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US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
- epolanski 20d agoFeels like I struggle to wake up to a good news since a decade.
- Steve16384 20d agoI feel safer already. What's the worst that could happen? I'm sure no-one will put an AI anywhere near it.
- poolnoodle 20d agoWho do they want to shoot in space?
- emptyfile 20d ago[dead]
- latexr 20d agoNot in space, from space.
- anentropic 20d agoother satellites
- M95D 20d agoIsn't it easier to shoot them from the ground when they pass over? In space, the orbit must be adjusted to at least come close enough to the target, wait for the rendezvous, fire, then adjust orbit again for the next target...
- consumer451 20d agoI believe that attribution is more difficult in strictly on-orbit activities. I would imagine that these weaponized satellites use radar stealth approaches similar to modern fighter aircraft. AFAIK, ground radar is basically what we have for space awareness. I would imagine that every new intelligence-related satellite will have more sensors to be situationally aware, and make attribution possible. If you pay attention to space-nerd podcasts like MECO, "Space Domain Awareness" is getting a lot of investment. I believe that's because we are relatively blind at the moment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_domain_awareness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_domain_awareness
- AngryData 20d agoNot if you want to hit your target before the other side can react and respond. Also if you expect your target to potentially shoot back, a rocket attempting to reach orbital velocity is a vulnerable target to any space based weapons or lasers because it has very limited ability to maneuver from its flight path and still reach orbital velocity.
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- tristanj 20d agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
- thrance 20d agoOnly relevant part is this: > Cost estimates for the Golden Dome program range from $175 billion (White House), to $1.2 trillion (Congressional Budget Office), to $3.6 trillion (American Enterprise Institute) depending on the architectural details. The wide range largely hinges on the number of space-based missiles and the cost of replacing satellites whose low orbits decay quickly due to atmospheric drag. Some $24.4 billion in federal funding was directed to the Golden Dome in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, with another $13 billion allocated for the fiscal year 2026, totaling 2.2% of the federal discretionary budget during that year. It's just a ploy to transfer more public money to government contractors and friends, like Musk.
- huurtehoog 20d agoI recommend reading the paper by Parnas about the original SDI system. https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs99r/readings/parnas1.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs99r/readings/parnas1.pdf
- bob1029 20d agoSee also: the mass of starlink satellites over time.
- thehumanmeat 20d agoRods from God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
- whh 20d agoI thoroughly enjoyed Veritasium's video on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_n1FZaKzF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_n1FZaKzF8
- 21asdffdsa12 20d agoThe biggest assets space weapon wise has Musk? Anything that can become a particlecloud taking out a orbit counts- so two constellation sattelites, that aim for one another should count?
- wewewedxfgdf 20d agoAs long as they're OK with China and other countries having space weapons then all is fine. Everyone is equal with - they all have nukes in space sitting over each other's countries waiting to drop. This is fine.
- consensus1 20d agoYou actually think they don't already?
- markdown 20d agoNo, of course they don't.
- MattPalmer1086 20d agoWhat would be the point? MAD relies on everyone knowing you can take them out if they attack you. What does a space weapon offer additionally that makes the huge expense worthwhile?
- porridgeraisin 20d agoAre you serious? Just because you have nuclear weapons doesn't mean all other forms of military are useless. I don't even know how to parse that argument to respond in more detail.
- MattPalmer1086 20d agoI was responding to this comment specifically about nukes: >Everyone is equal with - they all have nukes in space sitting over each other's countries waiting to drop
- porridgeraisin 20d agoMy bad
- 20d ago
- chukar 20d agoWell, that's one way to kick off a new arms race. Guess the orbital junk problem is about to get worse.
- _kbh_ 19d ago[dead]
- alfiedotwtf 20d agoSay goodbye to satellites and space tourism for the next 200 years :(
- tialaramex 20d agoKessler trashes LEO and yes, "space tourism" because that means bare orbital joyrides and those would become unacceptably hazardous for a tourist attraction. But it makes no real difference for GEO or outer orbits, or for leaving if we, or more likely a non-human probe wanted to leave Earth's orbit. So, no Starlink, but you'd still have COSPAS SARSAT in a reduced form, you'd still have geostationary telecoms birds, space telescopes, and various other things.
