The Deadliest (and Simplest) Space Weapon
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 18. 12. 2020
- You've heard of blasters and Death Stars and photon torpedoes, but is the deadliest space weapon...also the simplest?
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in all fairness, Einstein never specified the size of the rocks we will be using on World War 4...
He never said what the sticks are made of as well, tungsten sticks hurt pretty badly :p
So thats what einstein meant lol
@@DogKacique Rods from the Gods?
If we delay World War 3 long enough, it's going to be fought with large rocks. Then there will be no World War 4.
@@TerkanTyr World War 3 isn't coming. There was only one world war, and anyone who thought the interim between "WW1" and "WW2" was peace is deluded.
"Issac Newton is the Deadliest SOB in space" part of one of my favourite lines from Mass Effect 2.
I propose Amos for new DLC companion for Shepard.
Like that I am gonna make my next Sheperd look like Kyle.
That's *Sir* Isaac Newton, cadet! No credit for partial answers! :-)
That is why you always check your targets, always wait until the computer gives you a firing solution, and you do not "eyeball it".
If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime.
This put an entirely different type of terror on the quote, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Dam thats a good one
I looked for this comment. I had the same idea
Ah damn you. Too late!
war never changed. We just learned to throw larger faster rocks every time
Hah the sticks could be those giant metal beams Kyle mentioned once (also thrown from space)
6:00 âItâs some guyâs frozen space junk."
He died as he wouldâve wanted: rock hard.
Ayoooo
You didnât
Hard Junk. Huh huh Yeah.
He died doing what he loved...
The mess though
The impact would boil the body
Just imagine a hole to the void with a big blood splatter on the hull
"Kyle has a huge crush on Amos."
Don't we all.
"And he desperately wants Avasarala's wardrobe."
DON'T WE ALL!!!
Right!!!!
I was one of the people very hesitant on watching the TV series, fearing how the show would butcher the great characters from the books. When I finally went to watch it, Holden was a little lankier than I imagined, Bobbie was a bit more plump, but none of the characters felt out of place. they were instantly recognizable for who they were and it works. Amos and Alex on the other hand? Amos appears on screen and it was a perfect match (having never seen the actor before!). Alex was as expected, but kept the great personality. I am very happy that we finally get a season covering the book that made Amos from a slightly terrifying lovable brute to a conflicted human and the best character in the universe!
the show has definitely done a better job than the books giving personality and character to the non-Holden characters from the gate!
@@trinalgalaxy5943 I imagine after the show is over (or maybe sometime before) I might start reading the books. I do wonder how different my experience will be with these pre-conceptions of what the characters and everything look like based on the show.
@@FlorenceFox the fact that at least 90% of the universe looks like expected, 7% looks relatively close to expected, and the remaining is not an unwelcome surprise should give them high marks. do be aware that some events were changed and characters combined to work for TV... although once you get past book 2 the books tend to have a massive ensemble that would never work in a visual show.
@@trinalgalaxy5943 Yeah, I know there are some changes. Like the tv Drummer is a combination of two different book characters, I believe, right?
Human 20000 BC: *throws a rock*
Human 3000 AD: *THROWS A ROCK*
Now that I think about it a gun is just an overly complicated mechanism to throw rocks at great speed
Don't forget we also throw light sometimes
Yeah but in 3000 AD we'll be throwing capital rocks instead of the lowercase rocks of yore, so it still does count as progress.
â@@ender72a75underrated comment đ
But it's a bigger rock!
The Expanse once again making space terrifying just by depicting it accurately
God, I love this show
@@Mate397 The way I see it, its acceptable because the species who made it existed billions of years longer than we have existed, so it makes sense that they would have technology that appears to be magic to us, just as a cell phone would appear to be magic to a caveman.
Stuff in star trek and the like is not acceptable in my opinion because it is very unlikely that we will become that advanced in the next few hundred years.
