The part where China "begs" the US not to weaponize space, and then talks of how China wants to militarily dominate space... Such typical tactics to delay US progress.
US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
331–340 of 397 posts
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#332Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. Especially since the consequences of space debris might trigger the Kessler effect [1], denying humanity future access to low-earth orbit for the considerable future. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
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…
I have little doubt that the OST was circumvented by definitional tricks. That is how the game of treaties and power is played. Something like rods from God or a conventional bomb orbiting platform wouldn't be considered a WMD but most certainly are the types of weapons common folk would think the OST forbids.
I suspect since the OST didn't ban orbital weapons capable of attacking the surface outright that some of the signing parties already had them and didn't want to give them up.
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum All you need to know about making deals with Russia.
Yeah, Ukraine should have held onto its nukes. But it got a lovely piece of paper to protect itself with.
easy to say at a distance. It didnt have full control and had the nuclear powers pushing them to.
We dont know if Ukraine would be a state today if they refused
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
A bullet travels at a relative speed of about 250 to 1250m/s. A ~10g projectile moving that fast has an energy of 600-16000 joules. Everything in low Earth orbit is moving at 7600m/s. A ~10g projectile moving that fast has an energy of 580,000 joules. Getting hit by something moving that fast is roughly equivalent to getting hit by a whole ammo case of bullets at the same speed. There is no armor that can protect you…
This is not correct, and the experiment has been done a number of times with no real effect, most memorably in 01961, when Project West Ford put 480 million copper needles in 3500-km-high medium Earth orbit (MEO); but it's a little bit challenging to understand why.
The first reason is that outer space is just inconceivably big, even just the space in low Earth orbit (LEO). LEO has very nearly the same surface area as the Earth, which is to say, about 40% more surface area than the ocean. But the ocean averages 3.7 km thick, and LEO is 2000 km thick. So, roughly speaking, LEO is 50 times the volume of the ocean.
That's a lot of space to miss. There's about 15000 active satellites up there, mostly Starlink. Imagine there are 15000 ÷ 50 = 300 divers swimming at random places in the world's oceans, you have a gun that shoots magic bullets that go 7700m/s and never stop until they hit a diver, and you fire one into the ocean at random. How long is it going to take that bullet to hit someone? It traverses, say, 7700 cubic meters per second, but there are 1.32 × 10¹⁸ m³ (1.32 quintillion m³) of ocean it could traverse, and on average it has to traverse 4.4 quadrillion m³ before it hits someone.
It turns out that your poor bullet will bounce around the ocean for about 18000 years, which is the same thing that will happen to one of your ball bearings if it manages to stay in orbit.
The second reason is, perhaps surprisingly, air resistance. The atmosphere thins out exponentially but never quite stops. Most satellites are at a height where the orbits of even macroscopic multi-kilogram objects decay within a few years from air resistance unless you boost them; smaller objects like your ball bearings or the West Ford needles decay more rapidly. Indeed, all of the individual West Ford needles have already deorbited, despite being in MEO at four times the height of typical LEO satellites, though 44 needle clumps remain.
The third reason is the narrow nature of orbital dynamics. The reason you have to go 7600m/s is that you're in free fall, and you have to miss the Earth when you come down, by having moved far enough horizontally that the Earth isn't there any more. If your hand grenade sends the ball bearings flying backward along the orbit and/or downwards fast enough, they'll re-enter the atmosphere immediately. What's less obvious is that the ball bearings that it sends upwards will re-enter the atmosphere after half an orbit. Depending on how forceful your explosion is, only a narrow circle that stay in almost exactly the same orbit may survive.
None of the ball bearings will be lofted to a higher stable orbit. If they couldn't hit the Earth (perhaps because we replaced it with a very, very small black hole) and none of them reached escape velocity, they would all orbit back through the point where the hand grenade went off, once they'd finished an orbit. So (restoring the Earth to our scenario) even after 18000 years, your hand grenade will have only hit satellites at the same height where it went off in the first place, or slightly higher or lower.
The Kessler syndrome is a real, serious problem for space access, but it hinges crucially on the number of satellites up there to participate in the fragmentation cascade.
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#335Rather 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
It's really not interesting at all. The US Destroyed that satellite to stop that information flow.
China has more intelligence/imaging satellites in space than the US does. I don't think it will stop the information flow.
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#336>"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.
> Being the first country to put weapons in space, is far from comical.
First to publicly announce it. However, Russia beat us to the punch.
Russian, China, India, and the US are all in this secret little club (but maybe not so secret anymore!)
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#337>"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.
Russia mounted a gun on one of its space stations[0] but it didn't work out, and they were going to launch an orbital nuclear platform[1] but then everything went to shit.
Less flippantly, I seriously doubt the US is the first country to put weapons in space, they're just stupid enough to admit it for some reason. I would bet money I don't have that both Russia and China have something nasty up there at least, and the US has probably launched something for Israel at some point.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3
[1]https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-rise-fall-the-sovie...
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
A major provocation? "Oh, you deny using your satellites to supply them with imaging? All right, then it wasn't us who blew up your spy satellite that wasn't supplying imaging." That is, China's in a bit of an awkward position to complain very much.
China is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela or some other third world country that the US has fought in over the past few decades. You can't just destroy one of their satellites for free. And I can bet the US didn't do it, because that would be a major escalation, especially now that Xi is coming to the US and there are rumors that the US wants a deal.
So China's brand new recon satellite that was placed specifically in orbit over Iran just happened to self-destruct weeks after China was accused of giving Iran high-res satellite imagery that was used to kill American soldiers?
And the US just publicly told everyone they have weapons in space?
Hell of a coincidence.
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny you mention Antarctica. Pretty sure that place is also heavily militarized. Some Norwegian sailors has being severely punished for sailing boats there. The funny thing is people in conspiracy circle has being taking about that space has being militarized for years! China and Japan just openly talked them: https://san.com/cc/nasa-china-wants-military-moon-base/ Really at this point between conspiracy and officia…
> Pretty sure that place is also heavily militarized To what end? Seriously. Maybe submarine listening devices on the seabed?
No one expects the Antarctic Inquisition
Re: US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bullet travels at a relative speed of about 250 to 1250m/s. A ~10g projectile moving that fast has an energy of 600-16000 joules. Everything in low Earth orbit is moving at 7600m/s. A ~10g projectile moving that fast has an energy of 580,000 joules. Getting hit by something moving that fast is roughly equivalent to getting hit by a whole ammo case of bullets at the same speed. There is no armor that can protect you…
This is not correct, and the experiment has been done a number of times with no real effect, most memorably in 01961, when Project West Ford put 480 million copper needles in 3500-km-high medium Earth orbit (MEO); but it's a little bit challenging to understand why. The first reason is that outer space is just inconceivably big, even just the space in low Earth orbit (LEO). LEO has very nearly the same surface area a…
The wires in Project West Ford weighed something like 40 micrograms, with a diameter in the low tens of micrometers. They don’t really fit the criteria of what’s being discussed here - they would not do significant damage to other satellites, and while they could reenter the atmosphere and hit a person, you probably wouldn’t even feel it.