- freedomben 20d agoIndeed. Ace Combat 7 (a great game) already explored this. Both sides destroy each others communication satellites at nearly the same time and it creates utter chaos on the battlefield. Had one side succeeded and the other failed, it would have been game over for that side. That seems the most likely space weapon to me, though IANA military expert by any means.
- JumpCrisscross 20d ago> it makes no real difference for GEO or outer orbits GEO is one of the few orbits we could actually one-shot trash for generations. (Well, any high-altitude orbit is. But GEO is special. If a random high-altitude orbit gets trashed, you can probably do fine with a slightly-different trajectory.)
- jonkoops 20d agoSpace really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. Especially since the consequences of space debris might trigger the Kessler effect [1], denying humanity future access to low-earth orbit for the considerable future. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
- verelo 20d ago> Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. Cute, Antarctica is just future beachfront...give it time.
- voidUpdate 20d agoThere is the Outer Space Treaty (1967), which forbids placing "nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner", but you can get around that by saying that it's just a conventional weapon, not nuclear or WMD. If it's for space to space combat, you could say that any weapon is potentially a WMD due to the Kessler potential, but if its space to ground, like an orbital missile platform or something, you are technically in the clear. I'm guessing it doesn't ban weapons in space completely because of things like the survival guns on Soyuz (if they still fly them), used for defending yourself against wild animals in the event that you land in a forest or similar. "No weapons in space" would ban that as well, but I think it's reasonable to have a survival kit, just in case
- pwdisswordfishq 20d agoNot that the US ever gave a shit about international treaties.
- _djo_ 20d agoTo be fair, this move is coming after fairly strong evidence that Russia and China have been breaking the treaty by deploying weapons into space for years. Which the US has highlighted many times in the past. At some point you have to acknowledge that the treaty is no longer being respected, and match capabilities to avoid being left at a disadvantage. That said, I'm sure there were tons of people in the US military establishment who had been pushing for this for decades and were ecstatic at being allowed to do it at a broad scale.
- junon 20d ago> Golden Dome Trump seemingly cannot resist the classic opportunity for a "1up", can he?
- d--b 20d agoWhat's a space weapon? I imagine launching anything from space to earth would be highly inefficient and inaccurate. So it must be space to space. Space to space weapons are what? Small drones with an explosive charge? I guess that could work. These "combats" are going to be weird, because the objects are trapped in their orbits. Things are going to move very slowly with a lot of intertia.
- tyrabound 20d ago> China responded on Tuesday by warning against an "arms race" in space. > "We urge the US side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space," AFP quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying. Next up; America cries rivers of victimhood when Russia and China put their far more advanced space based weapons systems into orbit and 100x as many in response because the narcissistic maniacs in the “American” educated idiot class ripped the lid off Pandora’s box because Hollywood taught them that the good guy Americans always win.
- WarmWash 20d agoChina and (maybe?) Russia are putting weapons up there no matter what. People act like had the inventors of the powder explosive gun never used it, we would still be fighting with arrows and spears today. Completely not how it works.
- pythonRon 20d ago[flagged]
- gchamonlive 20d agoWhen the sole focus is profit and to crush enemies and not to care for the people, the world will start to look like it's full of enemies and profit. It's a self perpetuating, self inflicted situation.
- minipark 20d agoIsn't it ironic? Spending billions on threats from space while ignoring the person on Earth who acts like Putin's favorite unsecured login.
- vbezhenar 20d ago[flagged]
- Aboutplants 20d agoOnly to be impacted by the debris field it creates
- HelloUsername 20d ago> "a kinetic kill vehicle of some sort - so a vehicle that would release a projectile of some sort that would ram into a satellite and destroy it" Semi related "Rods from God": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
- embedding-shape 20d agoSo, it's a pistol on a robotic arm, or what? Kinetic weapon doesn't say much. A pillar with a tiny engine that just incrementally increases the speed could be devastating at a distance though, I'm sure I've read this as some solution to a problem (or attempted solution to some problem) in some sci-fi book, can't remember which though.
- AngryData 20d agoYeah im not sure what they are going on about, "Rods from God" and kinetic bombardment applies to things at the bottom of the gravity well getting hit from shit dropped from up above, it has nothing to do with satellite-to-satellite weapons. Like to launch up a few ton bullet of tungsten into orbit, then maneuver it in place when needed to deorbit and strike a major target, hits like a nuke but without the nuclear program. But to me it really doesn't make more sense than using nukes though unless they are coming from another body in space, dropping shit from normal earth orbital altitudes is like throwing peanuts compared to something coming out of solar orbit, and actually hitting your target is 10,000x harder. And anyone with a space program large enough to put such weapons in place could more easily produce nukes instead.
- Theodores 20d agoTechnically the US has had 'space weapons' for many decades, due to how an intercontinental ballistic missile works. Incidentally, the Shuttle raised concerns in the USSR because they saw those large cargo bay doors and rocket thrusters out back, to think that this was a 'delivery system'. In the modern battlefield, 'hypersonic' missiles are the new shiny. However, any ICBM is 'hypersonic', at least during the space phase. The new meaning of hypersonic means going at 'hypersonic' speeds through the atmosphere and in the final approach. Force equals mass times acceleration, more speed means more deceleration, which means packing a bigger kinetic punch.
- adamsb6 20d agoDepending on how you want to define “weapon” the actual offensive capability of the shuttle may qualify. It was designed to be able to capture satellites and return them to Earth. We have no evidence that this capability was ever used offensively though.
- ndiddy 20d agoSort of related: The Shuttle was designed for military use, but mainly regarding launching and capturing spy satellites. From a NASA report on the Space Shuttle's history ( https://www.nasa.gov/history/sts1/pages/scota.html https://www.nasa.gov/history/sts1/pages/scota.html ): > One Air Force requirement that had a critical effect on the Shuttle design was cross range capability. The military wanted to be able to send a Shuttle on an orbit around the Earth's poles because a significant portion of the Soviet Union was at high latitudes near the Arctic Circle. The idea was to be able to deploy a reconnaissance satellite, retrieve an errant spacecraft, or even capture an enemy satellite, and then have the Shuttle return to its launch site after only one orbit to escape Soviet detection. Because the Earth rotates on its axis, by the time the Shuttle would return to its base, the base would have "moved" approximately 1,100 miles to the east. Thus the Shuttle needed to be able to maneuver that distance "sideways" upon reentering the atmosphere. > In addition to the Air Force's cross range demand, the military also wanted a larger Shuttle payload bay than NASA originally advocated. NASA wanted the Shuttle payload bay to accommodate modules for a future space station, which necessitated a payload capacity of approximately 50,000 pounds. The Air Force wanted a bay 15 x 60 feet that could hold 50,000 to 65,000 pounds and that had doors that could open out into space to deploy satellites easily. This payload requirement meant that the fuselage of the Shuttle needed to be essentially a large rectangular box with rounded surfaces. In general, NASA went with the Air Force's requirements because it needed the Air Force's support to help insulate it from the political charge that the Shuttle was really just a step towards human exploration of Mars or a permanent space station, which is precisely what some people at NASA wanted it to be. The Air Force was working on a Shuttle launch site at Vandenberg AFB in California, but after the Challenger disaster they decided that the Shuttle wasn't reliable enough and opted to instead use traditional disposable rockets to launch spy satellites.
