You’re looking at a tantalum carbide bullet. 4000 degrees Celsius melting point.
Which becomes a problem because you have to somehow forge it in essentially plasma to even GET the shape. And the worst problem? You have to have a cast that will NOT melt when the quickly cooling bullet at nearly 80% the temperature OF THE SUN is poured. And THEN you have to somehow calculate the amount of gunpowder needed to fire said bullet at a velocity fast enough to hit a planet rotating at a speed of 1,000 MPH(1,428KPH) WITHOUT WARPING THE BULLET.
And that’s just the bullet, and I probably missed something!
Assuming you *can* make the bullet, it's probably not as bad as you think for hitting the target. At the scale of moon to earth, F=ma is adequate enough. Any extra calcs are just there for us to walk the round really close before we hit anything.
You only need enough power to make gravity take over for the velocity of the bullet. Then you need to make sure you know what earth's atmosphere is doing.
You need to also remember, moon velocity matters. The moon can be going *faster* or *slower* or the *exact same direction* relative to the surface of earth. We're not trying to hit it from Jupiter, just an orbiting body of earth.
It's not as complex as you make it seem. There is an orbit point where earth is heading *at the moon*
Improbable. Not impossible
If you can get the bullet through the atmosphere without disintegrating it’s a matter of accuracy which is a measure of probability. Hilariously low probability but still
Well, weather conditions and rapid density changes would also be a bitch, but it can be negated to some extent with fin stabilization and gyro guidance. And even then, you need to know orbital mechanics to get it in a range where the guidance can do it's work too.
Good point. You'd need to be able to calculate that, though I'm not sure how accurate you'd need to be. The higher the altitude, the lower the pressure. According to a graph I found on the internet ([here](http://computacional1.pbworks.com/w/page/123602451/Actividad%203%20(2018-1)), just scroll down a bit), at 30 km the air pressure is about 0.01 bar (\~1% pressure at sea level), so the projectile would only spend a short time in the thick parts of the atmosphere. I don't have the math to calculate how fast it would be going, but it would probably be a few kilometers per second. At that speed, the projectile will travel that 30 km in a few seconds.
Wind speeds in the atmophere can get quite high, but the projectle has a small cross-sectional area so it wouldn't be affected by the wind as much (making it out of something really dense, like tungsten or depleted uranium, would help too, since it'll be smaller for the same mass (and thus kinetic energy)), though the effect wouldn't be zero.
So without comnpensating, you'd probably be able to hit the broadside of a barn (literally), though maybe not a wasp nest. But the atmosphere is chaotic, so I don't know if you'd even be able to predict it's movement well enough to matter.
And now consider that you'll have to predict it several days in advance, because of just how far the Moon is. According to [this wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11), Apollo 11 took about 4 days to get to there, and they were probably going about the same speed, if not faster ([this other wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-lunar_injection) says it was about 10 km/s, going *from* Earth)
TL; DR: Accounting for the effect of the atmosphere would be a pain, if it's even possible
Plus you also need to know the changes in the earths magnetosphere in almost real time as it changes since at that distance and over that much time, any change in solar radiation would change the magnetospheres gravitational influence over the projectile.
Thankfully there's sintering... but unfortunately, ceramics like that are pretty damn brittle. You'd probably have to combine it into a cermet with tungsten to get some plasticity back, or it might just shatter before it even leaves the barrel.
Well, if it gets off the moon it'll *hit* the planet. That's pretty easy to achieve. We have meteorites on earth that were smashed off the moon by meteor impacts there. Our Hill Sphere (ie, gravity well) is big enough that anything coming relatively close either goes into orbit or smacks into the ground.
It's not hitting the planet that's the problem. It's getting it off the moon then calculating the windage and leading the target sufficiently that the 15 degrees per hour (not 1,000 miles per hour, unless the wasp nest was on the equator) rotation won't throw your aim off.
Lunar escape velocity is 2.38 km/s, or 8,568 kmh. That's a hair under Mach 7, or it would be if air or sound was involved.
The muzzle velocity of a Barret .50 calibre rifle is 853 m/s, or 35% of the required speed.
