4 ms·

Aren’t you forgetting that Russia / China can just play this game too - at least to the extent of putting some nukes in orbit that can just drop on their target

Aren’t you forgetting that Russia / China can just play this game too - at least to the extent of putting some nukes in orbit that can just drop on their target in minutes and wouldn’t be intercept-able?

AtlasBarfed 3y ago
An actual nuke is space is a huge escalation. Then the US would likely have hunter/killer satellites trailing every chinese and russian satellite. Remember, with Starship the US will have at least 1/10th the cost of space deployment (goal is 1/100th).
- jonplackett 3y ago
  But putting up 1000s of anti ballistic middle satellites somehow _isn’t_ a huge escalation? My point is one escalation leads to another so the lead you think you’ll have is not as big as you’d expect. You just provoke the other side to escalate too.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    I agree it is an escalation but: 1) Putin is the one invading and threatening nukes on the doorstep of NATO 2) MAD only works, kind of ironically, if both sides aren't mad/insane. But authoritarians are often a bit nuts. There also were the false alarm scares from the cold war. Putin has highly consolidated power, and it would appear Xi has even MORE power and cult of personality 3) I think it works best as an unknown capability. One of the things about nukes is that people know what they can do, know if you have them, know the consequences. But what may work better than the game theory of MAD is that MAD is the BEST CASE for someone launching a strike. With unknown missile defense capability, the worst case is you launch a strike, get nothing from it, and the only assured destruction may be yours.
    - jonplackett 3y ago
      There are a litany of problems with your thinking. 1) we brought nato next door to putin in Ukraine. That’s why there’s a war. Go read more about this if you aren’t sure why the war is happening. It’s quite interesting. 2) it’s impossible to keep some capability like that secret. Do you know how the Soviet Union got nukes in the first place? They ‘borrowed’ the technology from the USA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies There is no reason to believe the USA could keep this info secret. And every reason to believe it would result in Russia / China finding out and then doing whatever is necessary to counter it = probably nukes in space if that’s their only option. The main problem with all this, and why MAD probably still applies, is that even if one single thermonuclear weapon gets though, you’re totally screwed.
      - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
        The counterargument to "NATO started it" is that Russia has been openly declaring that they will invade surrounding nations to reestablish the USSR borders, particularly to restore the historical gap defense. Russia had a Russian-aligned puppet, then we helped overthrow and install a Ukraine-aligned government. It could have continued functioning as a buffer state, but then Russia seized Crimea. The technology is probably an inevitability at this point. Smart rocks aren't rocket science, they just ride up on it. Likely all the major powers have the necessary missile guidance, and delta-v is ... just a small rocket. But it would be hard to hide the testing of such things, unless SpaceX signed up to sacrifice an old rocket for an interception test. What IS semi-exclusive to the US is the core economics of Starship. The strategic value of Starship militarily is quite substantial. It means rapid deployment of forces anywhere in the world, possibly with some armor capability, in an hour. It means moving previously economically infeasible amounts of hardware into orbit. It means practical dominance of low orbit for likely 50 years. So if ABM is the next frontier, the gauntlet is for these countries that will be dealing with progressively more extreme demographics and economic isolation to compete with American capability that, for once, delivers far superior capability for far superior economics. You'll be asking China and Russia to deliver miracle-level space program expansion, and then an ABM atop it. Remember, both of these countries have astronomically high corruption, in particular Russia. I'm not going to argue that some nukes getting through isn't a bad thing that should still keep MAD in place on the American side. No leader in America wants to go down as someone that lost a major city. But... nukes getting through might hit remote missile silos. A single nuke can take out a city, but not the entire USA. Not even Tsar Bomba is that strong. Yes warheads are retargetable, MIRV, and all that. It still remains that Russia is the one with the outright aggressive speeches detailing recapture of Soviet satellites in the eastern bloc, the one that has a litany of assassins killing Putin's enemies, the one using ghoulish human waves of shock troops composed of prisoners (how many are political) and non-Russian ethnic groups (racism). You're not talking to someone with rose goggles towards US foreign policy, but come on, Russia is being about as aggressor posture as they can be within a MAD umbrella. I'm not advocating ABM in space, I simply think that the publicly stated goals of Russia and China combined with forthcoming Starship maturation means it is inevitable.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