@@Mate397 true; but I do think they do a great job of making those things feel like they are obeying laws of physics that we just don't understand yet, even if IRL those sort of things turn out to be impossible. Like how when Eros moves it does so without any apparent sort of thrust and Miller doesn't feel any of the acceleration, both of which seem like they should be impossible, but parts of Eros start giving off a LOT of heat, so it's clear that it's built some kind of engine and is expending energy in order to move; it's just not clear to us how. Although personally I have a theory that it got turned into an 'Alcubierre Drive' which is entirely speculative, and quite probably impossible, but also doesn't break our current understanding of physics.
@@thepuncakian2024 its the only scifi show since babylon 5 that fathomed aliens way up on the kardashev scale. and b5 didn't do it to this extreme either.
They are wrong about carving out an asteroid or spinning it up as it would fly apart from the inertia.
@@anarchyantz1564 Not necessarily. If you added support structures inside I see no reason why you couldn't.
*The entire human history* is just a search for ways to throw bigger rocks and throw them faster ;P
@Sion: There was a recent episode of _Cosmos: Possible Worlds_ that said pretty much the exact same thing.
@@sdfkjgh Interesting, I'll check it out, thanks.
@@sebbes333: No problem. The most recent episode taught me that Neil deGrasse Tyson is the perfect person to lullaby someone. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is, his voice is just so warm, comforting, and hopeful, that you just feel so safely assured that everything might just work out ok in the end. He could be talking about bloody slaughter (and he did), and you'd still be all cuddled up and purring like a kitten.
There are two threads to human history: finding ways to throw better rocks better, and finding ways to stay warm while moving the fire further away from you.
@@sdfkjgh So can David Attenborough.
"Outer Space has a bad habit of sending menacing objects to Earth."
Well, we got a nifty gate out of it the least...
We should retaliate!!! â
Hey we kinda deserve it
Sounds like somebody believes in panspermia...
well, Earth's gravity well also has a nasty habit of pulling things in, tough world out there.
When those space ships get hit by a meteorite, we can almost say, the epstein drives didnt kill themselves.
"There were over a dozen extinction level events before even the dinosaurs got theirs! When the Earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it. And believe me, He's winding up."
-Ultron
Yay I'm not the only one that though if this.
Yeah itâs a shame that Ultron was kind of wrong. The K/Pg Extinction Event (i.e. the meteor that killed the non-avian dinosaurs) was only the fifth and latest mass extinction in Earthâs history, after the Ordovician, Devonian, Permian (by far the worst) and the Triassic. The sixth mass extinction, the Anthropocene, is happening right now because of human impacts.
All I know about history and genetics is spoon fed to me by people pushing agendas of power
Because of this, I'm left to wonder how many civilizations have rose and then destroyed themselves the way we are
Probably a pattern, but I'm not a doctor
history is written by the victors: the rocks.
@Josh M god thats intriguing af
'I worry about people who throw rocks' -Chrisjen Avasarala, S1
Holy shit good catch. Have a thumbs up
Marco Inaros: *chuckles*
'Nobody can throw rocks that big. It just happens sometimes because, you know, gravity.'
She must hate Zeke Yeager
Sokka's meteor sword
yes
Lol
You forgot something, this is my space rock
*EARTHBENDING SLAP!*
Also Sokka's sword: SNEAK ATTAAAAACK!!!!!
@Drew Riley: Big deal. Sir PTerry had one made special for himself as a bucket list item.
Also part of the plot to the movie Starship Troopers.
Earth invaded Klendathu because the bugs supposdly sent an asteroid to Earth, destroying the city of Buenos Aires.
God damn bugs whacked us, Johnny.
Ah, yes, that classic scene where the gringo goes "I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill 'em all!". Argentinians were all lmao as kids. Nice memories. Also, the acid spitting bugs shot with such a force that reach escape velocity.
@@Mate397 IIRC they only installed that defens in response after the initial asteroid attack that wiped out buenos aires. it is shown in the beginning montage of the movie, but that is set at a later point in the movies timeline. all the events shown in the movie up until the invasion of klendathu is essentially a flashback, so the planetary asteroid defense wasnt up at that point.
the time issue is a classic plot-hole, tho. no way around it
@Grim Peeper Yup, the asteroid vs planet thing works only in solar system wars and even then most civilizations on that level should have a "radar" and defense systems for those type of attacks so this "deadliest weapon" works only when you deal with lower level civilization.
The entire point of the asteroid in the movie is that it's an obvious false flag by the Earth government. That's why it's the comically implausible "Bugs shot a plasma at an asteroid and it came all the way through the galaxy to hit Earth"
One of the few things I remember from an old Star Wars expanded universe novel I read was the villain attacking a planet by placing cloaking devices on asteroids and propelling them at his target. The cloaking devices, which were normally impractical in space combat because they blinded the user, could instead be used to hide simple projectiles.
It opened my eyes to the beautiful simplicity of kinetic bombardment tactics.
You might be thinking of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Held the entire planet of Coruscant hostage just by placing a handful of cloaked asteroids in orbit.
Ah the genius of Grand Admiral Thrawn
The idea of dropping large objects on earth predate The Expanse. Robert Heinlein used this idea a couple of times (The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers), and colony drops are a popular mode of attack in a few of the Gundam series.
True, but its the first depiction of that idea that we've seen in popular culture in recent years.
@@thepuncakian2024 mass effects bring down the sky DLC focused on stopping some terrorists from deorbitng a small moon.
That wasnt that long ago well its not as much of a staple as some scifo troups its still pretty common
Space Battleship Yamato saw Earth being crippled due to an attack of space rocks too I think
â@@fangabxyfangabxy8563Garmillas moment. _*drops Planet Bomb and Interplanetary Ballistic Missile_
@borrago All depends what you define as popular culture and recent years. These are CZcams comments, not essays. Sorry for not using the 100% grammatically correct Queen's English Mr. Grammar Nazi.
Kyle "Not a supervillain" Hill
Yup
"I declare Exterminatus!"
"You can't just say Exterminatus."
"I didn't say it, I declared it."
That should be what Kyle does next. Look into exactly how strong must a cyclonic torpedo be in order to render a planet a dead rock in space. Or if there is any kind of real-world equivalent to the life-eater virus used in virus bombs.
@@FoAmY99 Maybe, but why use those when you can liquify a planetâs crust if you drop a big enough rock on it (or accelerate a smaller rock to a high enough velocity).
@@neillindgren8992 There was a reddit post in which they discussed just that.They concluded that it was too expensive and time consuming to push it into the correct position
This world was long corrupted by chaos, bring the exterminatus.
@@josethomas1618 Good point. I suppose that would either take a large amount of energy or a smaller amount of energy over a very long period of time, so I suppose a larger or faster rock does become more impractical the larger or faster it becomes.
That frozen space man hitting a ship junk first would cause the most dramatic mushroom stamp in history
The Expanse is such a great and criminally underrated show. Thank you Amazon!
Who's underrating it? It's incredibly popular.
Amazon also ruined Lord of the Rings so fuck you Amazon.
Sounds like a question a super villain would ask....
@ralf dsouza not so much as the same tech that allows to easily throw rocks also allows to easily defend. Asteroids are bad weapons, and a good chunk of material for the enemy after they stop it :P
True
Kyle: Iâm not a criminal mastermind
*Releases video about weaponizing floaty space rocks*
Kyle: uh, uhm, er, yeah thatâs not what you think . . . It, uh, is . . .
It is OBVIOUSLY a warning of how easy it can be and that we should be looking out for it, he is helping us by giving us time to find a countermeasure before someone tries to do it.
Yeah, that's it.... that should be a good cover up story.
Itâs for duck hunting
@@cliffordsherman7702 what kind of duck is he hunting?
@@bigolbigmoose9550 giant space ducks.
Big 'Ol Big Moose you know ... uh... science ducks
Everyone has a crush on Amos and wants Avasarala's wardrobe. Or they're liars.
