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Nerdy Fish10/18/2021 4:21:54 am PDT

re: #43 Jack Burton in Mactified Forshion

They can’t just “drop” a rod like that. That’s not how orbital mechanics works. The tungsten rods would still have to be a missile, with a delta-v budget able to bring it into the atmosphere almost straight down (which requires a rather powerful rocket), they just wouldn’t need a warhead.

That’s not strictly true. They would still have to have enough delta-v to re-enter the atmosphere, but just like with a spacecraft, a properly shaped re-entry system could use atmospheric drag to reduce its orbital velocity enough to bring it down on a target. It would not be like in the movies, where it literally drops straight down on the target, but more like a guided cruise missile that comes from above instead of below.