# What weapons could be built (practically) that would be more powerful than nuclear weapons? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 1, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229 "2016-06-01T13:02:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/21 "2016-06-01T15:42:31Z")
Hmm, not sure. It’s heavy, but it’s wide and not very dense. Any physics wonks out there ? Else we could just set up the practical experiment and save ourselves some maths 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/22 "2016-06-01T15:45:59Z")
> [@Lubricious\_Integument](#): > > If you define a ton as two pounds, sure. Shit. I blame the decaf. ---
**Author:** ![joema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@joema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joema)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/23 "2016-06-01T16:02:08Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > The ISS has a mass of 419,455 kg (924,740 lb)…Is that large enough? Dropping heavy objects from orbit is not nearly as powerful as a large nuclear warhead. E.g, a 100 meter diameter sphere of iron is 524000 cubic meters and iron weighs about 8000 kg per cubic meter, for a total mass of 4.19 billion kg, or 10,000 times the mass of ISS. According to this Impact Effect Calculator if that was dropped from orbital velocity it would be less than a 60 megaton bomb: [Impact Earth](http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth) The OP question was what is practically achievable. There is no way putting something in orbit with 10,000 times the mass of ISS is practical with current technology. Also an orbital path only covers one specific ground track on earth. If the target is not directly below it can’t be hit. Changing orbital inclinations is very propellant-intensive, especially for a heavy object. While orbital or suborbital kinetic weapons are widely discussed and might have some future tactical use, they are not remotely equivalent to a large nuclear bomb. You can see an actual unarmed Minuteman kinetic impact here. It’s not that big: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8n59S8j2C0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8n59S8j2C0) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/24 "2016-06-01T16:09:07Z")
What about using nukes to free up a small bit of the moon, like a mountain top, and sending it earthward? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/25 "2016-06-01T16:15:29Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The Tsar Bomba was 58 megatons. How big would these rods have to be to exceed that? Assuming an impact speed of 8 km/s, about 7.6 million tons. If you launch a Falcon Heavy every day, it’ll take 370 years to get that much mass into orbit. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/26 "2016-06-01T16:22:15Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What about using nukes to free up a small bit of the moon, like a mountain top, and sending it earthward? If you drill into a mountain and explode a nuclear bomb, all you do is create a lot of rubble. I don’t see how you can make a solid piece come off of the mountain and fly upwards in one piece. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/27 "2016-06-01T16:23:45Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Assuming an impact speed of 8 km/s, about 7.6 million tons. > > If you launch a Falcon Heavy every day, it’ll take 370 years to get that much mass into orbit. You’d have to find that much tungsten first-the U.S. only has about 140,000 tons of it stored up, and in 2010 the total produced worldwide was only 68,000 tonnes. [Source.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungsten#Production) ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/28 "2016-06-01T16:30:00Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Depends on what you mean by ‘powerful’. Biological weapons, simpler poisons, and nano-tech could kill everyone on earth without all the physical destruction of nuclear weapons or dropping asteroids on the earth. Conceptually the ozone layer could be destroyed chemically and perhaps upset the ecology so greatly that human life is barely feasible. The problem with bioweapons (and to a lesser degree, toxins) is that their effects tend to be self-limiting, especially if relying on infected people as the continuing vector for dispersion. Once people start dying on mass, the remaining population takes measures to quarantine and protect themselves, and of course infectious bioagents are rarely 100% lethal. There is no current nanotechnology that could pose a lethal hazard to the general population, and the limiting factor of so-called “grey goo” scenarios is fundamenal thermodynamics; anything that can spread fast enough to be a hazard is going to heat up and waste a lot of energy; anything slow enough to be efficient will move slow. And synthetic nanotechnology has not gotten anywhere close to self-replicating devices, so there are geometric limits to expansion. Taking a medium sized asteroid, grinding it into a fine powder, and dropping it into low Earth orbit would both take out satellite communications and then fill the stratosphere with dust that would occlude sunlight, and would remain until it falls into the troposphere and is precipitated out of the atmosphere. Sustain this for long enough (e.g. a growing season or longer) and you would essentially doom all complex animal and much plant life to extinction. > [@Chronos](#): > > There’s not much point, though. With the bombs we already have, your target area is completely flattened, and the size of your target area is limited by the distance to the horizon, not by the energy of the device. Yes, larger bombs essentially just push the atmosphere up and out, producing more impressive fireballs but with only limited radial effects. A few more speculative ideas: [ul] [li]Fill the oceans with hyperoxygenating engineered algae which push the atmospheric O[SUB]2[/SUB] to toxic levels (\>30%) [/li][li]Introduce a stable black hole or some kind of energetic exotic matter which causes matter to accumulate and create a local high gravity gradient, eventually consuming the atmosphere or planet[/li][li]Fill the atmosphere with a gaseous hydrocarbon and combust the entire surface in one giant flamefront[/li][li]Turn off gravity and watch the Earth be flung out of orbit before internal pressure blows it apart[/li][/ul]Of course, none of these are practicable or (currently) technologically feasible, but it’s only a matter of time before my research, I mean, someone’s research, comes up with a solution, then global extortion, profit, and retirement to a nice geyserside pressure dome on Triton. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/29 "2016-06-01T16:34:16Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > If you drill into a mountain and explode a nuclear bomb, all you do is create a lot of rubble. I don’t see how you can make a solid piece come off of the mountain and fly upwards in one piece. The trick is you make a spine and skeleton structure out of this material called vibranium, which you have to get from a secretive African nation… > [@Czarcasm](#): > > You’d have to find that much tungsten first-the U.S. only has about 140,000 tons of it stored up, and in 2010 the total produced worldwide was only 68,000 tonnes. In that timeframe it would make a lot more sense to locate and process extraterrestrial sources of tungsten and other refractory metals. This is obviously not trivial, but it would at least give a sense of purpose to our space program vice “Let’s put a flag on Mars.”. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/30 "2016-06-01T16:57:41Z")
