Exploring The ‘Rods From God’ Space Weapon Concept

The “rods” were to be 20 feet long, and one foot in diameter. When dropped from orbit, the 24,000-pound rods would reach “hypersonic” speeds approaching Mach 10 before impact. While a Lazy Dog might take out a lightly-armored truck or penetrate a building, the scientists behind the “rods from God” envisaged a level of destruction more commonly associated with massive ground-penetrating bombs. 

A single “rod” of titanium would have enough kinetic energy to penetrate deep into the earth, destroying any hardened bunkers and underground shelters in its path. Like earlier kinetic weapons, the “rods from God” would be mechanically simple while being virtually impossible to defend against. Unlike nuclear weapons, however, they would create no dangerous fallout.

So why weren’t they adopted? Ironically, despite their simplicity, the “rods” would be prohibitively expensive. That’s because tungsten is very heavy. NASA estimates that today, it costs around $10,000 to put one pound of weight into orbit, meaning that it would cost around $240,000,000 to get a single “rod” into space. Back in the 1960s, with the rocket technology of the time, it would have been even more expensive.

Like another Cold War weapon, Russia’s massive “Tsar Bomba,” America’s “rods from God” concept never reached fruition during the Cold War, but it wasn’t completely shelved. After 9/11, as Western forces hunted Al Qaeda through the mountains of Afghanistan, the concept of hypersonic “bunker-busting” hypersonic weapons was dusted off once again.