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US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

bbc.com

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Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#291

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tialaramex wrote: post #283
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it makes no real difference for GEO or outer orbits GEO is one of the few orbits we could actually one-shot trash for generations. (Well, any high-altitude orbit is. But GEO is special. If a random high-altitude orbit gets trashed, you can probably do fine with a slightly-different trajectory.)

No. The reason this can't work is that "trashing" an orbit works by a long chain of random collisions which also put debris into different orbits at roughly the same altitude. The debris from a smashed StarLink for example goes into a thousand different orbits with a variety of different directions but all at a similar altitude to the StarLink and so they'll collide with other StarLinks and similar LEO birds. For LEO…

I'm thinking of someone intentionally trashing an orbit. I still think ASAT is more econmical. But if you wanted to dump a bunch of sand around an adversary's GEO arc, I believe that's doable. It's not really feasible in LEO outside cartoonishly-aimless evil.

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#292

Post by eps »

tintor wrote: post #271
andai wrote: post #252

>"We urge the US side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space," AFP quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying. I'm no geopolitics whiz but "we urge the USA to be unprepared for war" is a pretty comical statement to me.

Being the first country to put weapons in space, is far from comical. Weapons in space is like putting nukes and missiles in international waters 12 miles from coast of all other countries, to reduce strike time.

First country to admit putting weapons in space.

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#293

Post by Lammy »

Relevant:

- USAF Directed Energy Directorate home page during the years 1999–2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20060831035044/http://www.de.afr...

- USAF Directed Energy Directorate home page during the years 2009–2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20160428181404/http://www.kirtla...

- LASER Effects Test Facility fact sheet from 2002 showing a 50-kilowatt CO² LASER setting a test target on fire: https://web.archive.org/web/20070315131556/http://www.de.afr...

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#294

Post by gowld »

aa-jv wrote: post #56
voidUpdate wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence would satisfy you that there are weapons in space? You either have to check yourself somehow, or trust a third party. Is there a third party you trust to provide evidence?

The article from The Space Review comes pretty close to providing some actual evidence. There are no trustworthy third parties when it comes to xenophobic agitprop.

Space Review website has malware-download ads all over the page. That spooks me.

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#295

Post by r_lee »

Revanche1367 wrote: post #286
nradov wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, that's a hilarious comment from the Chinese after they have literally tested their own anti-satellite weapons. But then their diplomats have never been short of chutzpah. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/chinas-anti-satellite-test

[flagged]

the commenter never implied that they don't

but anyone familiar with how China positions itself knows that they always say things like: "our space stuff is 100% peaceful we dont have any military stuff there, the imperialist West is lying! we are never aggressive, we are only peaceful and defensive"

and when someone else does something they always urge them to act according to international law and to not escalate

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#296

Post by aaron695 »

fnands wrote: post #83
nopassrecover wrote: post #46

Rather interesting timing after the US accused China of supplying Iran with high-res imagery used to support attacks on US bases, then a Chinese satellite mysteriously broke apart

Yaogan-50 for anyone asking. Interesting. A bit conspiratorial, but hey. It would be a major provocation if so

[dead]

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#297

Post by Tangurena2 »

notahacker wrote: post #28
voidUpdate wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the Outer Space Treaty (1967), which forbids placing "nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner", but you can get around that by saying that it's just a conventional weapon, not nuclear or WMD. If it's for space to space combat, you could say that any weapon is potentially a WMD due to the Kessler potential, but if…

Realistically pretty much anything in orbit is a viable space to space weapon (for related reasons all space propulsion is ITAR controlled) so it was never practical to ban them. Space to earth, maybe, but that isn't unless it hits vague 'WMD' categories, and I'm not sure space to ground is necessarily what the US is declaring here. I suspect whatever capability the US is referring to is far more "counter space" than…

If you have a vehicle that can reach orbit, then you have an ICBM. That's why Sputnik struck such fear into Americans.

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#298

Post by eks391 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #244
beambot wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blast radius from a maritime collission is (mostly) relegated to the vehicles in question [1]. The same is not true for satellite collisions. [1] There are counterexamples, like in narrow chokes & whatnot.

> same is not true for satellite collisions Space is big. Volume grows with radius in a way our intutiions don't seem to intuitively understand. Yes, debris in a space collision go further. But they're still bound by their energies. And that larger volume of collision debris (plus all other stuff in orbit minus the Moon) is still a smaller fraction of the orbital space than e.g. commercial air space on earth, and yes…

Space is huge, but being on land has some advantages too. It's true that volume grows, but satellites don't have brakes in the way that cars do, nor is there a cleanup crew that removes the debris after a crash.

You can remove curbs and any other barrier to simulate the fact that cars can maneuver away from a crash site, but if no site is ever cleaned, and no car has meaningful brakes, crash sites are much scarier.

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#299

Post by legulere »

nomel wrote: post #245
sgustard wrote: post #224

Reagan and Gorbachev came within inches of abolishing nuclear weapons, but the sticking point was the US would not back away from building space weapons. As long as warmongers are in control we will continue to live in danger and fear.

> As long as warmongers are in control we will continue to live in danger and fear. Can you expand on your solution to world peace?

You need to get a critical mass of people to despise war so much that they are ready to have disadvantages themselves to make a war free world a reality. E.g. complete stop of trade with countries starting a war or supporting such a country.

It happened before relatively successful with slavery and is partially happening with the death penalty. For me it seems like a very long way to go though.

Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons

#300

Post by nradov »

Revanche1367 wrote: post #286
nradov wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, that's a hilarious comment from the Chinese after they have literally tested their own anti-satellite weapons. But then their diplomats have never been short of chutzpah. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/chinas-anti-satellite-test

[flagged]

What a weird comment. I never claimed the USA doesn't have similar things. It's an arms race.

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4198/1

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