- nopassrecover 20d agoRather interesting timing after the US accused China of supplying Iran with high-res imagery used to support attacks on US bases, then a Chinese satellite mysteriously broke apart
- fnands 20d agoYaogan-50 for anyone asking. Interesting. A bit conspiratorial, but hey. It would be a major provocation if so
- willy_k 20d agoAs an aside - the word conspiratorial has become polluted. If you accept the premise that governments and their military and intelligence agencies aren’t 100% transparent, which is true, then the above comment is simply speculative.
- AnimalMuppet 20d agoA major provocation? "Oh, you deny using your satellites to supply them with imaging? All right, then it wasn't us who blew up your spy satellite that wasn't supplying imaging." That is, China's in a bit of an awkward position to complain very much.
- rl3 20d agoProblems start when their complaints take the form of using their own deniable capability against U.S. satellites. I've a feeling our satellites are far more expensive and advanced than theirs. Nobody wants a space tit-for-tat that can escalate dramatically.
- nomel 20d agoSo, what solution do you have in mind, if China supplies military support to an adversary? Politely ask them to stop? Let them continue? Seems not so trivial to me, especially since everyone has satellites up there for this purpose, and there's a good chance China would do the same.
- xtiansimon 20d agoBecause, of course, P47 has to be the first, do the thing that’s obscene. Grrr.
- ck2 20d agothe idea that the orange infant can order the use of weapons in space should be terrifying to everyone regardless of politics no-one is stupid enough anymore to say "oh he would never" or "only against people we don't like" No, of course he would use it against Canada or Greenland if he woke up on the wrong side of the bed or didn't sleep at all He clearly has rage fits which is one of the early signs of dementia He would most definitely order the use of space weapons I am really surprised he has not nuked some part of Iran yet, innocent civilians be damned but there are still 800 days left so here's hoping we don't wake up to that headline
- DarmokTanagra 20d ago[dead]
- mrtksn 20d agoHow is this smart? US was already able to strike any place on the globe, what happens if this motivates the US enemies also have weapons in space and then US mainland becomes strike-able. What was the thing that the US military previously couldn't blow up? The enemy now can have giant piece of hard metal in orbit and blow up previously %100 out of range data centers for example. Very unwise action on US part.
- Invictus0 20d agoYou thought we had a whole Space Force without any Forces?
- mrtksn 20d agoWell, let's hope that these forces are going to get better outcomes than the forces that fought in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Iran. It's so ridiculous to elevate the war zone when you were far away and out of reach currently. US is so target rich that I will be very surprised if US enemies leave those alone once US paved the way to the new frontiers.
- ajsnigrutin 20d agoI always find it funny here, how out of all the targets "the enemy" could hit, HN-er is afraid they'll hit the datacenters :) You don't need space weapons to hit datacenters, you need one van full of explosives and someone willing to die to deliver it to a datacenter. To temporarily disable them, you just need a cheap drone with some explosives.
- mrtksn 20d agoFinding someone who is both willing and able to deliver explosives to a datacenter wouldn't be easy, the last stime something like that happen is 9/11. Throwing large masses on the other hand is not so hard as countries like Iran already have missile building capacity and are partners with actual space capable Russia. Also, the super expensive data centers are great targets, probably much better targets than US can hit in Iran for example. What happens if those Nvidia chips that are churning the economy start to getting blown up by carefully de-orbited stones?
- darig 20d ago[dead]
- motbus3 20d agoCmon folks. What is happening over there? Can anyone tell me? Is it the plastic in water or something?
- ChoGGi 20d agoIt would not surprise me at all if the Trump administration is the one to bring Kessler's nightmare to fruition. Might be a good thing for humanity if we all get stuck here, and have to figure out how to get along or die trying...
- physhster 20d agoBunch of idiots with space weapons. Great!
- hn_submit 20d agoIn the great power struggle there can be no safe havens. All the world's a stage. And the sky too.
- aeve890 20d ago>All the world is a stage Not really. Most of the cold war nuclear war scenarios only consider nuclear exchange in the northern hemisphere. Until this day there's little strategic value in south America or south Africa. Maybe Australia and new Zealand but still low compared to the north. The Argentinian Patagonia must be the safest place to be in a nuclear winter.
