Project Thor: Rods from God
Kinetic bombardment isn’t new: Dense but inert objects launched or dropped on target, delivering kinetic energy on impact.
Origins and Concept
During the Cold War, the USAF floated the idea of launching special satellites into space. Those satellites would be carrying Tungsten rods that could be dropped over targets anywhere on the planet.
Each of those rods was to be 6 meters long and 200mm in diameter. Once dropped from space, those rods would be gaining speed (and kinetic energy) and would take less than 15 minutes to reach their destination.
Traveling at 10 times the speed of sound and hitting the ground with a frightful amount of kinetic energy, they could penetrate dozens of meters underground, obliterating bunkers and other hardened targets. The energy delivered on impact would be the equivalent of a small ground-penetrating nuke.
Pros and Cons of Kinetic Bombardment
The pros? This system cannot be defended against, and unlike conventional nukes, there’s no fallout!
The cons? The cost of sending anything into space! One of those tungsten rods would weigh something like 11 tons. It costs roughly $20,000 to send a kilo of payload into space. At $220 million per rod, the cost was simply prohibitive!
Revival of the Idea
This apparently did not deter the Bush administration from asking the USAF to revisit the idea in 2003. Those rods from god could have come in handy for targeting “rogue” nations. As far as we know, the idea wasn’t pursued.
-RBM