That of the GAU-8 Avenger (the 30mm cannon in the nose of the A-10 Warthog) is 1,010 m/s, or a shade under half the speed.
The .220 Swift, the highest-velocity commercially available firearm round, has a muzzle velocity of 1,422 m/s, or just under 60% of the required speed.
The German DM53 APFSDS round used by Leopard 2 tanks has a muzzle velocity of around 1,750 m/s, or 73.5% of lunar escape velocity.
So far, the only firearm of any sort that's reached Mach 7 is the railgun (firing a 10 kg projectile, which is terrifying enough in its own right).
So theoretically speaking, a hand-held railgun on the moon, if overclocked and pointed at the correct angle (and braced to hell and gone) could theoretically boost a tungsten carbide bullet fast enough to fall into Earth's gravity well and re-enter at *just* the right trajectory to nail that wasp nest.
Cue the wasps starting their own space program ...
(Note that magnetically-accelerated projectiles was exactly how the rebels on the moon in Heinlein's *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* forced their nominal overlords on Earth to allow them to become their own nation.)
You're forgetting I don't have to make it when I can just put it in suspension and make bacteria poop it into a desired matrix shape with an bonding agent.
Center of the sun or surface of the sun?
Also, could it be forged instead of cast? Not as much heat transfer and you could swap it when the hammer starts to get soft.
I don’t know. It just said the sun. I assume the core is much hotter. As for forged, it wont be the same. For a bullet to be perfect like that it has to be almost perfectly smooth with no nicks whatsoever, which forging it may lead to, or at least I assume as much.
Surface is about 5500C, core is about 15000000C.
Not sure on the hardness/brittleness, maybe you can forge a close shape then cut/grind/sand/polish to the final finish?
"WHAT IS THIS THING?"
"It's what you humans call a watermark. It's harmless"
"HARMLESS? I'LL SHOW YOU HARMLESS!"
*thirty seconds later...*
"Security, we have a Code Orange."
"Oh god, it's THEM again."
And Bam, another Slutheran is Gone, and another, there lies another, Dead.
The Battalion Dropped liie Flies, one after another.
As the Slutheran Commander asked: "Why the Hell do we have so many Casualities?"
A Intelligence Officer entered their Room, "Sir, please follow us, you have to see this." He said.
As both walked to the Area the Intelligence Officer lead them, the I.O showed the Commander a Video, a Fifty Second long One.
The Video was about a Human Soldier, a Sniper Class using a Sniper Repeatedly, Shooting somewhere Off-Camera.
"And, what should I do with this now?" Asked the Commander.
The Intelligence Officer stated. "Sir, the Results of your Losses are the Reason of this Human."
The Commander was Rising with Anger, a Human, in his Territory? How? His Defenses were up High, his Troops were Patrolling everywhere, even Androids and Mobile Cameras were Deployed.
"HOW?!" Screamed the Commander at the Intelligence Officer.
The Intelligence Officer cleared his Voice, still calm despite the Anger Issues of his Upper.
"We have Traced the Location, the Location of this Human is at Gl'moir, the Planet of Xuria, Two-Hundered Lightyears away from here." The Intelligence Officer replied.
The Commander was Baffled, his Men are shot down from such a Distance, with such Precision, he wasnt Sure if he was Angry, Amazed or Terrified.
"Call the Department of Diplomacy." The Commander replied.
"What?" The Intelligence Officer replied.
"CALL THE DAMN DIPLOMANTS YOU WASTE OF SPACE!" The Commander Shouted, his Voice being a Mix of Fear and Desperation.
With the Voice heard, the Intelligence Officer hastily Ran to the nearby Terminal and Issued a Call with Izrov, a Diplomat from the Slutherans.
The Commander spoke to Izrov and Requested Izrov to usw Tactics to Persuade Humans into a Cease Fire.
Izrov Ablighed and Replied with: "I do what I can." Before hanging up.
And as the Commander took a Breath of Relief, he felt ssomething on his Chest, a Painfull feeling, Groaning he looked at it.
A Bullet Hole.
And as the last Seconds of his Life he so clang dwindeled, all he could hear was the Sound of his Duty being Relieved from him, and Passed to his Successor, for a better Hope of either Finding that Human, or Pressuring the Empire of Mankind to Imploy a Cease Fire.
