How would you weaponize it?
Payload to orbit is 150 tons reusable, 250ish tons expendable
Its capable of orbit reentry
How would you weaponize it? Payload to orbit is 150 tons reusable, 250ish tons expendable. Its capable of orbit reentry
How would you weaponize it?
Payload to orbit is 150 tons reusable, 250ish tons expendable
Its capable of orbit reentry
Almost enough payload to drop deez nuts of Xi's face
one 250 ton slug of depleted uranium
>250 tons
That's 25 times more than even the biggest ICBM can hurl at a target.
Somebody do the maths of how big an impact we can get ?
>was trying to find a picture to show scale
>realize a person is actually in this one
christ
Rods from god?
>why_rods_from_god_are_a_meme.pdf
It’s just gonna be a frickton of satellites
Reminder that Belka did nothing wrong.
7 wasn't enough
Obligatory, yo momma.
Still smaller than yo mammas dildo
> how do you weaponize literally a fricking missile
idk
Make it drop nukes
>250 tons of nukes
based moderate
>1 Tsar Bomba = 27 tons
>Starship could carry up to 9 Tsar Bombas
That’s 900 mega tons worth of explosive power
you can get twice the yield with half the weight using modern W88 style asymmetrical imploding warheads, probably way more with theoretical designs that were never test outside of super computer simulations
>Nuclear carpet bombing
What are these theoretical designs?
>tfw 1 rocket can drop 20 100 megaton MIRVs on a country
Wtf was he thinking
Quick reminder that the Tsar Bomba was detonated at a reduced yield.
So that's at minimum 2700MT of nuk.
Without factoring that even with a giant led weight the Tsar Bomba still overshot the designed 50MT and was somewhere in the 52~55MT range.
launch 10 MIRV 100mt nukes
load several up with 250 tons of 3mm silica BB's and a bursting charge
>Its capable of orbit reentry
As of now it is not even capable of leaving the launch pad. The deaign is moronic and it will never be successfull.
people said the same about falcon 9 and now its the most reliable rocket system ever made, and more reliable then most rockets when landing
BFTG Big Fricking Thermobaric Bomb, the ultimate weapon.
Get Nuke performance without the messy political and literal fallout.
> Big-ass frickoff missile heading towards your position
> Afterwards, huge explosion with mushroom cloud
They're gonna THINK it was a nuke
Brilliant Pebbles, Rods from God, and other orbital infrastructure.
Using Starship itself as a weapon or military transport is fairly useless because it needs a spaceport or at least a shipping port to land at if you want to reuse it.
>How can I weaponize what is esentially an ICBM with a 250 ton payload
yes
now answer the question
Nukes
250 tons is still with reaching orbit, suborbital flight would be able to carry a little more. So delivering like 1000 megatones in multiple re-entry vehicles could be achived.
Imagine 1000 megatones worth of MIRVs raining down on a certain eastern militaristic shithole
I think I coomed a little
Depends on what kind of speed it could theoretically reach on reentry. High enough and just a huge kinetic penetrator would be the best. Clean, impossible to intercept, once it starts dropping on target and still enough power to completely obliterate anything you aim at.
You can't. It has zero practical military value beyond being able to launch military satellites, and even then it's massively overkill since no satellite has been heavier than the capabilities of the D4H in over 30 years.
Bigger nukes are a meme since energy starts dispersing into space past 50 megatons. Kinetic impactors are also a meme since why wouldn't you just use a cheaper explosive you dumb homosexual.
>inb4 le point to point
>Bigger nukes
There's options besides bigger.
Cluster bomb, but nukelets instead of bomblets. Nukes in massive steel penetrator casings for bunker-busting and also humanitarian excavation purposes.
And then there's delivering ordinary quantities of ordinary-sized nukes to extraordinary locations, such as the moon or mars. Just because there's no targets of military significance there now, doesn't mean that there won't be tomorrow.