I mean...
Amen!
I have no idea who Amos is or who Avasarala is... and I'm not a liar.
@@invisibledave you must be fun at parties
Haven't seen the show, but it's this the closest Kyle has come to coming out or am I overreading it and or missing context? I know he's pretty private about that stuff.
"Isaac Newton is the deadliest S.O.B. in space." Caught the Mass Effect reference!
"This, recruits, is a 20kg ferrous slug. Feel the weight! Every 5 seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3% of lightspeed, and it impacts with the force of a 38-kiloton bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth! That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space! NOW! Serviceman Burnside, what is Newton's First Law?
"
"Sir! An object in motion stays in motion, sir!"
"No credit for partial answers, maggot!"
"Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!"
"Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty! Once you fire this hunk of metal, it keeps going 'til it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship; it might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in 10,000 years! If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining SOME-ONE's day, some-WHERE and some-TIME! THAT is why you check your damn targets! THAT is why you wait 'til the computer gives you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not 'eye-ball it'! This is a Weapon of Mass Destruction! You are NOT a cowboy shooting from the hip!"
"Sir, yes sir!"
@@apawhite This is also referenced in Stellaris. One of the random events is a glancing hit from an ancient mass driver slug.
What about the "windows are a structural weakness" bit, people always be forgetting about my man Legion
*Space is Big...Very VERY big...and it's just cluttered with a LOT of unfriendly anti social objects looking for reasons to smash int each other at great velocities*
Cluttered might be the wrong word here, as it gives the impression that a randomly released piece of space debris has a considerably higher chance to collide with anything else than it has.
@Criss Poyner nooooot really. "cluttered" gives the wrong idea. It's full of rocks, trillions of them, but the distances are so great that you can fly through an entire asteroid belt and not see a single asteroid. (Sci-fi movies always get this wrong.) Also you could fling a rock onto a planet, but it would still take a really long time just because of how big every distance is.
Kyle coming through with the questions we all need answeredđ
When Palpatine returns in Episode 10, he'll give up on Death Stars and just use the Force to fling big rocks at planets that he don't like.
He can do it to because episode 8 shows they have the technology to bypass planetary shields. (First order Dreadnought)
Also the galaxy gun in dark empire used the same concept. And the vong launched a moon at a world.
06:00
That's the most metal way to go!
Also dibs on "Frozen Cadaver Space-Torpedo" as a band name!
In Babylon 5 the Centauri used what they called Mass Drivers to shoot asteroids at the Narn homeworld.
yea i think they kind of dropped the ball on that one. the mass driver itself was redundant, because if you can move asteroids you already have a wmd. and up till that point that was the hardest i saw scifi get in a weekly tv show.
@threedoubleyou dotcom if they were firing some kind of manufactured high mass projectiles it would have made more sense than just using local asteroids. it did give g'kar a lot of opportunities for great speeches though
@@fatcrypto yes and no. while b5 had some hard scifi components to it, that was by no means a priority for the writers. they eventually swap it out with space magic from some of the older races. they do get respect for invoking clarke's 3rd law though. as good as b5 is i dont think its the first scifi to drop rocks on people.
Something I've noticed while watching The Expanse in season 5 is that inertia seems to not be a thing in their elevators/monorails/subways. In episode one of season 5, Naomi is in what appears to be an elevator that immediately stops and switches from moving horizontally to vertically. She nor anyone in that elevator even so much as moved a muscle. There's another scene where Amos is in a subway on Luna and it just immediately stops with imperceptible deceleration yet again, no one even so much as flinches. For a show with such hard science baked in, I find it very jarring that this wasn't caught/though of.
Inertial dampeners, my friend. Always inertial dampeners.
@@the_once-and-future_king. the ring gate is one heck of an "inertial dampener" (splat)
The lighting in space is really bad too. Not what it would look like.