- monneyboi 20d agoIf we get to try and explain these times in like 30 years to our (grand-)children, I'm sure it will be with a great sense of embarrasment. I hope one of these days we can get our priorities straight.
- dudefeliciano 20d agoDo you feel any embarassment coming from the previous generation, which set the stage for what we have now? I think it will be much of the same.
- tomasphan 20d agoAll the time. Politically speaking the past is quite embarrassing.
- dudefeliciano 20d agoin the west older generations hold much more power over who gets elected, demographically speaking, and look at what's going on. They feel no shame whatsoever and are doubling down.
- AndrewKemendo 20d agoI feel resentment and contempt to every previous generation of humans and embarassment for my generation for sure Every human on earth should be embarrassed at the state of the anthropocentric world
- galleywest200 20d agoPrehistoric humans get a pass in my book. They seemed to have a cozy life.
- AndrewKemendo 19d agoTheir greed turned a lush world into what you see today
- misetech 20d agoI think most of the powerful countries in the world already have space weapons. Space exploration is just a facade for this.
- bdamm 20d agoEven space telescopes have been built on the skeletons made for spying, and rockets in almost any form were weapons before they were carrying peaceful missions. That we have Russian, American, and European components communicating together at the ISS is kind of a lovely, if temporary, closure of the circle.
- hiddencost 20d agoFrom a certain point of view ICBMs are a method of communicating.
- freebsd_lovefes 20d agoTrajectorial calligraphy is a subject in some schools where individuals who like to communicate unconventionally study.
- BiteCode_dev 20d agoI'd wager starlink is mostly military with the cover of civilian use case.
- mars-or_wars 20d agosearch "Declassify Elon Musk's space-based weapons program before Biden leaves the White House"
- Permik 20d agoThere's the program called Starshield, that's part of the miltech side of the program. One of the military uses is using the starlink constellation signals as a passive SAR for the whole planet with millimeter scale accuracy.
- passive 20d agoI suspect this isn't true in any meaningful way, and relates to Trump's people deceiving him. Seems 100X more likely that Trump said "what kind of weapons does space force have?" and they had to come up with something, rather than a clandestine space weapons program being successfully developed and deployed.
- ChrisArchitect 20d agoEarlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706451 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49706451
- kibwen 20d agoBehold, the real bull case for SpaceX: not space-based datacenters, colonizing Mars, or asteroid mining, but the thorough militarization of Earth's orbit by the US.
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- bix6 20d agoNice we can finally get rid of those pesky starlink satellites that have ruined astronomy!
- doe88 20d agoNothing to worry about, General Turgidson said it was just made in order to prevent a space gap.
- hoistway 20d agoGuess someone finally pushed that 'deploy to production' button on orbital defense. Always assumed this was already live for years.
- ciconia 20d agoWhy spend money on healthcare when you can spend it on being able to annihilate any country on earth?
- sejje 20d agoAmerica spends more % of its GDP than France on healthcare.
- ARandomerDude 20d agoAt this point I would take filled potholes.
- cogman10 20d agoEven worse, Iran has shown how utterly pointless and ineffective these expensive weapons are. Cool, we have a weapon in space that cost $1B and 6 months to re-arm. That's not super helpful when who we are fighting is flying $20k lawnmower powered drones to take out all our bases in the region. We are basically the modern version of the Spanish Armada.
- drnick1 20d ago> Iran has shown how utterly pointless and ineffective these expensive weapons are. Make no mistake, the US has exercised incredible restraint when it comes to Iran. If it wanted to, they would be nothing left of Iran at all.
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- LightBug1 20d ago- Confirm openly that space weapons have been deployed. - Open the floodgates to the open militarisation of space by all possible nation states. - In response, justify huge increases in space defense spending budget - Rinse / repeat to kingdom come. Same as it's always been. Someone's getting a nice fat bonus, cigar and a blowjob tonight.
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- WillAdams 20d agoC.J. Cherryh has a memorable quote on this in her _Downbelow Station_. >They were armed, the swift exploration ships, as they had always been, venturing as they did into the unknown; but now they were used in a new way, to visit stations and pull them into line. That was bitterest of all, that the crews of the probe ships, who had been the heroes of the Beyond, became the Company enforcers.
- GMoromisato 20d agoOne of my favorite SF books. I feel that applies more to Russia's space program--some cosmonauts (not all, of course) support Putin's war.
- LargoLasskhyfv 19d agoBut then came evil communistic Cyteen, spoiling the plan, with cloned AZIs, evil space Nazis. Supporting the Alliance of Merchants at Downbelow. Damn & Woe! How exactly that came to be (from Earth-Company side) was expanded a little bit, as sort of a prequel in Heavy Time(1991) and Hellburner(1992), and later again in Alliance Rising(2019) and Alliance Unbound(2024) from the POV of the affected stations in the so called Hinder Stars(the first to be explored by slower than light ships from the Earth), made obsolete by FTL later on, because of more direct routes to Downbelow and further into Cyteen territory.
- WillAdams 17d agoDo they support or tolerate? The ambiguity of "right side" is striking.
- LargoLasskhyfv 16d agoSupporting. To put a stopgap between the interests of the Earth-Company, with its sublight ships, and the the first, now almost all abandoned/mothballed space stations around stars which opened the route to Downbelow, which was the first system with a biosphere and indigenous life. A real outpost being able to sustain itself, instead of having to rely on re-supply from Earth. Breaking the chain of trade and economics, which enabled them in the first place. A sort of 'area-denial', giving them no base of operations out there, and no way into the meanwhile established new 'outer worlds' towards another such world, called 'Cyteen'. Which then invented faster than light flight, and gave it to willing merchant ships for free. But not the Earth-Company, because they considered that mutiny and defection. They were cut off from all that new trade. By themselves. Because of politics, tariffs, customs, embargo, slowness, stupidity. A strand of the plot is sort of an arms race between the Earth-Company trying to build a ship with an FTL-capable engine on one of the last stations remaining in operation, under military junta, and an independent merchant trying to apply new measurements to jump in direct line from Downbelow/Pell or adjacent space to Earth, which would make all the former investments of Earth-Company obsolete for real. Because Cherryh's FTL isn't like Star-Trek/Star Wars. It requires precise gravitational mappings of so called 'jump-points', which can be stars, brown-dwarfs, and such. Meaning there isn't necessarily a direct route between your desired start and end, but instead large detours necessary across a chain of such jump-points, which are near enough to each other. Because the 'jump-drives' have limited range of a handfull to a dozen of light-years only. Depending on mass of the ship. And if that gap on your route is more than that, detours are necessary. And there are many gaps. You actually can look at that in your browser on the many sites offering a 3D-view of that, for our nearer stars, say within a sphere of up to 100 light years, or so :-) Another thread of action would be the efforts of the Earth-Company to go into a wholly another direction in space, because of all of that, and meeting sentient and spacefaring other aliens from outer space, but not in a good way. That is her Chanur epos, written from the POV of such aliens, fighting over one of the earthlings, captured by them on one of Earth-Companies exploratory missions, making the aliens go: WTF?! What is that? Where did it come from? Leading to turmoil, endangering instable balances and treaties between them. Implying they could be suddenly confronted with all of humanity, coming from all of the large Cyteen spaces/territories, via Downbelow/Pell, 'Hinder Star Stations', via Earth, to them.
- causal 20d agoMan I imagine within the first few minutes of a hot war LEO and geostationary would just light up with assets pointed at one another. I know we will have bigger problems at that point in time but I hope we are at least trying to developed weaponry that doesn't Kessler-ify all of space for the next thousand years.
- eagerpace 20d agoHow long until the CEO of Lockheed Martin comes out asking for a ban on space weapons?