Per E. E. “Doc” Smith: Hit the planet with two planet-sized masses heading in opposite directions, each at .75C. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/31 "2016-06-01T17:26:43Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > Per E. E. “Doc” Smith: Hit the planet with two planet-sized masses heading in opposite directions, each at .75C. Per the OP: **What weapons could be built (practically)…** ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/32 "2016-06-01T17:59:10Z")
Well, a few hundred megatons of TNT should do the trick. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/33 "2016-06-01T18:12:54Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The trick is you make a spine and skeleton structure out of this material called vibranium, which you have to get from a secretive African nation… Yeah, I really didn’t get that plotline in _Avengers: Age of Ultron_. Then again, I only got to see it once because my daughter was so pissed at what they did to Black Widow. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/34 "2016-06-01T19:04:58Z")
What they did to Black Widow? Heck, Maria Hill is #2 in command of what remains of S.H.I.E.L.D. and she barely got more lines than Claw’s henchmen. The MCU is still kind of lagging behind in establishing its feminist credentials or realizing that both young girls and adult women also like to see superheroes in action (the latter seemingly more for Chris Hemsworth’s abs than the mean) but hopefully they’l catch up and do right with _Captain Marvel_, although I’d love to see a “Women of the MCU Kick Ass On Their Own” film with Hayley Atwell front and center. Meanwhile, poor Hawkeye still ain’t ever going to get his own film. Harley the Potato Gun Kid is going to get his own film before Jeremy Renner. And yet, nobody cares about “arrow guy”. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/35 "2016-06-01T21:03:58Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > There is no current nanotechnology that could pose a lethal hazard to the general population, and the limiting factor of so-called “grey goo” scenarios is fundamenal thermodynamics; anything that can spread fast enough to be a hazard is going to heat up and waste a lot of energy; anything slow enough to be efficient will move slow. And synthetic nanotechnology has not gotten anywhere close to self-replicating devices, so there are geometric limits to expansion. Though, in theory, a nanomachine could one day be built which is able to self-replicate and spread, like a virus, but engineered to not do anything damaging to any of its hosts until a set date. You could give the bots a year to spread across the Earth, giving no sign of their presence, and then kill every human on Earth in a synchronized attack that kills everyone but a few hermits living in the middle of nowhere, with limited human contact. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/36 "2016-06-01T21:16:00Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Though, in theory, a nanomachine could one day be built which is able to self-replicate and spread, like a virus, but engineered to not do anything damaging to any of its hosts until a set date. You could give the bots a year to spread across the Earth, giving no sign of their presence, and then kill every human on Earth in a synchronized attack that kills everyone but a few hermits living in the middle of nowhere, with limited human contact. Just having the ability to mass manufacture a simple device that can release a toxin or biohazard after a scheduled delays of a year or more would do it. It may not be a way to kill every person on earth, but if there are cycled attacks civilization is going to fall apart. Assuming the deadly stuff doesn’t last forever and keep killing people the survivors will have a decent shot of rebuilding from the point of the industrial revolution onward if they can stay together. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/37 "2016-06-01T21:24:35Z")
The OP will have to clarify what he meant, but I took the word “powerful” to refer to an explosive weapon, not a chemical or biohazard. Impacting large objects from space certainly seems like the most feasible approach. Of course, you wouldn’t lift the objects out of the earth’s gravity well and them drop them back; you want to start with an object that is already out there, like an asteroid. Launching your payload from the moon may be easier than redirecting an asteroid (reference: [The Moon is a Harsh Mistress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress)). –Mark ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/38 "2016-06-01T21:43:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What about using nukes to free up a small bit of the moon, like a mountain top, and sending it earthward? The way to do it is to use a mass-driver on the Moon to project lumps of Moon matter at the Earth. Guy named Heinlein wrote [the handbook on this one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress). Note that Gerard K O’Neill seriously proposed the construction of solar-powered mass-drivers on the Moon as part of his program for space colonisation, in his book _[The High Frontier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Frontier:_Human_Colonies_in_Space)_; I wonder if he realised the potential for warfare (probably he did). ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/39 "2016-06-01T21:57:16Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > How about a bigger nuke? There’s no practical upper bound to how big you can make a fusion bomb. Or rather, there is eventually an upper bound, but it’s far greater than anything we’ve ever actually made. I’m curious - ignoring the practicalities of building the thing, are there inherent constraints in the physical process that you eventually reach? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229/40 "2016-06-01T21:59:18Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > Launching your payload from the moon may be easier than redirecting an asteroid (reference: [The Moon is a Harsh Mistress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress)). Even then, it’d take a 1300-ton projectile dropped from the Moon to match the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. And that’s assuming the projectile reaches the ground without breaking up or losing any speed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-weapons-could-be-built-practically-that-would-be-more-powerful-than-nuclear-weapons/756229.md?page=3)