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Kill with fire

Ask someone else to kill it

Run

Befriend

Befriend and start a spider silk company

Befriend and sic on enemies

Capture and study, because they shouldn't exist

Use to create a spider army

Offer waffles

Offer Cheerios

[Method of Madness]

I'd be jealous too, Sam.

[Blackjoker]

I believe this young lady is over-gasped

[Skewbrow]

I dare not guess what the impact velocity of a tungsten rod "dropped" from the orbit would be. The orbit speed is about 8 km/s or Mach 25. To make it fall from the orbit at all, they need to give it a shove in the opposite direction for otherwise the rod would just continue its free fall motion along the station. The bigger the shove the faster it will fall from the orbit. But unless you spend a lot of energy (that they don't have at the station), the rod would enter atmosphere at a relatively small angle, and thus might continue to lose speed for a long time.
It would not be like a space shuttle, landing sedately at about 200 mph, but atmospheric drag would eat a significant chunk of the speed. Would anyone have a clue about the speed of the Apollo landing modules after entering the atmosphere, but before they opened the parachutes? A tungsten rod would fall faster than that (weight, shape).

Here it is explained that a 10-ton meteorite will retain only 6 per cent of its cosmic speed after surviving the upper atmosphere. A tungsten rod could be a bit heavier (also the density of tungsten is much higher than that of "ordinary space rock", so it would lose less), but sounds like Mach 10 is pushing it unless the rods are very massive (and thus also expensive to hoist to the orbit in the first place).

TL; DR; Orbital bombardment doesn't sound very energy efficient. You spend a huge amount of energy to get that mass into orbit only to have atmospheric drag consume most of it when falling.

[Indicible]

Unless you extract the tungsten IN SPACE!
You only need Planetary Interaction to produce Fuel Blocks and Outpost materials (I think I should cut back on EVE a bit...)

[GarandMarine]

Railguns are more efficient for kinetic kill weapons, all the fun of small yield nuclear weapons with none of the fall out!

[Akima]

i'm pretty sure there are international treaties against the weaponization of space. one thing the us & ussr managed to agree on was that space-based weapons were a bad idea.

There are treaties prohibited placing "weapons of mass destruction" in space, but there is no restriction on "conventional" weapons, I believe. The "Outer Space Treaty" certainly makes that distinction. With regard to the legal status of orbital habitats, Article VI is relevant, and gives additional point to the USAF personnel on the station.

To make it fall from the orbit at all, they need to give it a shove in the opposite direction for otherwise the rod would just continue its free fall motion along the station. The bigger the shove the faster it will fall from the orbit. But unless you spend a lot of energy (that they don't have at the station),

Where do you get the energy-shortage from? Hannerdad has a space-plane that can fly directly from a normal airfield to orbit. I doubt if attaching simple retro-rockets to his rods would pose much of a challenge. He'd just need the equivalent of a torpedo-tube to push the rod away from the station (assuming he has no other launch-platform), and then fire a single-use, jettisonable retro-rocket of the sort that was used to deorbit the Mercury capsules.

Breathe, Sam, breathe!

[ZoeB]

TL; DR; Orbital bombardment doesn't sound very energy efficient. You spend a huge amount of energy to get that mass into orbit only to have atmospheric drag consume most of it when falling.

Only if in a circular orbit. A high eccentricity "Molniya" type orbit, all you need is a slight nudge at apogee. That way perigee would be inside the Earth ie you get re-entry, at a near-normal angle if you do it right.





See the description under my icon.

[Skewbrow]

True. But would that change affect the impact speed significantly? Possibly, as the projectile will not necessarily be entering the atmosphere at a small angle. I realize that the comparison to meteorites in my previous post was off the mark because of this: a smaller angle of entry means that MORE of the kinetic energy will be lost due to atmospheric drag!)

What about response time? You could only launch within a narrow window near apogee, so for this to be part of a weapon system you either need to wait for one of the stations to be at the right place or have many more stations forming a network (for planetwide coverage)? If the main use of these would be penetrate bunkers and such, then you may afford to wait for a couple of hours, so may be this point is moot?

[PintsizeForPresident]

Would anyone have a clue about the speed of the Apollo landing modules after entering the atmosphere, but before they opened the parachutes? A tungsten rod would fall faster than that (weight, shape).

I think the re-entry speed of ICBM re-entry vehicles would give a better estimate. IIRC these have a pretty high terminal velocity, to minimize response time as much as possible. Apollo, on the other hand, was designed to "gently" (if 9 g is your idea of gently) decelerate the craft, to keep its passengers alive.

Then again, researching this topic on the internet may not be the wisest thing to do... That being said, this wikipedia entry notes that "impact is at a speed of up to 4 km/s".

[Skewbrow]

Ahh! Good point about Apollo. I agree that ICBM is the more realistic comparison, so 4km/s (Mach 12) is close to the mark.

This has been a good discussion in the sense that I may have learned a few things. This article was a good read (for me).

Where do you get the energy-shortage from? Hannerdad has a space-plane that can fly directly from a normal airfield to orbit. I doubt if attaching simple retro-rockets to his rods would pose much of a challenge. He'd just need the equivalent of a torpedo-tube to push the rod away from the station (assuming he has no other launch-platform), and then fire a single-use, jettisonable retro-rocket of the sort that was used to deorbit the Mercury capsules.

