>>64025639forgot to say that once we get into space these things have a potential scientific use for astrogeology
want to get a deep overall sample from an object, maybe even mars?
drilling in space suck ass and costs a shit ton. direct nukes make samples radioactive and mess it up with way too much heat. impacting random asteroids contaminates the samples. typical explosives are too heavy to keep hauling into space and can cloud finding certain elements.
solution? use a modified version of this method to accelerate a massive plate of iron-54 or iron-57 (stable isotopes that are fairly rare but available = easily corrected measurements(also cheaper than alternatives)) into the surface as an impactor
radiation dissipates easily into the pressure vessel and space, the transfer to the explosively formed impactor would be minimal due to the energy transfer medium (steam)
of course the heat caused by the impact will cause some glassing, but it will also just pull a ton of rock up from deep in the ground and make a big fucking hole to explore and make it easy to take samples from multiple layers
tl;dr big space guns to shoot planets with for science