>You can't. It has zero practical military value beyond being able to launch military satellites
>it has zero practicality besides being able to do the most useful thing needed right now
>and even then it's massively overkill since no satellite has been heavier than the capabilities of the D4H in over 30 years.
weight isn't the only part of a sat that's a limiting factor, the size is as well
it's also fully reusable and lowers the cost of launches and increases launch cadence
imagine we are able to get enough sats into orbit that the entire surface of the earth can be recorded at the same time, you driving your car 8 years ago could be used against you and instantly able to be recalled, along with cell records etc
the amount of data available would be insane
you'd need to store 8 years straight of data for the entire world for that idea.
that's not an issue at all
>why wouldn't you just use a cheaper explosive you dumb homosexual
How would an explosive be cheaper? A kinetic impactor is literally just a hunk of heavy metal with some stabilizers on.
The issue isn't actually the cost. Deorbiting mechanics means you have to slow your ass down to actually get out of orbit which defeats half the purpose of having the impactor. You can't just shoot your rod straight down. Even if you could, you're liable to burning up most of the mass even if it was huge ass rod of tungsten.
Can't you just steer the orbiter towards a collision trajectory either downwards toward the ground or upwards like an elleptic orbit but on a collision course?
Yes. Other anon has apparently never heard of "ICBMs" before, or never actually learned about what their flight profile is.
>Deorbiting mechanics means you have to slow your ass down to actually get out of orbit
Wrong. You just have to shift into an elliptic that intercepts the Earth. That's the whole thing with intercontinental ballistic missiles, they go plenty fast (up to 7.8km/s) and way out of atmosphere (1200+ km) but as the name says follow a ballistic trajectory. It's suborbital spaceflight with an elliptical orbit, final impact speed at something like 7km/s. That's what makes them such a challenge to intercept.
>The issue isn't actually the cost
The issue is absolutely the cost.
>you're liable to burning up most of the mass
Anon by your logic ICBM reentry vehicles would be impossible. Obviously that's not the case. Optimizing shape creates a stuck air cushion in front of the shockfront so that the actual surface of the reentry isn't in direct contact with the primary plasma.
So it's true that "rod" probably wouldn't be the exact choice vs more of a blunt inverted cone, but in terms of kinetic energy there'd be no problem at least matching the same speed an ICBM reentry vehicle does, in fact it'd be easier without all the sensitive bits needing protection inside.
150 tons @7.8km/s would give a naive total potential (4.14 trillion joules) of around 1 kiloton tnt worth of energy. Though initial SS may only do 100 tons, if SS isn't launching ballistic itself then fuel will be needed by the rods to change their orbit which will subtract mass, and obviously there are complexities here in how it actually affects things, it'll act different then an explosive.
>It has zero practical military value beyond being able to launch military satellites,
>except for its extreme military value, it has no military value.
Easily the lowest IQ post of /k/ today, and I'm including the Ziggers baiting. Literal 55 IQ subhuman intelligence holy shit.
>and even then it's massively overkill since no satellite has been heavier than the capabilities of the D4H in over 30 years.
Maybe because the D4H was the most capable launch vehicle? You don't typically build sats you can't launch.
>and even then it's massively overkill since no satellite has been heavier than the capabilities of the D4H in over 30 years.
Fricking moron. First, you're reversing causality. No satellite has been heavier then the capabilities of the biggest available rocket BECAUSE THEN IT COULDN'T ACTUALLY BE LAUNCHED duh. It's not like that was some fundamental limit of value, and DIVH was super fricking expensive too. More volume and more mass orders of magnitude cheaper has reinforcing effects. You can mass produce, design using vastly cheaper materials (no need for fancy alloys, just use steel/aluminum), design stuff to get replaced every 5-10 years, all of which further lowers cost and improves capabilities. If nothing else military sats can consume a basically unlimited amount of mass merely by having more fuel allowing them to have far longer life times and adjustment capability.
And a hundred other obvious things but you're a moron not worth repeating it. Suffice to say this either lol or cope or both.
>Kinetic impactors are also a meme since why wouldn't you just use a cheaper explosive you dumb homosexual.
Explosives are not cheaper. They can fail to work. They are many times slower. They have far less range. And they are massively easier to intercept. Kinetic impactors when mass to LEO is <$100/kg is absolutely useful.
