[gpm]

Storing weapons in space is really scary. It's practically impossible to reliably detect when they are "fired", which makes the people with nuclear bombs waiting to fire back antsy, which increases the risk of a nuclear war accidentally starting. I hope no one carries out this idea of yours.

Using starship to launch rods that immediately come down on people instead of loitering in space sounds like a much safer use.

[ColanR]

Those rods are designed for precision targets on the order of a few meters in diameter. I would much rather both sides of the conflict had those in play, than a nuclear alternative.

[gpm]

Unfortunately it's not a question of one or the other, but of nuclear or both.

[ColanR]

Then both would be preferable. :)

[Aperocky]

> practically impossible to reliably detect

I call the opposite, it is extremely easy to detect and track their orbits, a single personal computer can probably track them all and calculate the potential strike point over points in orbits.

Any attempt to deviate from an existing low earth orbit is extremely energy intensive. It also can't strike anywhere - it can be more than 24 hours before its in position over the location it wants to be.

[gpm]

It doesn't take much Delta v (energy) to move a low Earth orbit into a suborbital collision course. You don't kill all of your velocity, just enough of it that your orbit intersects Earth.

The orbital period for low Earth orbit is closer to 1 hour than 24, and you further reduce that to only a dozen or so minutes by spacing out rods over the orbit... Much like starlink satellites.

[Aperocky]

Yeah it's 1 hour but what if your orbit doesn't intersect with where you want to strike? What if the city is 5000 km _sideways_? Then you wait for the rotation of Earth to bring that location into your orbit path.

Keep in mind an orbit does not cover all of the Earth surface. And unless the target is on the equator, there is no low earth orbit that can maintain it's path over a target consistently.

[Arelius]

I understand your point on tracking orbits.

But for detection, Is that actually easy? I don't know much about it, would it be done optically, or is there a better way? Are there concealment strategies? How about say painting the satellite black?