My apologies. I can't seem to track back to your reference, but I think you are alluding to "Rods from God." I don't know what technology you think it is "within." They are supposed to be huge and heavy. As orbital junk they would be the equivalent of a navigation hazard. As a weapon system, they would have the highest probability of not being in the correct place at the desired time (classic problem of on-call orbital weapons). As a re-entry system, they would need very reliable propulsion that is space-storable over long time intervals. (Or you de-orbit them on a regular basis to flush out the likely failures.) They don't have a sensor that can see through a hypersonic shock wave. I'm not even certain that a long pole would remain aerodynamically stable on re-entry.
The railgun concept had inherent problems. One was the "reverse rocket" effect, where the projectile would gain weight from scuffing the rails at high speed, leading to an ultimate speed limit. Another was the fact that the launch acceleration was in the thousands of g's, and once out the muzzle, the aerodynamic deceleration was hundreds of g's. Bad environment. The muzzle blast must have been tremendous. The barrel wore out. Just more of a headache than a solution.
The Airborne Laser was a complete success, shooting down a boosting ballistic missile on 11 February 2010. (I was on the program.) Obama scrapped it shortly afterward, with the same wisdom he displayed in terminating F-22 production. No matter. The Air Force is fickle when it comes to laser technology, always lusting for the next one.
Back to Rods, you don't launch things into orbit on demand. It has to be scheduled and is a long process. We have no command and control system for them, or battle management system. We have no idea what the delivery accuracy would be, or what the delivery effects would be. (Talk of the tungsten vaporizing is pretty unsubstantiated. The practical applications we know about, in anti-tank shells, is that they simply penetrate like hell.) What do you shoot them at? They would be extravagant overkill against a tank (which could move maybe 10 feet to get out of the way). We have other weapons already. I calculate back in the 90s that a reasonable-sized re-entry vehicle could be used to sink a naval cruiser...if we could guide it. Moving targets are tough.
My apologies. I can't seem to track back to your reference, but I think you are alluding to "Rods from God." I don't know what technology you think it is "within." They are supposed to be huge and heavy. As orbital junk they would be the equivalent of a navigation hazard. As a weapon system, they would have the highest probability of not being in the correct place at the desired time (classic problem of on-call orbital weapons). As a re-entry system, they would need very reliable propulsion that is space-storable over long time intervals. (Or you de-orbit them on a regular basis to flush out the likely failures.) They don't have a sensor that can see through a hypersonic shock wave. I'm not even certain that a long pole would remain aerodynamically stable on re-entry.
The railgun concept had inherent problems. One was the "reverse rocket" effect, where the projectile would gain weight from scuffing the rails at high speed, leading to an ultimate speed limit. Another was the fact that the launch acceleration was in the thousands of g's, and once out the muzzle, the aerodynamic deceleration was hundreds of g's. Bad environment. The muzzle blast must have been tremendous. The barrel wore out. Just more of a headache than a solution.
The Airborne Laser was a complete success, shooting down a boosting ballistic missile on 11 February 2010. (I was on the program.) Obama scrapped it shortly afterward, with the same wisdom he displayed in terminating F-22 production. No matter. The Air Force is fickle when it comes to laser technology, always lusting for the next one.
Back to Rods, you don't launch things into orbit on demand. It has to be scheduled and is a long process. We have no command and control system for them, or battle management system. We have no idea what the delivery accuracy would be, or what the delivery effects would be. (Talk of the tungsten vaporizing is pretty unsubstantiated. The practical applications we know about, in anti-tank shells, is that they simply penetrate like hell.) What do you shoot them at? They would be extravagant overkill against a tank (which could move maybe 10 feet to get out of the way). We have other weapons already. I calculate back in the 90s that a reasonable-sized re-entry vehicle could be used to sink a naval cruiser...if we could guide it. Moving targets are tough.