>it's massively overkill since no satellite has been heavier than the capabilities of the D4H in over 30 years
You’re moronic
>no satellite has been heavier than the capabilities of the D4H in over 30 years
Do you understand how stupid you are?
Mining the Moon and Mars so the CCCP and India can't land there.
The West shall continue its March forward
(you)
Another one: bioweapon delivery. Consider a modernized version of WWII's Operation Vegetarian. 250 tons of bioweapon delivery would have dramatic impact.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vegetarian
Create the space marine division.
Deploy from orbit a few m1 abrams with parachutes.
You actually launch a brilliant pebbles constellation and then use your ICBMs to counterforce zigger and chink nukes
>5+ billions of petro dollars wasted per flight
>*explodes mid air*
kek
I don't really understand the point of even making such a moronic post.
But enough about the SLS
Send shitloads of small satellite tugs into Leo and chase enemy satellites around and Deorbit them.
it's only a menace to its launching pad
>250 tons
I’ll believe it when I see it.
First chance to see it will probably be the lunar lander. It's unlikely SpaceX will want to use SS as an expendable very often, nor will it normally be that good a choice in that role, the exception will be when it's not launching something and getting expended but rather the ship itself will be used after refueling. I have no problem believing it'll be far higher because lots of other optimizations that can be done. Lunar SS is never coming back to Earth, so SpaceX is going to get rid of a bunch of motors, thermal tiles and protection system, fins, etc. A significant chunk of dry mass can be shaven off in that profile. So technically the total cargo weight will probably be towards the max, but that won't be in the form of a separate satellite that gets launched and then the ship dumped but rather stuff built into the ship or carried for work on the moon.
What's the point of putting weapons to drop from orbit versus just launching from the ground as a regular ICBM? Is it some response time meme or something?
time to go up then come down vs time to come down
also with enough coverage a weapon can be launched from directly overhead of the target, giving incredibly short flight times.
Except you quickly run into the problem of the escalation ladder ramping up as you put over everyone's head a bunch of strategic weapons ready to drop on everyone's ICBM silos on a moment's notice. It isn't just a question of a material or launch costs. That's a question of political cost.
Response time isn't a meme anon, ICBM flight time is a good 25-35 minutes, but reentry phase is only 2 minutes. It also separates out launch detection from impact. It's impossible to hide rocket launches, or what their trajectory is, every advanced country has satellites to watch for it that's a core part of early warning systems.
So reaction speed and cost would be the primary motivators. Though ensuring that it's clearly not nukes would be a whole separate problem unrelated to the tech.
>Though ensuring that it's clearly not nukes would be a whole separate problem unrelated to the tech.
I doubt the nuclear powers would care. If the end result is going to be comparable, there's literally no reason to really care if it's a nuke or not. The only reason it's even a question is because nukes have been the only weapon in its "weight class". This becomes especially dangerous if the other side doesn't have an equivalent. They would have to respond via ICBM just to be comparable.
>reentry phase is only 2 minutes
Are we talking lobbing these things like a ICBM or parking them in orbit? A theoretical on standby rod sitting in LEO would take anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes to hit its target depending on where it starts in relation to the target. It seems you skipped some steps to get even get to reentry.
I'm assuming orbit for something like this would be highly elliptical. And I guess the question specifically involves quantifying on-call vs warning (in the context of planned strikes). Orbit definitely gives less warning, someone will know something is launched but not when it might be used. The time when it can be trivially noticed to hit is short. The time from decision to hit is not, which matters if it's being envisioned for fire support, but not vs something like a bomber or missiles aimed at static (or relatively static) targets like bridges or bases.
>It's even harder to hide vehicles maneuvering in space
Uh, no. It's very easy to hide vehicles maneuvering in orbital space from the perspective of most powers on Earth.
>everyone and their mother would know when you're getting ready to drop an impactor
I think you might be moronic.
>Is being able to pack more bang per ton not useful enough?
You have limited faring size, it's not just weight it's volume. And again,
>It's literally the entire purpose of the system
Wrong. The entire purpose of the system is being harder to stop, ability to ignore typical logistical considerations, and potentially achieving very high penetration vs hard targets.