- daveguy 20d agoMaybe they'll ask for a "slower pace of development" so it doesn't look as much like they're just asking for new regulatory barriers on their competition.
- carterschonwald 20d ago… i thought international treaties explicitly say no space weapons. ughhhh fucking wh
- Arubis 20d agoLaws are for the little people, obviously.
- krunck 20d agoAnd you think America cares about treaties?
- Arubis 20d agoHistorically it did, so long as the politically privileged class of USians were among the folks that would be advantaged by those treaties. Anti-nuke proliferation and CFC restriction treaties worked. Treaties with native populations were ignored and violated whenever convenient; now they get occasional acknowledgement in speeches but no actual change or action. I would’ve put space weaponry in the first category.
- razerbeans 20d agoFTA it says the treaty covers "weapons of mass destruction". But historically (at least prior to the 2000's), there was an unspoken rule of not weaponizing space. I think that's changed in the last ~20 years and recall covered of China sending kinetic weapons into space.
- spaceuhhbased 20d agoThe Soviet Union placed a 23mm autocannon in orbit as part of Salyut 3, a manned space station launched in June 1974: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3#On-board_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_3#On-board_gun Hard to be certain due to Cold War secrecy, but the consensus seems to be that they conducted several test-firings before the station was finally deorbited.
- FuckButtons 20d agousing a 23mm auto cannon on orbit is more or less useless. There’s no way to reasonably shoot something when your relative velocities could easily be strictly greater than the bullets. Even if something is coming straight towards you it’s very difficult to aim when you have to take into account orbital mechanics. You would need a huge amount of RCS fuel in order to counteract the impulse from the gun. And even if you did shoot the gun if you miss, you now have a bunch of bullets that share your orbit and will at some point intercept your flight path again, if you don’t miss, you still have shrapnel sharing your orbital path.
- krunck 20d agoThe boom in private space companies all vying for USG cash was the initial indicator this was happening. The amount of mass sent to orbit so far for USRO and USSF has been huge. And it's not going to let up. I expect "rods from god" to be used any time now.
- mmaunder 20d agoIt’s paywalled. Is anyone reading it before replying here?
- samizdis 20d agoIt's not paywalled - it's the BBC. But maybe try CNN's version: https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/15/us/us-space-force-weapons-capabilities-hnk https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/15/us/us-space-force-weapons-cap...
- hiddendoom45 20d agoI have been getting occasional paywalls from the BBC asking to pay to read articles. Clearing cookies does remove the paywall for a while so I think it's some sort of A/B test they're running.
- recentlypostedj 20d agoWasn't it always known? I thought Trump had said it in his 1st term. Cant find the article thought
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- mars-or_wars 20d agoIt's Golden Dome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...
- thenthenthen 20d agoAh so thats the reason behind the ‘datacenters in space’ headlines some time ago
- mars-or_wars 19d agoYes, also Space-based solar power, it has always been developed as a directed energy weapon in space. History of these cover stories goes back to the L5 Society and the Mars Society.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power Also see Michael D. Griffin and his history with Elon Musk
- ctoth 20d agoWonder about this aspect: https://panda.substack.com/p/salvage-fuzing-and-co-orbital-nuclear https://panda.substack.com/p/salvage-fuzing-and-co-orbital-n...
- Eawrig05 20d ago[dead]
- deleted 20d ago[deleted]
- t1234s 20d agoWith how much money we spend on the DOD and MIC it would be disappointing if we didn't have multiple arrays of space weapons and weather modification.
- exabrial 20d agoI have a feeling every major nuclear power probably does at this point. Russia definitely has global GPS jamming capabilities in orbit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz23G_UXCGA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz23G_UXCGA
- sgustard 20d agoReagan and Gorbachev came within inches of abolishing nuclear weapons, but the sticking point was the US would not back away from building space weapons. As long as warmongers are in control we will continue to live in danger and fear.
- nomel 20d ago> As long as warmongers are in control we will continue to live in danger and fear. Can you expand on your solution to world peace?