But considering that in most scifi i sigh and shout YOU DONT FREEZE IMMEDIATELY IN SPACE YOU BOIL AND ASTRONAUTS HAVE MORE ISSUES WITH OVERHEATING DUE TO SUN RADIATION then this show is relatively good if not best
Y'know, i've never actually had the thought 'How the hell do i kill this entire planet?' but i mean... Now that i think about it this is probably the best and easiest way.
Luckily the first step before asking ourselves "how do I kill this entire planet" is getting off of it, which we seem to be some time away from right now.
Kyle: Totally not a super villain...
Also Kyle: Space rocks go brrrrr
Kyle is the best nock off Thor super villain
What if Thor was the knock off, but won. Like the Energizer bunny
What
*gives a whole new aspect and clarity of the taunt sticks and stones when applied to astrophysics and unresolved anger issues*
Sticks and stones may break my bones but -- what are you doin- *AHHHHHH*
sometimes i feel some of his videos are just a proof of concept disguised as "educational" videos, pretty sus if you ask me
build the basilisk
praise the basilisk
First time I saw an asteroid canon was The last Starfighter.
Me too. Followed by Starship Troopers
Wasn't it called a meteor gun?
@@AlexandarHullRichter Not sure I haven't seen the movie in a long time
Babylon 5 had the Centauri bombarding the Narn homeworld with Mass Drivers, which were basically just big rock-accelerating guns.
They used a similar technique to this in Mobile Suit Gundam when Zeon dropped space colonies on Earth.
Perfect timing
Almost as if it was planned
At reentry into atmosphere: *The Rock is cooking*
My favorite part of Avenue 5 was when the ejected the coffins, they didnât give them enough velocity to escape the massive shipâs gravitational pull and they ended up orbiting the ship lol.
At first I doubted the plausibility of that scene, but I've run the maths and it could plausibly maybe work. It would just require that the average density of the ship to be at least that of an asteroid and for the size of the ship to be towards my upper estimates based on a single picture.
If the coffins orbited at a speed of 1m/s and at a distance of 500 metres from the gravitational centre of the ship, then the ship would have to be around 7 gigatonnes, which is a similar mass to an asteroid about 1-3 km in diameter.
It probably doesn't work, but it's not entirely impossible.
lol, that's fuckin funny
Damn, the aliens really hate the dinosaurs 66 million years ago
That was Jupiter in the early Triassic
It took until the Cretaceous for it to hit
YES! I was waiting for Kyle to talk about this!
A: How do you win a futuristic space war?
B: ...just throw a rock....
When I saw the title Can you Weaponize an Asteroid, I just tought of Chars' counter attack, not the Expanse.
I was looking for this
âAs you knowâ
No kyle, I donât know, thatâs why Iâm here
As someone who is into scary sci-fi, the concept of space rocks being used as weapons sends chills up my spine!
Now I'm wondering how accurate the depictions of the colony drops in the Gundam universe were.
Iâm about as cis male hetero as you can get but when it comes to Amos? Well, every manâs got his limits.
you say limits, i say gateway drug ... ;p ... but Amos really is ALL that.
"Suplex me down an elevator shaft, space-daddy"
We all have a crush on Amos
Who is Amos?
@@bloooops He is the man.
@@bloooops Watch the Expanse.
@@bloooops He is that guy.
Humans: *destroying the earth*
Rock: lemme speed this up for you
humans aren't destroying the planet, just the thin film of goo on its surface.
10:36 that's why we need to get Gundams development into gear so we can have a Nu Gundam to push it out of the way.
Ever think about doing the Gundam Colony drop as a video?
5:00 min
All I could think of, was that that would basically make you some kind of "space fowl". You know, like those instances, where things like geese crashed through plane windows, only that in space, this would probably be way worse.
BRUH SPOILERS
Kidding, I've read the books.
Sadly the first book wasn't enough successful in my country for the publisher release the rest.
@@ErickSoares3 Get the audio books, the narrator is amazing in all of them.
@@MotorbikesandMemes Ayep, much more content also. I would also suggest the Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds. It's a little slow to start but it's my favorite hard sci-fi series.
