the actual penetration depth. 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.359 So remember, like you know, part of the idea behind 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.600 this is to bust bunkers, right to get those underground 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:11.520 uh headquarters, I guess that are usually unreachable. If you 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:16.000 look at high speed photography of a bullet impacting steel 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.680 at one kilometer a second. And remember, to achieve the 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.320 rod from god uh impact, you have to hit three 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:25.960 kilometers per second, but just at one kilometer a second, 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.080 Apparently the jacket fragments right off of the bullet and 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.159 leaves a small crater on the on the steel that 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:36.560 it strikes. So the idea here is that like there 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.719 would be probably a similar effect on a larger scale 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.720 that the rods would chatter vaporized. They might leave a 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:45.119 little bit of a crater, but for the most part, 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.920 it wouldn't have the explosive impact that they're looking for. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.520 In fact, the Sandy A Laboratory, which I didn't know 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.600 about until doing this research, it's a national security nuclear 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.240 weapons testing facility. They've actually confirmed predictions about this UH 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.760 looking that at that even the hardest materials will max 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.960 out their penetration capabilities at one kilometer per second. So 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.080 you go any faster than that, the tip of the 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:13.119 rod will probably liquefy. Uh. It will cause the penetration 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.280 depth to fall off, and then you get this situation 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:19.560 where even if they're delivered from low altitudes, they would 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:24.200 only deliver one ninth of the destructive energy per gram force. 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.760 As a conventional bomb. So again, what's the point of 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:30.879 that where we're totally losing the spirit of our beautiful, 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:36.480 uh death dealing device exactly. Yeah, And also keep in 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.080 mind too that even if the entire rod doesn't vaporize, 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.080 the tip would probably deform or something like that, which 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.639 would change their flight path considerably and you end up 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.560 striking a nearby town or something rather than the bunker 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.120 that you're trying to strike. Yeah, because each rod would 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.280 need to follow eight percies nearly vertical flight path they 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:57.879 wanted to reach its target. Again, assuming you don't have 0:20:57.880 --> 0:20:59.920 any kind of thrusters on there that are turning into 0:20:59.920 --> 0:21:02.840 a missile more of a guided missile anyway. So I 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.399 mean it's difficult enough to figure this out without factoring 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.520 in a rod it's partially disintegrated or warped due to 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.720 all this re entry friction. Yeah, and so this is 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:13.359 the thing like for me, like again, not knowing a 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:16.520 lot about material science, I'm wondering why tungsten is the 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.040 metal that they chose for the proposal, given that it's 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.720 flammable and it's you know, going to be just on 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:28.760 re entry alone, probably gonna catch on fire. So I'm 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:30.800 not quite sure, there must be a reason, though, I 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.399 would think, or maybe maybe it's literally just like a 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.240 sci fi novel pitch and just in with it. Uh So, 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.680 Actually to get to the you know, the the actual 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:45.320 proposal in that Rand Corporation Space Weapons, Earth Wars, the 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:47.840 authors suggest that one way that they could address this 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.080 is by quote extruding material through pores in the nose 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.880 tip of the rod for evaporation. Another option, they pitch 0:21:56.119 --> 0:22:00.400 is abletative cooling, where the outer layer would be designed 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.160 to melt away on purpose. But again, then you get 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.720 that thing where the nose potentially deforms, and then you know, 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.520 it's just completely unpredictable where this thing is going to hit. Yeah, 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.119 you again, we just see it at time and time again. Here, 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.640 with just the basic physical design, it sounds like it'll 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:18.120 be a simple, yeah, procedure, a simple design. But even 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:19.359 then you have to tweak it. It's like, all right, 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:21.480