Rods from God is not even a remotely practical concept. This is not to say it is impossible, just monumentally stupid. A x number of tonne tungsten rod in orbit, does not just drop out of space, it must be de-orbitted with a burn that will bring it initially onto a shallow atmospheric entry, the steeper the more fuel is used. A steep trajectory would require enough fuel to almost completely stop the orbit from say 27,000 Kph.

This whole weapon system is so egregiously energy inefficient with the initial launch included that it is just not practical in any way. To get a heavy object out of the atmosphere, accelerate it to 7kms per second only to slow it down again is the most inefficient delivery system possible. Have a look at the price of sending objects into space and then think about the rods from God program. It makes no sense. There are better methods of weapon delivery than this in every parameter conceivable. This is a fantasy promulgated by people who do not understand orbital mechanics and think something dropped from a satellite will act like something dropped from a plane. It does not.

Edit:- Not to be a downer, I loved the concept until I applied knowledge of orbital mechanics to the problem, had a bit of a think about it then went..Nah. This is not to say it would not work, but that burn to slow from 7 kilometers a second to gradually walk a vector onto a terrestrial target at any sort of non shallow trajectory would be long. I guess you could use a smaller course correction and then atmospheric breaking of some sort to achieve a steeper trajectory with less fuel but I just don't overly see this whole concept as practical, especially when the tungsten is coming from earth. If you are going to use atmospheric braking why not just drop it from a plane and save money probably equal to the GDP of Liberia, for one launch.

Rods from God is not even a remotely practical concept. This is not to say it is impossible, just monumentally stupid. A x number of tonne tungsten rod in orbit, does not just drop out of space, it must be de-orbitted with a burn that will bring it initially onto a shallow atmospheric entry, the steeper the more fuel is used. A steep trajectory would require enough fuel to almost completely stop the orbit from say 27,000 Kph.

This whole weapon system is so egregiously energy inefficient with the initial launch included that it is just not practical in any way. To get a heavy object out of the atmosphere, accelerate it to 7kms per second only to slow it down again is the most inefficient delivery system possible. Have a look at the price of sending objects into space and then think about the rods from God program. It makes no sense. There are better methods of weapon delivery than this in every parameter conceivable. This is a fantasy promulgated by people who do not understand orbital mechanics and think something dropped from a satellite will act like something dropped from a plane. It does not.

Edit:- Not to be a downer, I loved the concept until I applied knowledge of orbital mechanics to the problem, had a bit of a think about it then went..Nah. This is not to say it would not work, but that burn to slow from 7 kilometers a second to gradually walk a vector onto a terrestrial target at any sort of non shallow trajectory would be long. I guess you could use a smaller course correction and then atmospheric breaking of some sort to achieve a steeper trajectory with less fuel but I just don't overly see this whole concept as practical, especially when the tungsten is coming from earth.

Rods from God is not even a remotely practical concept. This is not to say it is impossible, just monumentally stupid A x number of tonne tungsten rod in orbit, does not just drop out of space, it must be de-orbitted with a burn that will bring it initially onto a shallow atmospheric entry, the steeper the more fuel is used. A steep trajectory would require enough fuel to almost completely stop the orbit from say 27,000 Kph.

This whole weapon system is so egregiously energy inefficient with the initial launch included that it is just not practical in any way. To get a heavy object out of the atmosphere, accelerate it to 7kms per second only to slow it down again is the most inefficient delivery system possible. Have a look at the price of sending objects into space and then think about the rods from God program. It makes no sense.

Edit:- Not to be a downer, I loved the concept until I applied knowledge of orbital mechanics to the problem, had a bit of a think about it then went..Nah. This is not to say it would not work, but that burn to slow from 7 kilometers a second to gradually walk a vector onto a terrestrial target at any sort of non shallow trajectory would be long. I guess you could use a smaller course correction and then atmospheric breaking of some sort to achieve a steeper trajectory with less fuel but I just don't overly see this whole concept as practical, especially when the tungsten is coming from earth.