5 ms·

Low earth orbit is easy to hit with anti-satellite missiles, can even use ASM-135 which is a interceptor fired from a fighter jet. GPS altitudes and up are a d

• ceejayoz 4y ago
  There's over 3,500 Starlink satellites. That likely dramatically exceeds the number of anti-satellite missiles in the entire world, let alone Russia's.
  • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    One hit will create thousands of fragments. How many consecutive hits would be necessary to create severe enough Kessler event to destroy most of the Stralink satellites? Dozens?
    • XorNot 4y ago
      As everyone knows, the best possible way to deal with an aggressor is just straight appeasement. The risks are so large that appeasement is the only answer. If only we had historically tried appeasing belligerent foreign powers, think what wars would have been avoided... /sarcasm
      • wazer5 4y ago
        Replace "an agressor" with "the USA" and that pretty much sums up history.
        • XorNot 4y ago
          LOL.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
          • wazer5 4y ago
            Most of us alive are thinking of the last 75 years.
            • XorNot 4y ago
              Ironically this only further proves the point: US expansionist foreign policy would not have been checked by giving the US what it wanted. There was no version of Iraq complying with the UN which was going to prevent the neo-conservatives from getting their regime change invasion in 2003. The only preventative measures which would've worked would be diplomatic and economic counter-pressure from the UN and more specifically Europe and other NATO allies, or substantial military build up capable of seriously endangering US conventional forces. Ukraine would be in a much different military position today if it were a pariah state, as opposed to a nation declaring a strong intent to join both the EU and NATO. Turns out diplomacy, allies and soft-power are actually kind of useful things when you're not the dominant military hegemon.
      • panick21_ 4y ago
        Yes. The lesson from history is that no appeasement should ever be done. Any war, no matter how small or over how little a thing, MUST ALWAYS BE TOTAL. No war should ever end until one nation enacts genocide on another. Great plan.
        • XorNot 4y ago
          So I'm sure you have literally any example of when that worked, historically? Spoiler: it has never worked. What you are thinking of are diplomatic, economic and military moves and counter-moves or negotiated settlements but the aggressor is always forced to compromise or delayed such that they lose their advantage. Appeasement - the aggressor making demands and getting them with the idea that they will be then be satisfied - has never worked.
    • wongarsu 4y ago
      Blowing up dozens of satellites would start a chain reaction that if left unchecked will eventually bring down all of them. But I doubt it would happen over a timeframe that's useful for this war. We arguably are already in a Kessler syndrome situation where fragments are created faster than they deorbit, but like any exponential process it starts out incredibly slow. Space is big. The average breakup seems to create about 300 fragments [1], so if Russia blows up 100 Starlink satellites that's 30,000 bullets that have to randomly hit another 3500 objects spread over an area roughly the area of the surface of the earth. Except that it's worse because space is 3-dimensional and most bullets will spend little time at that altitude, and eventually deorbit. Over a decade it will do a lot of damage, and at some point things will escalate to a point where it's hard to handle. But Russia needs results within weeks or at most months. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_debris_producing_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_debris_producing...
      • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
        > Space is big. Satellites are usually in orbit, not randomly in a space, so your target is to make a mess from that given orbit, not to try to mess up whole space.
      • panick21_ 4y ago
        No it wouldn't bring down all of them. They are not all on the same level and they can raise and lower their level. Debris analysis would be done and the fleet would be commanded to move strategically. Causing a chain reaction is significantly more difficult then people think.