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Space is the soft belly of all tactical components. One shotgunshell of a rocket can destroy your whole powersupply and any orbital industry for decades. MAD ap

Space is the soft belly of all tactical components. One shotgunshell of a rocket can destroy your whole powersupply and any orbital industry for decades. MAD applies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome I highly doubt that any military, no matter how tech affine, would expose itself to this. Producing fuel in situ with below water solar panels - just off the coast, yes, but not spaced based pre-collection. All you need is industrial strength (chemical/coil) gun and compressed, heat unfolding foil projectiles, to shoot at satellites today.

pjc50 4y ago
I don't believe anyone has successfully demoed gun attacks on satellites - and I thought it was infeasible because you'd have to be hypersonic at ground level and lose too much energy. MAD aside, it seems great for the sort of COIN wars that the US spent the last 20 years fighting. The Taliban don't have anti-satellite weapons.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Yet. With so many sattelites, somebody is going to get sloppy. We already had instances, were people hacked "dead" sattelites. All thats needed is a crash, not something designed to be damaged. Space is the soft underbelly of the soft underbelly that is civilized society.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Space is also vast, Kessler syndrome is mostly a threat to a small percentage of orbits. The bottom of LEO blurs the line between space flight and aircraft because nothing can stay there for long without active boosters. At the other end there is a vast mostly empty space above, below, and around geostationary orbit.
    - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
      A Kessler syndrom is a exponential thing. Shrapnell hitting shrapnell, becoming smaller all the time, some of those shrapnells will recieve sufficient energy to be sling shotted into higher orbits. Also, several parties have threatened a kessler syndrom indirectly, the last being the russians atm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon Space is vast, but orbits cover vast distances regularly, making it a thing of propability and syncing up cycles. Throw a dice often enough and you win this lottery with certainty, because with every hit you get exponential more lottery tickets. So, to sum it up, its not about if unless action is taken, its about when..
      - Retric 4y ago
        There is a minimum size of shrapnel that’s dangerous. Micrometeorites are already common and not a major issue. That means there is a finite maximum number of dangerous particles a satellite can break into and those particles are limited by the energy before impact. So, Kessler syndrome is something we can model to say where it is and isn’t a problem.

pjc50 4y ago

I don't believe anyone has successfully demoed gun attacks on satellites - and I thought it was infeasible because you'd have to be hypersonic at ground level and lose too much energy. MAD aside, it seems great for the sort of COIN wars that the US spent the last 20 years fighting. The Taliban don't have anti-satellite weapons.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Yet. With so many sattelites, somebody is going to get sloppy. We already had instances, were people hacked "dead" sattelites. All thats needed is a crash, not something designed to be damaged. Space is the soft underbelly of the soft underbelly that is civilized society.
- Retric 4y ago
  Space is also vast, Kessler syndrome is mostly a threat to a small percentage of orbits. The bottom of LEO blurs the line between space flight and aircraft because nothing can stay there for long without active boosters. At the other end there is a vast mostly empty space above, below, and around geostationary orbit.
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    A Kessler syndrom is a exponential thing. Shrapnell hitting shrapnell, becoming smaller all the time, some of those shrapnells will recieve sufficient energy to be sling shotted into higher orbits. Also, several parties have threatened a kessler syndrom indirectly, the last being the russians atm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon Space is vast, but orbits cover vast distances regularly, making it a thing of propability and syncing up cycles. Throw a dice often enough and you win this lottery with certainty, because with every hit you get exponential more lottery tickets. So, to sum it up, its not about if unless action is taken, its about when..
    - Retric 4y ago
      There is a minimum size of shrapnel that’s dangerous. Micrometeorites are already common and not a major issue. That means there is a finite maximum number of dangerous particles a satellite can break into and those particles are limited by the energy before impact. So, Kessler syndrome is something we can model to say where it is and isn’t a problem.