• Winner! Quick Shot Challenge: What’s the dumbest shooting myth you’ve heard?

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Not bad for some, slope's

Gunfighter14e2

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How the hell do you "drop" a bomb in space? How the hell do you "drop" anything in space?


There would not have been explosives involved. An "interceptor" slug, made of pure copper or steel, fired from the spacecraft on a path that would smack the asteroid after a few hours to few days of flight. Asteroids already zip through space at incredible velocities. At least 35,000 miles per hour. By the time the interceptor reaches the rock, it would have been traveling at near equal speed.

The mechanics behind such projects are PURELY kinetic. That copper slug, once it strikes that asteroid at 50,000+MPH, would be instantly vaporized, creating a blast equal to that of nuclear weapons. Chemical explosives will not even contribute to the energy generated, given the astronomical speeds and power output at which the collision is taking place.

Kinetic energy is what makes a 1000 mile wide asteroid or comet capable of melting the entire surface of an Earth sized planet upon impact. That is also the mechanism behind the "Rods From God" class of space-based weapons. The rods, constructed of titanium and measuring around the size of a lamppost, would be dropped from a satellite on a guided trajectory to the target. By the time that rod reaches the target, gravity would have accelerated it to many times the speed of sound. A single lamppost sized titanium rod would produce an explosion rivaling Hiroshima once it strikes.

During the Vietnam War, the US Air Force deployed a smaller scale version of these types of weapons. Called the "Lazy Dog", they are metal pellets around the size of an AA battery, stabilized by small fins that ensured it will strike the ground nose first. A high altitude bomber, once having been given the location of a large concentration of enemies, would unload a fuck ton of them, 20,000 to 30,000 feet up in the air. By the time the pellets hit the ground, they are doing so with the same energy as a .50 BMG round. Observers would report that fields hit with them would be "ploughed" and honeycombed as if a machine gun strafed them from a vertical position. And enemy soldiers hit by them were mangled and shattered beyond belief.
 
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There would not have been explosives involved. An "interceptor" slug, made of pure copper or steel, fired from the spacecraft on a path that would smack the asteroid after a few hours to few days of flight. Asteroids already zip through space at incredible velocities. At least 35,000 miles per hour. By the time the interceptor reaches the rock, it would have been traveling at near equal speed.

The mechanics behind such projects are PURELY kinetic. That copper slug, once it strikes that asteroid at 50,000+MPH, would be instantly vaporized, creating a blast equal to that of nuclear weapons. Chemical explosives will not even contribute to the energy generated, given the astronomical speeds and energies at which the collision is taking place.

Kinetic energy is what makes a 1000 mile wide asteroid or comet capable of melting the entire surface of an Earth sized planet upon impact. That is also the mechanism behind the "Rods From God" class of space-based weapons. The rods, constructed of titanium and measuring around the size of a lamppost, would be dropped from a satellite on a guided trajectory to the target. By the time that rod reaches the target, gravity would have accelerated it to many times the speed of sound. A single lamppost sized titanium rod would produce an explosion rivaling Hiroshima once it strikes.
Well yeah, all of that, but that's not really "dropping" anything.....
 
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Well, they did manage to blow a big hole in Pearl Harbor, too....

Then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

On a serious note... this is actually pretty interesting stuff. Because in the giant cosmic shooting gallery that is our Solar System... the slate-wipers are largely geologic in nature... not cow farts or Ebola. Supervolcano under Yellowstone and Giant Meteor are the two to watch. And it doesn't take a 'giant' meteor to wipe out, say, a seaboard.

The ability to land on an object like that, 'do stuff' (yeah, I know, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis did all that years ago), and potentially deflect its course is pretty significant science. And up until a few years ago, more money had been spent on "Giant Meteor Hits the Earth" movies...than on actual Large Object research... that could stop a giant meteor from incinerating a large part the population... while starving the rest into extinction. (BTW, this happened once...Homo Sapiens was, by some estimates and research from the Human Genome Project, down to as few as 10,000 individuals in coastal West Africa following one global catastrophe about 100,000 years ago. Just enough to bounce back. Barely. I think it was an impact, not a super volcano.)

So Japanese jokes aside... this is some good stuff they are doing.

Oh, yeah, for Gunfighter...

7056069


Ok, back to your regularly scheduled programming...



Cheers,

Sirhr
 
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Reactions: Blue Sky Country
Well, they did manage to blow a big hole in Pearl Harbor, too....

Then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

On a serious note... this is actually pretty interesting stuff. Because in the giant cosmic shooting gallery that is our Solar System... the slate-wipers are largely geologic in nature... not cow farts or Ebola. Supervolcano under Yellowstone and Giant Meteor are the two to watch. And it doesn't take a 'giant' meteor to wipe out, say, a seaboard.

The ability to land on an object like that, 'do stuff' (yeah, I know, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis did all that years ago), and potentially deflect its course is pretty significant science. And up until a few years ago, more money had been spent on "Giant Meteor Hits the Earth" movies...than on actual Large Object research... that could stop a giant meteor from incinerating a large part the population... while starving the rest into extinction. (BTW, this happened once...Homo Sapiens was, by some estimates and research from the Human Genome Project, down to as few as 10,000 individuals in coastal West Africa following one global catastrophe about 100,000 years ago. Just enough to bounce back. Barely. I think it was an impact, not a super volcano.)

So Japanese jokes aside... this is some good stuff they are doing.

Oh, yeah, for Gunfighter...

View attachment 7056069

Ok, back to your regularly scheduled programming...



Cheers,

Sirhr


Sirhr, as usual, is right on target.

1. Take the Green New Deal, Climate Change Hysteria, etc..... by the time the world could come together and enforce meaningful emission deduction plans (which 99% of them would probably kill 1/2 the world's population); the juice is not worth the squeeze.
2. More money would be spent in changing the global by a small fraction (of which my opinion is what man-made impact is anyway), than would be generated in great times of economic expansion for all countries.
3. The end game is the major Geological Events. Take the last 1000 years as an example. Even the smallest event had an impact on the world to the point that any gain we could make against "Clmate Change" would be wiped out.
4. Some examples would be: (a) Krakatoa, (b) 1908 Siberian Explosion, (c) Yellowstone, (d) Solar Events, such as EMP, Low-Cycle or Gamma Bursts from Neutron Stars (8th Century), or (e) the current long term cycle of recovering from a mass-ice age.... (Mammoths, Cro-Magnon, stuff like that...)
5. Not to mention man's major impact on population explosion through means of War, Famine and Disease will certainly have more of an impact on the world than pollutants from the development of cultures.

Accomplishments like this are much more important than reducing quality of life by culling 1/2 the population through meaningless Climate Change programs (if implemented) because ... well, Shit's gonna Happen.

1. Pick up your trash
2. Conserve using common sense
3. Put money in true discovery on know-how.... these lead us to more efficient ways of living... AND saving the planet from disaster.
 
I have Visited Japan, a very peaceful country and the people are kind and spiritual. very smart people and technologically inclined. not surprised.

That would be, in part, because they are all descended from the people who did not get mowed down in wave attacks on islands all over the Pacific. Darwinism works...

One can also argue that Europe is populated by pathetic sheep because for 4 centuries, everyone with an ounce of gumption got on a boat and became an American. And the few remaining warriors got themselves kak'd in the trenches in 1914-1918 and between '39 and '45. What is left is the passive sheep part of the population who are getting their collective a$$es handed to them by the Aloha Snackbar types.

Well said Va_Gentleman... but I can't claim credit for what is simply common sense.

Damn this site has a lot of gentlemen!

Cheers,

Sirhr