Hey Kyle, love the show! Started watching your videos this year and have loved it! Its kind of a small thing, but amongst all the other lovely things you do I have super enjoyed your use of, " On to the next Topeka, Kansas!" Its amazing how many people are unfamiliar with my hometown, despite it being the capital!
Robert A. Heinlein knew all this when he wrote "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" in 19-freaking-66.
Good book
I've been reading The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell (pen name of John G. Hemry) lately and in there they also have "rocks" as weapons (they are missiles that are called rocks by the crew) in a lot of space ships and use them too. I can strongly recommend the series for anyone who is interested in science and sci-fi as John G. Hemry put a lot of effort in being scientifically correct.
Edit: to directly hook into Kyle's list of what kind of size it would be, they are city killers.
Hurts my brain that thereâs no mention of the fact that meteors up to 8 tons will lose almost all of their velocity from atmospheric drag and losing mass from burning up on entry. These rocks you throw at the earth would have to be pretty dang big.
Itâs kind of poetic when you think about it starting with man throwing rocks and ends up going full circle like that.
5:06 I told you all blue was sus.
"He gives good hugs." Well we know it wasn't a lack of hugs that made Kyle a super villian. :P
Did he have a flashback to being held captive in the Void? Glad he escaped.
Those of us who have read Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" have known that simply throwing rocks from the surface of the Moon would do this.
In David Weber's Dahak trilogy there is a species of alien that is constantly traveling all over the galaxy killing off all other races before they can become a threat and this is there preferred way to do it.
So many great books from the 50s and 60s, but Hollywood has to make yet another version of Dune. Don't get me wrong, I love Dune, but wouldn't "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" make for a great movie?
@@ambulocetusnatans Rendezvous with Rama
@@AzkuulaKtaktu Morgan Freeman wants that to happen.
@@ambulocetusnatans Really? Does he want to direct or something?
Hey Kyle, love your show. I just got finished reading Christopher Paolini's new book "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" and I noticed that his space ships use a lot of the same concepts you talk about the ships in The Expanse using, such as maneuvering, delta v measurements, and fusion drives. If possible, I would like to hear your thoughts on his use of superluminal space, Transluminal Energy Quanta (TEQ), and Markov Drives for FTL.
I love your videos, Kyle. I love them even more when I think of a question in regards to the video, and then 15 seconds later you answer that very question IN the video!
This is why I like tungsten "Rods from God". Simple, devastating.
5:48 Kyle's really leaning hard into the whole Hemsworth thing, isn't he? I mean, this has to be a stealth Infinity War reference, right?
Thanks, had to read your comment and rewatch to get it.......
I started watching the expense because of your first video you made about it when you talk to the cast and stuff and I owe you for that my dude cuz this show is one of the best show out here. Also I've been watching you for a while and I don't have the words to explain how much you help me through stuff I love you brother..
1:19 yoooo that Mass Effect 2 reference! Nice one
4:20
For the time stamp. And for the fact that we nerds do know how much damage is. 1800 photon torpedoes would be devastating.
I feel like photon torpedos should be way more destructive than that.
Might I recommended an asteroid made primarily of Tungsten...now that's a "Big Bang"!!!
I'm reminded of the (my favorite) Robert Heinlein book, "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" in which they "Threw Rocks" at Earth.
As always thank you so very much for the video.
That book would make a great movie. I don't know why Hollywood seems to be out of ideas when there's so many great classic sci fi stories.
i love this channel so far, keep it up kyle!
1:18 Ha! He said it! HE SAID IT!!
You know what they say The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Can confirm, a certain group of spacenoids do love flinging kinetic impactors onto the planet. Even made a crater on Sydney and Dublin...
Episode about big rocks impacting big rocks all floating in the void that is space. Love it!
1:28 he really just airified space with a click of a button...
Kyle is trying to be a super villain again.
Like to join him, comment to fight him
(If they comment you can know who is against you Kyle. Take over the world!)