>highly elliptical
That ain't trivial either for time till reentry.
>reentry phase is only 2 minutes
You have to deorbit before you can reenter. Like
said, you need to be in the right part of your orbit to hit your target.
>It's impossible to hide rocket launches, or what their trajectory is
It's even harder to hide vehicles maneuvering in space, everyone and their mother would know when you're getting ready to drop an impactor.
>You have 150 tons to get to orbit each launch. Why is lighter useful?
Is being able to pack more bang per ton not useful enough? It's literally the entire purpose of the system, why would you purposefully kneecap yourself?
De-orbiting an object is a lot easier than sending it into near-orbit from the ground, which makes deployment of such weapons in space more reliable, cost effective and potentially cheap if you use reusable vehicles.
125 ton nuke for Kiev and a 125 ton nuke for Israel
>”hey dude what if we, like, wasted all of our payload mass on giant rods of tungsten instead of just using an explosive in a re-entry vehicle which would be lighter and cheaper?”
Rods from god are moronic
>>”hey dude what if we, like, wasted all of our payload mass on giant rods of tungsten instead of just using an explosive in a re-entry vehicle”
>whaat? you can't just intercept our heckin light explosive reentry vehicle that's a war crime!! >:(
Yeah.
>which would be lighter
You have 150 tons to get to orbit each launch. Why is lighter useful?
>cheaper
>complex reentry vehicle with chemical explosives is cheaper then mass of metal
Though in fairness to you moron-kun I don't know where the tungsten meme came from exactly, good old steel with the right shape and maybe a few Starship tiles on the front would be fine.
anything with the right mass and specific heat capacity to survive reentry, shaped so ablation does not form a problem, would be fine.
there are centaur upper stages made of less than a coin thick stainless steel which have largely survived reentry
Just like the construction of Starship itself though, steel is a really good material when it can be used. Cheap, humans know more about it then basically anything, can do any alloy with any set of properties you want basically, work with it however you want from a pile of competitive ultra skilled companies, source it from whomever, raw material is all over the planet in abundance.
Without looking it up I assume the tungsten thing came from either it sounding cool and tough back when the Rods concept was first envisioned, or because back when there were looking at very expensive $/kg/LEO and restricted payload capacities it was worth the high cost of tungsten for more compact product.
you're spot on
back when cheaper access to orbit was a pipe-dream, tungsten would've made a lot more sense
now, especially with the potential of starship
steel would be far better as it is much cheaper.
250 Tons of Salt and then let it airburst a few km above the ground
>salt
anon you don't mean
love snow in summer myself
design small expandable commsats/spysats/jamsats that you can dump into low owbit in great numbers to give yourself spying capabilities and comms/jamming dominance in a war (big sats with known orbits will likely get jammed and shot by missiles)
design hypersonic glide vehicles you can dump 50 of in a starship launch
it's greatest strength is hypersonic intercontinental artillery dispenser that uses a reusable launcher
So they had this idea back in the 60s called an nuclear ICBM. They'd take a rocket and put a nuke on it and then shoot it towards the enemy and then the nuke goes off. It's pretty neat if you think about it.
This could be something similar
Those are fantastically expensive, require significant (and expensive) maintenance, extremely extensive chains with lots of risk potential and security needs, leave a lot of unpleasant after effects and thus are only good for mutual destruction not deployment for support fire or resupply in conventional operations.
The US could have made use of better intelligence sats, Starlink type comms, and even orbital kinetic strikes during Iraq or Afghanistan. Protected supply drop pods with APS/ECM/flares could have been interesting at certain times during the last 16 months of the Ukraine war. Would have been amusing trolling if nothing else to give 100 tons of supplies to the Azovs during their long siege.
ICBMs were not at all useful in the first two conflicts and only useful for deterrent vs the worst in the present one.
Bull freight to the warp tunnel that leads to Dirt and leave the competition behind while you colonize the galaxy and deny the solar system by control of the valuable resources in an incontestable position of higher orbital energy.
Load it with 230 tons of tungsten balls and 20 tons of explosives and have it airburst above Moscow.