8 ms·

The U.S., Russia, and China Prepare for Satellite Warfare

25 points by Parbeyjr 10y ago

truetraveller 10y ago
It boils down to your definition of "patriotism" vs "terrorism". "good" vs "evil". When China does it, it's bad, right? And the same done by the U.S. good? Or is it the other way around? I think SpaceX's revenue is inevitably going to be tainted with money derived from major military purchases. Would love to know Musk's views.
- ztratar 10y ago
  No
  - truetraveller 10y ago
    No?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - ar15saveslives 10y ago
      No.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  > When China does it, it's bad, right? And the same done by the U.S. good? Or is it the other way around? Neither. Instead of flashing an applause light (on HN, that would be "The United States Government is evil!" but, to be fair, in lots of other places it would be yelling about the evil Chinese) we can look at the situation as it develops and why. It would depend on how the war came about, it would depend on the different actors' behaviors and motives. It would require thinking, and honesty. That whole world-weary "well, who knows what the distinction is between patriotism and terrorism really?" is quite foolish in general, and an excuse to avoid making hard moral choices or, worse, to avoid siding with people who are unpopular in one's social milieu. Yes, there are gray areas. There are also areas which are quite black and white. Should satellite warfare ever happen, something we should all hope is not the case, there's every chance will be able to figure out who was right and who was wrong.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    It might be another case of MAD, where satellite warfare "could" happen but without any reasonable defense, even major power satellites would be vulnerable. Then some crazy dictator in northeast Asia who has developed some satellite attack missiles with nothing to lose is the USA and China's biggest problem.
  - robotomir 10y ago
    Neither side will make a move without a decade of preparation, and every act during that decade needs to be judged against a common moral standard. Also we need orbital brooms, even second-class powers these days can trigger a Kessler syndrome. Several powerful laser installations, maybe on ships, will do fine.
    - flukus 10y ago
      We're pretty much at the point were private companies can trigger Kessler Syndrome.
    - mzw_mzw 10y ago
      Hmm, I've never heard that proposal before. Is anyone seriously investigating the use of ground-based lasers to clear orbiting debris? It's plausible that a powerful and well-controlled laser could damage large satellites, but could that be done carefully enough to safely deorbit them instead of breaking them apart? And would the lasers be capable of clearing smaller pieces of debris?
      - germinalphrase 10y ago
        Apparently, yes. [0] Lasers would not be used to destroy the debris. Instead, they would be used to burn off particles from the space debris causing them to prematurely de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. [0] www.space.com/29271-space-station-laser-cannon-orbital-debris.html
        mzw_mzw 10y ago
partycoder 10y ago
This started a long long time ago. Positioning satellites are likely targets of a satellite war. There was a strong emphasis to have the European satellite positioning system (Galileo) to use different frequencies than GPS (e.g: so they could be jammed without side effects on each other). GPS jammers have been a thing for a while too. Then, spy satellites get occasionally targeted by light beams so they cannot take pictures. Then, both China and the US have destroyed decommissioned satellites with missiles. When China did it, they were denounced publicly for increasing the amount of space debris. So naturally satellite-on-satellite fun was naturally going to be a thing. A predicted satellite weapon system are rods of tungsten (or whatever) dropped from space as a mean of very powerful kinetic bombardment... something that has received the name of "rod of god". Can cause large damage without side effects (e.g: radiation, public outcry). Rods of god however have a prohibitive cost due to the cost of lifting objects to orbit. Eventually the first superpower to get their hands in a space elevator will fill space with rods of god. Space elevators however would need some shielding to pass through the nasty Van Allen belt radiation, since space elevators are slower than rockets exposing the payload to radiation for longer periods of time.
- Alupis 10y ago
  There are many problems with space elevators... of which, the Van Allen Belt is but a minor problem.
  - partycoder 10y ago
    Yes, I was saying once it's constructed.
- trhway 10y ago
  >Rods of god however have a prohibitive cost due to the cost of lifting objects to orbit. they could easily be just shot up into the orbit from a sufficiently large conventional gun (like the 150 m long one that Bull was building for Saddam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon) or a rail gun. The HARP project was firing the payload at 6Mach and at the 30km altitude (i.e. pass the most bulk of the atmosphere) it had a velocity about 5Mach (if my 6th grade physics calculation right) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP

25 points by Parbeyjr 10y ago

It boils down to your definition of "patriotism" vs "terrorism". "good" vs "evil". When China does it, it's bad, right? And the same done by the U.S. good? Or is it the other way around? I think SpaceX's revenue is inevitably going to be tainted with money derived from major military purchases. Would love to know Musk's views.

ztratar 10y ago
No
- truetraveller 10y ago
  No?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ar15saveslives 10y ago
    No.
mzw_mzw 10y ago
> When China does it, it's bad, right? And the same done by the U.S. good? Or is it the other way around? Neither. Instead of flashing an applause light (on HN, that would be "The United States Government is evil!" but, to be fair, in lots of other places it would be yelling about the evil Chinese) we can look at the situation as it develops and why. It would depend on how the war came about, it would depend on the different actors' behaviors and motives. It would require thinking, and honesty. That whole world-weary "well, who knows what the distinction is between patriotism and terrorism really?" is quite foolish in general, and an excuse to avoid making hard moral choices or, worse, to avoid siding with people who are unpopular in one's social milieu. Yes, there are gray areas. There are also areas which are quite black and white. Should satellite warfare ever happen, something we should all hope is not the case, there's every chance will be able to figure out who was right and who was wrong.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  It might be another case of MAD, where satellite warfare "could" happen but without any reasonable defense, even major power satellites would be vulnerable. Then some crazy dictator in northeast Asia who has developed some satellite attack missiles with nothing to lose is the USA and China's biggest problem.
- robotomir 10y ago
  Neither side will make a move without a decade of preparation, and every act during that decade needs to be judged against a common moral standard. Also we need orbital brooms, even second-class powers these days can trigger a Kessler syndrome. Several powerful laser installations, maybe on ships, will do fine.
  - flukus 10y ago
    We're pretty much at the point were private companies can trigger Kessler Syndrome.
  - mzw_mzw 10y ago
    Hmm, I've never heard that proposal before. Is anyone seriously investigating the use of ground-based lasers to clear orbiting debris? It's plausible that a powerful and well-controlled laser could damage large satellites, but could that be done carefully enough to safely deorbit them instead of breaking them apart? And would the lasers be capable of clearing smaller pieces of debris?
    - germinalphrase 10y ago
      Apparently, yes. [0] Lasers would not be used to destroy the debris. Instead, they would be used to burn off particles from the space debris causing them to prematurely de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. [0] www.space.com/29271-space-station-laser-cannon-orbital-debris.html
      - mzw_mzw 10y ago

partycoder 10y ago

This started a long long time ago. Positioning satellites are likely targets of a satellite war. There was a strong emphasis to have the European satellite positioning system (Galileo) to use different frequencies than GPS (e.g: so they could be jammed without side effects on each other). GPS jammers have been a thing for a while too. Then, spy satellites get occasionally targeted by light beams so they cannot take pictures. Then, both China and the US have destroyed decommissioned satellites with missiles. When China did it, they were denounced publicly for increasing the amount of space debris. So naturally satellite-on-satellite fun was naturally going to be a thing. A predicted satellite weapon system are rods of tungsten (or whatever) dropped from space as a mean of very powerful kinetic bombardment... something that has received the name of "rod of god". Can cause large damage without side effects (e.g: radiation, public outcry). Rods of god however have a prohibitive cost due to the cost of lifting objects to orbit. Eventually the first superpower to get their hands in a space elevator will fill space with rods of god. Space elevators however would need some shielding to pass through the nasty Van Allen belt radiation, since space elevators are slower than rockets exposing the payload to radiation for longer periods of time.

Alupis 10y ago
There are many problems with space elevators... of which, the Van Allen Belt is but a minor problem.
- partycoder 10y ago
  Yes, I was saying once it's constructed.
trhway 10y ago
>Rods of god however have a prohibitive cost due to the cost of lifting objects to orbit. they could easily be just shot up into the orbit from a sufficiently large conventional gun (like the 150 m long one that Bull was building for Saddam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Babylon) or a rail gun. The HARP project was firing the payload at 6Mach and at the 30km altitude (i.e. pass the most bulk of the atmosphere) it had a velocity about 5Mach (if my 6th grade physics calculation right) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP