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U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

thedrive.com

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Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#111

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ceejayoz wrote: post #88
YeBanKo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By this logic, every nation needs to ramp up space combat capabilities, because their perceived or real enemies could also do so. It is a typical arm race. It going on for other types of warfare at the moment, now there is another dimension. Regarding Petrov, I think there were more than one such cases. I remember reading about a similar case on the US side, afaik the operator that decided against pulling the trigg…

> This seems benign compared to nuclear though, as mutual strikes don’t lead to mutual destruction. Not necessarily. A core component of the nuclear deterrent is the satellites that detect launches from Russia/China/etc. If someone took a bunch of those out, the fingers on the nuclear button would be significantly twitchier than usual.

Any skirmish in space will give us kessler syndrome, destroy all satellustes and render nost orbits inaccessible for hundreds of years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#112

Post by chrisseaton »

jand wrote: post #43

This article presents some thoughts on how, if and when the US should or could strike (back) in space after summarizing the alleged current space combat capability developments of other nations. You can easily replace "US" with other nations and the target audience with their citizens and allies. By this logic, every nation needs to ramp up space combat capabilities, because their perceived or real enemies could also…

> cold war 'space edition'

The Cold War was already a 'space edition'.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#113

Post by ceejayoz »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #111
ceejayoz wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems benign compared to nuclear though, as mutual strikes don’t lead to mutual destruction. Not necessarily. A core component of the nuclear deterrent is the satellites that detect launches from Russia/China/etc. If someone took a bunch of those out, the fingers on the nuclear button would be significantly twitchier than usual.

Any skirmish in space will give us kessler syndrome, destroy all satellustes and render nost orbits inaccessible for hundreds of years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

As the article notes, blowing things up isn't the only option.

Blinding / hacking / deorbiting / etc. a bunch of early warning satellites of one of the major nuclear powers would be a majorly destabilizing move.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#114

Post by nine_k »

dragontamer wrote: post #83
nine_k wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting is easier of course! The idea is to disable a satellite in a nicest possible way, in order to look good in the eyes of everyone but the adversary.

A laser-beam attack is when you shine a laser into the satellite's lenses, meaning its blind for the duration of the laser-beam. As such, you can disable an opponent's satellite without destroying it. It just doesn't work for the duration of the laser-beam attack.

This works against optical surveillance.

My idea was also targeting e.g. navigation and communication satellites. Maybe coming close and drowning their transmission in white noise could work. It would take imitating their antennas' direction pretty well.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#115

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #4
setpatchaddress wrote: post #2

And why should we believe this? Edit: The "space force" needs to justify its existence, and this is a way for them to do it. Why haven't we heard about this before?

Why not? China and Russia are ramping up on military presence, maneuvers, and armament. Our top businesses are constantly under attack by nation state actors. I've witnessed a few attacks directly. I'd be willing to bet that there will be some action taken in Ukraine and Taiwan within the decade, possibly simultaneously.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#116

Post by nine_k »

FredPret wrote: post #106
nine_k wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitting is easier of course! The idea is to disable a satellite in a nicest possible way, in order to look good in the eyes of everyone but the adversary.

You’d probably have to hack it then. Getting there and wrapping it in foil / sabotaging it would be unbelievably hard and clearly visible to the whole world’s radar systems

I don't think that a rocket attack would stay invisible.

If the target satellite would start maneuvering to avoid capture, it's OK because now it's useless as a navigation satellite, and is harder if even still possible to use for communication and surveillance.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#117

Post by [deleted] »

wallacoloo wrote: post #58
fallingknife wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If retaliation for an attack makes the lives of 1 billion Chinese worse, then that's on them for attacking, not on us for responding. A space force general is not "one guy saying"

> then that's on them for attacking, not on us for responding. and if the other party applies this same reasoning to your response? if your epistemics are at all self-consistent, then after the escalation you’re responsible for the negative impact on about half of all the lives impacted. the easy out you present is just self delusion.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#118

Post by Eelongate »

mrtnmcc wrote: post #52
pvarangot wrote: post #28

This is propaganda, the US is the only military with operational space drones and space planes. They have the technology and enough budget to defend military and commercial satellites and just looking for political support to actually do so. The CCP military may be ahead in number of rockets but the US is way ahead in number of spy satellites by a far margin and can also commission civilian capabilities for this.

Joe at The Drive has been writing a ton of Space Force propaganda articles lately. The Defense Budget is getting debated now and this "news" really does seem aimed at Congress. Space Force and SDA want to fund their constellation of hypersonic reentry vehicles based on the SpaceX Starlink platform [1,2,3]. It would provide instant kill capability around the world. China is the justification for this massive buildup o…

If SpaceX can get Starship flying at the price they predict, it would be a game-changer. Presently that seems like a big 'if'.

It would pay to be the first nation with a Brilliant Pebbles installation, since such an installation could be used to deny any other nation the ability to create the same. Brilliant Pebbles isn't merely an anti-missile system; it could also be used to intercept rockets launching satellites, including the launch other BP systems. It's a winner-takes-all game.

If the strategic interests of America are not your own interests, all of this obviously seems very grim. If you think strategic defense is just a waste of money, then all of this is more of the same. But if you're the sort of person who thinks that billions of dollars spent on nuclear submarines is money well spent, then using Starship to launch a Brilliant Pebbles constellation is a no-brainer.

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#119

Post by cascom »

14 wrote: post #99

Is it really fair to say attack when they openly say “our spy satellites”. Is not spying considered an attack on those you are spying on?

Seems like there is a difference between passive spying (say monitoring radio transmissions from international waters or taking pictures from space) vs active spying (conducting intelligence operations on foreign soil or hacking a network)

Re: U.S. satellites are being attacked every day according to Space Force general

#120

Post by kelnos »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #100
fallingknife wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the best way to prevent a Taiwan situation is to give them nukes. China would never invade if it meant losing their 10 largest cities. And when they throw a fit just say "but China, you already had nukes. Which part of China they are in is no concern of ours."

Wouldn't Taiwan need a credible second strike capability as well? The US probably can't credibly guarantee their safety, so they'd need to be able to do that themselves, otherwise the threat is empty and useless. But say the US really did arm Taiwan with first and second strike capabilities, I don't even think the US could stomach the reaction to that. How long could they hold out if embargoed by the PRC?

Wouldn't a PRC embargo of the US hurt the PRC nearly as much as the US?
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