I concede the point that it would be trivial for him to make something like a rod drop from the orbit. But what kind of trajectory would the dropping rod follow? The Mercury capsules were also meant to protect the pilot during re-entry, so the point raised by PFP stands. They were aiming at a small angle of attack. So I don't know how much delta vee they could get, or need, from the retro rocket. I would think that when dropping an object from a low altitude orbit it goes roughly like: more delta vee => steeper descent, larger angle of attack =>  less time for the atmospheric drag to slow the object down (but also more severe heating) => higher impact speed.

All this while I've been ignoring the need for a manouverable re-entry. I would think that this is a must, if you want to hit something the size of a bunker (or the basement of CoD).

See the description under my icon.

No need for that. Your drawing and explanation was clear enough. FYI (in case it matters how you choose to communicate) my PhD was in abstract algebra. I studied quite a bit of theoretical physics as an undergrad, but my understanding of theoretical mechanics was never much higher than Spiegel's Schaum series book (to those who don't know: this is an admission of being relatively ignorant), and it has taken quite a few hits in the 30 years that have passed.

[Border Reiver]

It's still cool - even if impractical.

Anyone else hear Mr. Rhys-Davies line from the Two Towers?  (Keep breathing, that's the ticket.)

[snubnose]

TL; DR; Orbital bombardment doesn't sound very energy efficient. You spend a huge amount of energy to get that mass into orbit only to have atmospheric drag consume most of it when falling.

Only if in a circular orbit. A high eccentricity "Molniya" type orbit, all you need is a slight nudge at apogee. That way perigee would be inside the Earth ie you get re-entry, at a near-normal angle if you do it right.

Yes, but then your options where to enter the atmosphere are much more limited.

[PintsizeForPresident]

So I don't know how much delta vee they could get, or need, from the retro rocket.

A few 100 meters per second is enough for re-entry from low earth orbit. You could easily attain that by firing a gun from a space station, backwards.

If you are so inclined, you could see for yourself how re-entry works with Orbiter. It is a very good, realistic spaceflight simulator, with a tech level that's on par with the QCVerse (i.e., single stage to orbit spaceplanes). It is a bit like a flight sim, in that it lets you perform all necessary maneuvers by hand. It also lets you do dockings with a space station, moon landings (and you can accelerate time to make it less tedious) and even interplanetary flight. And if you really want to go hardcore, there's an Apollo package which includes an emulator for the Apollo Guidance Computer that runs a copy of the original software.

[ink slinger]

Shouldn't the current poll question have an obligatory: "I, for one, welcome our new intelligent spider overlords?"

[DSL]

Shouldn't the current poll question have an obligatory: "I, for one, welcome our new intelligent spider overlords?"

That's covered if you vote for both "offer waffles" and "offer Cheerios."

[slydon]

I used to think Jeph reads my comics.

Last week

I want to think it's coincidental, but still, DANG.

[94ssd]

Okay, so Dora is fine with knife sharpening, blowtorch lessons, and sword making. But when Sam gets over-excited about something (that's admittedly pretty awesome), THAT's when she starts to thinks maybe Coffee of Doom is unsafe for children.

[Is it cold in here?]

It was probably a cumulative thing.

[Loki]

Okay, so Dora is fine with knife sharpening, blowtorch lessons, and sword making. But when Sam gets over-excited about something (that's admittedly pretty awesome), THAT's when she starts to thinks maybe Coffee of Doom is unsafe for children.

I think that was the joke.

[Kugai]

Oxygen deprivation


Hmmmm, she must already be imagining being in space.

[Loki]

For a moment I thought I was in the wrong thread. Enough said.

[ankhtahr]

I just noticed how long it's been since we've seen Wil the last time. The latest comic with him seems to be 2023, where he is bartender. That's right at the beginning of the Padme arc, before the space arc and even before the introduction of the interns. wtf.

I want a Penelope/Wil story arc!

[Near Lurker]

Someone should introduce Sam to Clinton.

[DSL]

Meh. What does he know about Pokemon?

[J]

so, you're saying she should hang out with marigold?

[DSL]

That would be a dynamic to observe, wouldn't it?

Speaking tangentially of that, Hannelore is handling Sam's invasion of her personal space rather well, considering Sam's recent demonstration of inattention to personal hygeine.

[K1dmor]

 Sam's gonna befriend everyone on QC but Dora.

[Masterpiece]

I am loving the colours of Hammelore's outfit.

[cesariojpn]

Meh. What does he know about Pokemon?

Spinarak?

[cesariojpn]

Railguns are more efficient for kinetic kill weapons, all the fun of small yield nuclear weapons with none of the fall out!

[Method of Madness]

That's the second time I've misread "railguns" as "religion".

[ankhtahr]

I'm not sure if religions are as fall out safe as railguns.

[mtmerrick]

Well religion is a pretty nasty weapon.

Warning - while you were typing a better retort than yours has been posted. You may wish to review your post.

No forum, I will not.

[Loki]

I'm not sure if religions are as fall out safe as railguns.

There is at least one documented case of religious fall out

(click to show/hide)

from grace

and none from railguns.

This was bad and I should feel bad.

[jwhouk]

No, it's been covered. 

<= Big fan of Salvation by Grace. That'd make a great neo-metal Christian band name.