Did I do it correctly?

      • Landless2029@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        Even if they made some kinda super condensed handheld railgun it would’ve also worked the same.

        The propellant doesn’t matter. The payload does. Idk why they didn’t think of kinetic force vs energy. Since they absorbed energy.

        Hell they could’ve done some kinda sound based shockwave.

        • directive0@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          5 months ago

          In Babylon 5 an alien race destroys their enemy’s homeworld with “mass drivers”. Ship mounted mechanisms that accelerated captured asteroids towards the surface of the planet, completely decimating it. In the show they are regarded as heinous weapons of mass destruction for their merciless destructive power.

    • Walop@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      Cool idea, but shipping anything to orbit is insanely expensive and those are almost impossible to aim accurately. At least with the current technology.

      • Senshi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        What makes you think targeting would be an issue? The idea of kinetic orbital impactors is to not rely on an atmospheric glide for reentry, but to brute force straight through the atmosphere to maximize impact velocity and thus energy.

        This means you speed up the impactor tremendously, e.g. with a rocket, and ram it straight down. The atmosphere is only 100km thick, and only the last 30km even have any meaningful density to offer noticable resistance. Yes, the impactor will create a massive plasma plume, but it won’t even have enough time to heat up itself, much less ablate or disintegrate before impacting the ground.

        Targeting such a device would be extraordinarily simple with incredible accuracy.