Oh man. Thanks for bringing up Sagan. Now I have to go weep my way through "Pale Blue Dot" after this video.
These days, Demon Haunted World might be even more appropriate to weep over.
Gundam definitely enjoyed using these as plotlines too. as well as space stations. to the point that Half of Australia is pretty much gone. Since some astreroids already have engines on them as it was easier to move the asteroid to the building site and then mine the asteroid there. than to mine and transport with alot more ships. All it took was someone pissed off enough to turn the engines back on.
The throwing large rocks idea was was also used by Heinlein in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
1:18 Love the Mass effect reference - also there was a mission in Mass effect where you had to stop a terrorist from doing exactly this.
Hey Kyle, love the channel, had a question for you to try and solve from a question answered in another video, how much data would need to be stored to increase the mass of the drive enough to see light bending or feel it bending spacetime, or even turn into a black hole?
0:16 At the background, top-right, is that the jupiter brain?
Yes
Hey Kyle, have loved your content for years now. Have you read all of the Expanse novels yet (super stoked for the 9th and final!) or have you been waiting until the show's done? I got Audible specifically for The Expanse series. Jefferson Mays is a fantastic narrator.
I have never seen The Expanse but I am looking it up now. Thanks again Kyle
In the Lost Fleet book series, they use solid metal impactors they call "rocks" launched from their ships when attacking planets, converting their ship's inertia into very deadly force. Just releasing the rocks at the right timing from their ships causes massive damage to the target planets.
That book series also features fleet vs fleet combat that takes place faster than humans can react due to the fleets passing through/past each other at speeds that cross star systems in months. Lots of shotgun style attacks and point defense, but most importantly angle of attack and the formations matter.
one of my favorite animes, knights of sidonia, takes advantage of this type of weapon with its heavy mass cannon. it is literally a giant hunk of stone they launch. felt kind of underwhelming when i first saw it, but after thinking about it, it really is the perfect weapon.
something that has been fairly common in space based sci-fi, earliest one i can remember was an anime called starship operators, then there was of course starship troopers.
Now the hard part: making an asteroid go fast requires enough thrust to shop up like a flare on every scanner in the whole solar system. Otherwise: no surprise effect, enough time to set countermeasures in motion.
I love the Jupiter brain just floating off in the distance lol
Unless there is a way to significantly increase the surface area of the asteroid. Say, a 'desintegrating drone hive' where the intent is not to deviate the asteroid but rather turn it into smaller meteroites enough so that the atmosphere could burn most of the chunks, and others miss the planet altogether. This is a possibility worth exploring as a first development towards asteroid mitigation, it is significantly less weaponizable and also within reach.
I think I first learned about this concept of orbital bombardment with mass from the book "The moon is a harsh mistress" Moon colony rebelling against harsh earth masters. Loaded cargo containers with rocks and used the cargo mass driver to send them on their way.
Just keep pushing something and it'll accelerate endlessly (until it gets close to the speed of light) and become a weapon. A drive's usefulness as a weapon is directly related to its performance as a drive.
02:34 OMG that SHY KYLE face :)
Well, I think that Larry Niven, or maybe even people before noted, any insterstallar or interplanetary scale drive is WDMD (Weapon of Decidedly Mass Destruction) of its own. Though I loved Ian Douglas HELGA and FarStar combination ;) from first Trillogy of Galactic Corps.
The Alien bugs also launched one of those at Earth in Starship Troopers too
I love that I've learned JUST enough in my physics class this year to understand a lot of the math here
fun fact, even warhammer, for all its tiers of over the top rediculousnes, used this method in destroying the planet of Cadia (look up the 13th black crusade if you're curious), only instead of an asteroid it was a massive space fortress called the Will of Eternity, which according to a quick google search was somewhere between 720 - 1440 km wide, and the impact didn't just destroy the surface of the planet, it cause enough tectonic instability to break the planet apart a few hours later
Belter hitting the ring gate was still the best thing :P