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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 capabil

by jand 5y ago

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 do so. This train of thought leads to a cold war 'space edition'. In the long run it will boil down to disaster only preventable by some courageous individuals doing 'the right thing at the right time'. We should better begin stockpiling characters like Stanislav Petrov [1] to make sure we haven't run out of those by then. Good luck to all of us. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

pvarangot 5y ago
I'm also picturing something like selling anti-anti-satellite defense systems to US military allies to keep money flowing to military contractors.
eftychis 5y ago
Can't say we promote that anywhere though. Did he rise to a high rank? Became a thought leader? He was reprimanded, and he considered according to him that he just did his job and nothing really (that is to his credit perhaps). I didn't see him getting a Nobel peace prize either, and it seemed it was the west that celebrated this years after he was retired his heroic decision.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  We didn't really celebrate him, after all he could have been given a noble peace prize, that a western organisation. Average Joe in the street never heard of him, he is unrewarded and forgotten
abledon 5y ago
but will the next Petrov 'candidate' grow up on a diet of tiktok videos?
- codetrotter 5y ago
  I don’t see why not. There’s a lot of good content on TikTok.
YeBanKo 5y ago
> 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 trigger was disciplined for not following protocol or disobeying orders. This seems benign compared to nuclear though, as mutual strikes don’t lead to mutual destruction.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > 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.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      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.
      - bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
        But it only takes one losing side to decide - Fuck it, we're losing so 'fire all your guns and explode all in space' to destroy everything in orbit with a massive amount of debris that'll last for years. Russia's little test a few weeks ago showed how that might be. So hopefully that's the MAD scenario that will keep peace in orbital space for a while yet.
ourmandave 5y ago
This train of thought leads to a cold war 'space edition'. We already did that with the Mercury and Apollo missions. The space race was all about who had the high ground. And it never ends. So now we're shifting to hypersonic weapon offense and defense.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> cold war 'space edition' The Cold War was already a 'space edition'.
analog31 5y ago
Perhaps preferable to participating in an arms race, would be figuring out how to live without satellites. It occurs to me that the cell phone system can locate me without GPS, though I don't know how accurate it is.

by jand 5y ago

pvarangot 5y ago

I'm also picturing something like selling anti-anti-satellite defense systems to US military allies to keep money flowing to military contractors.

eftychis 5y ago

Can't say we promote that anywhere though. Did he rise to a high rank? Became a thought leader? He was reprimanded, and he considered according to him that he just did his job and nothing really (that is to his credit perhaps). I didn't see him getting a Nobel peace prize either, and it seemed it was the west that celebrated this years after he was retired his heroic decision.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
We didn't really celebrate him, after all he could have been given a noble peace prize, that a western organisation. Average Joe in the street never heard of him, he is unrewarded and forgotten

abledon 5y ago

but will the next Petrov 'candidate' grow up on a diet of tiktok videos?

codetrotter 5y ago
I don’t see why not. There’s a lot of good content on TikTok.

YeBanKo 5y ago

> 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 trigger was disciplined for not following protocol or disobeying orders. This seems benign compared to nuclear though, as mutual strikes don’t lead to mutual destruction.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> 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.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    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.
    - bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
      But it only takes one losing side to decide - Fuck it, we're losing so 'fire all your guns and explode all in space' to destroy everything in orbit with a massive amount of debris that'll last for years. Russia's little test a few weeks ago showed how that might be. So hopefully that's the MAD scenario that will keep peace in orbital space for a while yet.

ourmandave 5y ago

This train of thought leads to a cold war 'space edition'. We already did that with the Mercury and Apollo missions. The space race was all about who had the high ground. And it never ends. So now we're shifting to hypersonic weapon offense and defense.

chrisseaton 5y ago

> cold war 'space edition' The Cold War was already a 'space edition'.

analog31 5y ago

Perhaps preferable to participating in an arms race, would be figuring out how to live without satellites. It occurs to me that the cell phone system can locate me without GPS, though I don't know how accurate it is.