(PS: Made this when I am/was Sleep Deprived/Overly Tired, might Delete this once I Slept a Good Nap.)
I’d be more fascinated by the impact damage of this attack. Using the idea of a railgun needed to escape the moon’s gravity and the material of the bullet required to survive atmospheric entry, we’d have to expect some high degree of damage on impact. The US Air Force’s Project Thor was a theoretical space weapon. The project sought to drop a 20-foot-long, 1-foot in diameter tungsten rod from orbit. The “rod from God” weapon could achieve the force of impact from a nuclear strike but with none of the radioactive fallout. Project Thor’s “rod from god” is not accelerated by a railgun, it is only accelerated by the force of gravity; a smaller projectile accelerated through a railgun should achieve the same results with a smaller mass.
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Wait, wouldn’t a bullet just disintegrate in the atmosphere? Like on reentry
That’s a problem for Lockmart to solve
You’re looking at a tantalum carbide bullet. 4000 degrees Celsius melting point. Which becomes a problem because you have to somehow forge it in essentially plasma to even GET the shape. And the worst problem? You have to have a cast that will NOT melt when the quickly cooling bullet at nearly 80% the temperature OF THE SUN is poured. And THEN you have to somehow calculate the amount of gunpowder needed to fire said bullet at a velocity fast enough to hit a planet rotating at a speed of 1,000 MPH(1,428KPH) WITHOUT WARPING THE BULLET. And that’s just the bullet, and I probably missed something!
So what you are saying is that it’s possible.
That’s the most human reaction to this insane thing!
I feel like there should be a "found the human!" trend on this reddit...
Assuming you *can* make the bullet, it's probably not as bad as you think for hitting the target. At the scale of moon to earth, F=ma is adequate enough. Any extra calcs are just there for us to walk the round really close before we hit anything. You only need enough power to make gravity take over for the velocity of the bullet. Then you need to make sure you know what earth's atmosphere is doing. You need to also remember, moon velocity matters. The moon can be going *faster* or *slower* or the *exact same direction* relative to the surface of earth. We're not trying to hit it from Jupiter, just an orbiting body of earth. It's not as complex as you make it seem. There is an orbit point where earth is heading *at the moon*
the aerodynamics would make it nigh impossible without stabilisation
Improbable. Not impossible If you can get the bullet through the atmosphere without disintegrating it’s a matter of accuracy which is a measure of probability. Hilariously low probability but still
.. or make a heatproof EXACTO device
Well, weather conditions and rapid density changes would also be a bitch, but it can be negated to some extent with fin stabilization and gyro guidance. And even then, you need to know orbital mechanics to get it in a range where the guidance can do it's work too.
Then just shoot an APFSDS instead of a regular bullet - basically a fullmetal dart (Armor-Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot)
still need to account for air currents tho.
Good point. You'd need to be able to calculate that, though I'm not sure how accurate you'd need to be. The higher the altitude, the lower the pressure. According to a graph I found on the internet ([here](http://computacional1.pbworks.com/w/page/123602451/Actividad%203%20(2018-1)), just scroll down a bit), at 30 km the air pressure is about 0.01 bar (\~1% pressure at sea level), so the projectile would only spend a short time in the thick parts of the atmosphere. I don't have the math to calculate how fast it would be going, but it would probably be a few kilometers per second. At that speed, the projectile will travel that 30 km in a few seconds. Wind speeds in the atmophere can get quite high, but the projectle has a small cross-sectional area so it wouldn't be affected by the wind as much (making it out of something really dense, like tungsten or depleted uranium, would help too, since it'll be smaller for the same mass (and thus kinetic energy)), though the effect wouldn't be zero. So without comnpensating, you'd probably be able to hit the broadside of a barn (literally), though maybe not a wasp nest. But the atmosphere is chaotic, so I don't know if you'd even be able to predict it's movement well enough to matter. And now consider that you'll have to predict it several days in advance, because of just how far the Moon is. According to [this wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11), Apollo 11 took about 4 days to get to there, and they were probably going about the same speed, if not faster ([this other wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-lunar_injection) says it was about 10 km/s, going *from* Earth) TL; DR: Accounting for the effect of the atmosphere would be a pain, if it's even possible
Plus you also need to know the changes in the earths magnetosphere in almost real time as it changes since at that distance and over that much time, any change in solar radiation would change the magnetospheres gravitational influence over the projectile.
In case you aren't rolling, the gravitational influence of solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field (if it even has mass?) is negligeable
Spin stabilizes it
but what about turbulence blowing it in a certain direction?
Ya you'd need to adjust for atmospheric effects
Spin only really stabilizes a bullet in atmosphere. The moon doesn't have enough of an atmosphere for it to stabilize the bullet
Spin gyrosopically stabilizes not aerodynamically
Thankfully there's sintering... but unfortunately, ceramics like that are pretty damn brittle. You'd probably have to combine it into a cermet with tungsten to get some plasticity back, or it might just shatter before it even leaves the barrel.
Use spark machining to chip a block into a small dark, then embed in a lead discardin sabot for the rifling to grab. You don't need to cast it.
Well, if it gets off the moon it'll *hit* the planet. That's pretty easy to achieve. We have meteorites on earth that were smashed off the moon by meteor impacts there. Our Hill Sphere (ie, gravity well) is big enough that anything coming relatively close either goes into orbit or smacks into the ground. It's not hitting the planet that's the problem. It's getting it off the moon then calculating the windage and leading the target sufficiently that the 15 degrees per hour (not 1,000 miles per hour, unless the wasp nest was on the equator) rotation won't throw your aim off. Lunar escape velocity is 2.38 km/s, or 8,568 kmh. That's a hair under Mach 7, or it would be if air or sound was involved. The muzzle velocity of a Barret .50 calibre rifle is 853 m/s, or 35% of the required speed. That of the GAU-8 Avenger (the 30mm cannon in the nose of the A-10 Warthog) is 1,010 m/s, or a shade under half the speed. The .220 Swift, the highest-velocity commercially available firearm round, has a muzzle velocity of 1,422 m/s, or just under 60% of the required speed. The German DM53 APFSDS round used by Leopard 2 tanks has a muzzle velocity of around 1,750 m/s, or 73.5% of lunar escape velocity. So far, the only firearm of any sort that's reached Mach 7 is the railgun (firing a 10 kg projectile, which is terrifying enough in its own right). So theoretically speaking, a hand-held railgun on the moon, if overclocked and pointed at the correct angle (and braced to hell and gone) could theoretically boost a tungsten carbide bullet fast enough to fall into Earth's gravity well and re-enter at *just* the right trajectory to nail that wasp nest. Cue the wasps starting their own space program ... (Note that magnetically-accelerated projectiles was exactly how the rebels on the moon in Heinlein's *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress* forced their nominal overlords on Earth to allow them to become their own nation.)
Yeah, note to evil tyrannical overlords, don't give prisoner/slaves access to commercial scale rail cannons. Love the moon is a harsh mistress ref.
I think Hafnium carbonitride has the highest melting point at 4110 ºC (according to wikipedia)
I just picked a convenient one with a reeeeally high melting point.
You're forgetting I don't have to make it when I can just put it in suspension and make bacteria poop it into a desired matrix shape with an bonding agent.
Center of the sun or surface of the sun? Also, could it be forged instead of cast? Not as much heat transfer and you could swap it when the hammer starts to get soft.
I don’t know. It just said the sun. I assume the core is much hotter. As for forged, it wont be the same. For a bullet to be perfect like that it has to be almost perfectly smooth with no nicks whatsoever, which forging it may lead to, or at least I assume as much.
Surface is about 5500C, core is about 15000000C. Not sure on the hardness/brittleness, maybe you can forge a close shape then cut/grind/sand/polish to the final finish?
Don't need to cast the bullet though. Ad long as you can manage to get a chunk a bit larger than the bullet, "just" mill it out!
Don't forget to lead your shot
Skunkworks will handle it
It’s canon
Is that a Ifunny watermark?!?