An actual nuke is space is a huge escalation. Then the US would likely have hunter/killer satellites trailing every chinese and russian satellite. Remember, with Starship the US will have at least 1/10th the cost of space deployment (goal is 1/100th).

jonplackett 3y ago
But putting up 1000s of anti ballistic middle satellites somehow _isn’t_ a huge escalation? My point is one escalation leads to another so the lead you think you’ll have is not as big as you’d expect. You just provoke the other side to escalate too.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  I agree it is an escalation but: 1) Putin is the one invading and threatening nukes on the doorstep of NATO 2) MAD only works, kind of ironically, if both sides aren't mad/insane. But authoritarians are often a bit nuts. There also were the false alarm scares from the cold war. Putin has highly consolidated power, and it would appear Xi has even MORE power and cult of personality 3) I think it works best as an unknown capability. One of the things about nukes is that people know what they can do, know if you have them, know the consequences. But what may work better than the game theory of MAD is that MAD is the BEST CASE for someone launching a strike. With unknown missile defense capability, the worst case is you launch a strike, get nothing from it, and the only assured destruction may be yours.
  - jonplackett 3y ago
    There are a litany of problems with your thinking. 1) we brought nato next door to putin in Ukraine. That’s why there’s a war. Go read more about this if you aren’t sure why the war is happening. It’s quite interesting. 2) it’s impossible to keep some capability like that secret. Do you know how the Soviet Union got nukes in the first place? They ‘borrowed’ the technology from the USA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies There is no reason to believe the USA could keep this info secret. And every reason to believe it would result in Russia / China finding out and then doing whatever is necessary to counter it = probably nukes in space if that’s their only option. The main problem with all this, and why MAD probably still applies, is that even if one single thermonuclear weapon gets though, you’re totally screwed.
    - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
      The counterargument to "NATO started it" is that Russia has been openly declaring that they will invade surrounding nations to reestablish the USSR borders, particularly to restore the historical gap defense. Russia had a Russian-aligned puppet, then we helped overthrow and install a Ukraine-aligned government. It could have continued functioning as a buffer state, but then Russia seized Crimea. The technology is probably an inevitability at this point. Smart rocks aren't rocket science, they just ride up on it. Likely all the major powers have the necessary missile guidance, and delta-v is ... just a small rocket. But it would be hard to hide the testing of such things, unless SpaceX signed up to sacrifice an old rocket for an interception test. What IS semi-exclusive to the US is the core economics of Starship. The strategic value of Starship militarily is quite substantial. It means rapid deployment of forces anywhere in the world, possibly with some armor capability, in an hour. It means moving previously economically infeasible amounts of hardware into orbit. It means practical dominance of low orbit for likely 50 years. So if ABM is the next frontier, the gauntlet is for these countries that will be dealing with progressively more extreme demographics and economic isolation to compete with American capability that, for once, delivers far superior capability for far superior economics. You'll be asking China and Russia to deliver miracle-level space program expansion, and then an ABM atop it. Remember, both of these countries have astronomically high corruption, in particular Russia. I'm not going to argue that some nukes getting through isn't a bad thing that should still keep MAD in place on the American side. No leader in America wants to go down as someone that lost a major city. But... nukes getting through might hit remote missile silos. A single nuke can take out a city, but not the entire USA. Not even Tsar Bomba is that strong. Yes warheads are retargetable, MIRV, and all that. It still remains that Russia is the one with the outright aggressive speeches detailing recapture of Soviet satellites in the eastern bloc, the one that has a litany of assassins killing Putin's enemies, the one using ghoulish human waves of shock troops composed of prisoners (how many are political) and non-Russian ethnic groups (racism). You're not talking to someone with rose goggles towards US foreign policy, but come on, Russia is being about as aggressor posture as they can be within a MAD umbrella. I'm not advocating ABM in space, I simply think that the publicly stated goals of Russia and China combined with forthcoming Starship maturation means it is inevitable.