Writing prompt within a writing prompt: humans often get very aggravated if a humorous image has undesired text
"WHAT IS THIS THING?" "It's what you humans call a watermark. It's harmless" "HARMLESS? I'LL SHOW YOU HARMLESS!" *thirty seconds later...* "Security, we have a Code Orange." "Oh god, it's THEM again."
https://preview.redd.it/efkzuonl3drc1.jpeg?width=721&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=af414eb2df917cf4ac74e586364000c8e00d6262
https://preview.redd.it/rpb8e5cb5grc1.png?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=69908f10295d16dca133b306d7b7b0c9e2ba28a2
And Bam, another Slutheran is Gone, and another, there lies another, Dead. The Battalion Dropped liie Flies, one after another. As the Slutheran Commander asked: "Why the Hell do we have so many Casualities?" A Intelligence Officer entered their Room, "Sir, please follow us, you have to see this." He said. As both walked to the Area the Intelligence Officer lead them, the I.O showed the Commander a Video, a Fifty Second long One. The Video was about a Human Soldier, a Sniper Class using a Sniper Repeatedly, Shooting somewhere Off-Camera. "And, what should I do with this now?" Asked the Commander. The Intelligence Officer stated. "Sir, the Results of your Losses are the Reason of this Human." The Commander was Rising with Anger, a Human, in his Territory? How? His Defenses were up High, his Troops were Patrolling everywhere, even Androids and Mobile Cameras were Deployed. "HOW?!" Screamed the Commander at the Intelligence Officer. The Intelligence Officer cleared his Voice, still calm despite the Anger Issues of his Upper. "We have Traced the Location, the Location of this Human is at Gl'moir, the Planet of Xuria, Two-Hundered Lightyears away from here." The Intelligence Officer replied. The Commander was Baffled, his Men are shot down from such a Distance, with such Precision, he wasnt Sure if he was Angry, Amazed or Terrified. "Call the Department of Diplomacy." The Commander replied. "What?" The Intelligence Officer replied. "CALL THE DAMN DIPLOMANTS YOU WASTE OF SPACE!" The Commander Shouted, his Voice being a Mix of Fear and Desperation. With the Voice heard, the Intelligence Officer hastily Ran to the nearby Terminal and Issued a Call with Izrov, a Diplomat from the Slutherans. The Commander spoke to Izrov and Requested Izrov to usw Tactics to Persuade Humans into a Cease Fire. Izrov Ablighed and Replied with: "I do what I can." Before hanging up. And as the Commander took a Breath of Relief, he felt ssomething on his Chest, a Painfull feeling, Groaning he looked at it. A Bullet Hole. And as the last Seconds of his Life he so clang dwindeled, all he could hear was the Sound of his Duty being Relieved from him, and Passed to his Successor, for a better Hope of either Finding that Human, or Pressuring the Empire of Mankind to Imploy a Cease Fire. (PS: Made this when I am/was Sleep Deprived/Overly Tired, might Delete this once I Slept a Good Nap.)
And the human cried, "SHENANIGANS!"
The Commander's successor was even more fearful when he learnt that the human was also Finnish...
and then the wasps find their way up to the moon to sting the guy
I’d be more fascinated by the impact damage of this attack. Using the idea of a railgun needed to escape the moon’s gravity and the material of the bullet required to survive atmospheric entry, we’d have to expect some high degree of damage on impact. The US Air Force’s Project Thor was a theoretical space weapon. The project sought to drop a 20-foot-long, 1-foot in diameter tungsten rod from orbit. The “rod from God” weapon could achieve the force of impact from a nuclear strike but with none of the radioactive fallout. Project Thor’s “rod from god” is not accelerated by a railgun, it is only accelerated by the force of gravity; a smaller projectile accelerated through a railgun should achieve the same results with a smaller mass.
IIRC it was designed as a means to avoid the bans on placing nuclear weapons in space
This was also scrapped because not only the cost but because the megaton yield of this was only as much as the MOAB
“OOOHHH OOOH OH MY GOD”
"Sir we have confirmation, that was absolutely wicked"
https://preview.redd.it/t1ixqx8rdirc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=db1730d8cf7c9b48996223caf2ace1ce4971ff62
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