- whh 20d agoI think it's generally acceptable to make a statement without proposing a solution.
- legulere 20d agoYou need to get a critical mass of people to despise war so much that they are ready to have disadvantages themselves to make a war free world a reality. E.g. complete stop of trade with countries starting a war or supporting such a country. It happened before relatively successful with slavery and is partially happening with the death penalty. For me it seems like a very long way to go though.
- nomel 20d agoSo, you're saying that this requires all people of the world get along and agree with anything that might cause war? That sounds like a reasonable plan! Thanks for the response.
- wraptile 20d agoOr a post resource scarcity society where everyone's rich enough to be able to make ethical decisions with very little actual cost.
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- tonic_note 20d agoIt's most likely space-based missile defense, perhaps DOD secretly revived the Brilliant Pebbles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles) program? People hear "space weapons" and think Rods from God (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment) but hitting a precise target on the ground from space is really hard, like tying to hit a bull's eye from hundreds of miles away. The more practical application is missile defense or anti-satellite stuff.
- bob1029 20d ago> but hitting a precise target on the ground from space is really hard Guidance systems exist. Kinetic != unguided.
- consumer451 20d agoThe more practical approach appears to be fully on-orbit activities, as those are currently far harder to attribute. The field of "Space Domain Awareness" is still nascent and rapidly evolving. See my other comment for my expanded take on this, informed by being a peaceful space-nerd who cannot seem to avoid this topic, even if I tried: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711876
- asdff 20d agoIt probably felt really hard decades ago. But we are already well into the era where you can target a particular seat of a car driving on a highway with a nonexplosive kinetic weapon.
- twothreeone 20d agoThat doesn't mean you can hit it too. The only case which I remember was well documented was for a turret gun "controlled by satellite" hit the passenger of a standing vehicle from the back of a truck in front of it (nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in Tehran in 2020 while his wife, sitting immediately beside him, was unharmed). Also those reports were pretty questionable at the time, there were multiple competing narratives, and I'm not sure the satellite gun story was ever independently verified.
- sizzle 20d agoSounds like the plot taken from For All Mankind
- drob518 20d agoWhen are we getting sharks with laser beams?
- asdff 20d agoWe opted for training sea lions instead to defend our submarine bases
- asdff 20d agoWasn't the shuttle originally planned to be a weapon as well, capable of intercepting and sabotaging satellites using its loading bay workshop? There are also the various "mini shuttles" the three letter agencies fly around the earth for several hundred day stints of doing who knows what exactly with who knows what capabilities (other than having a similar sabotage potential as the original shuttle perhaps).
- bdamm 20d agoI'm not sure why you're being downvoted. The Shuttle requirements were absolutely modified by DoD's desire to ship military satellites and carry out operations. One of the many tug-o-wars that ended up with such a compromised design. And since you brought up the X-37B, I have to admit, I absolutely love its dynamic flight capabilities whereby it literally banks off the upper atmosphere like a silver surfer to rapidly change orbits at perigee. Quite an interesting bit of tech that did evolve from the shuttle and is still doing work this very day.
- baxtr 20d agoAs far as I know, a major issue with NASA space programs such as the shuttle was that each group held its own requirements. So, most likely the DoD had some additional demands.
- CodeWriter23 20d agoThe SIR-C/X-SAR was launched in the Shuttle Bay and used to map the entire surface of The Earth. Some would call that a munition. This article, following that event IS the confirmation.
- andai 20d ago>"We urge the US side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space," AFP quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying. I'm no geopolitics whiz but "we urge the USA to be unprepared for war" is a pretty comical statement to me.
- nradov 20d agoYa, that's a hilarious comment from the Chinese after they have literally tested their own anti-satellite weapons. But then their diplomats have never been short of chutzpah. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/chinas-anti-satellite-test https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/chinas-anti-satellite-test
- Revanche1367 20d agoYou think the US doesn’t have similar things?
- r_lee 20d agothe commenter never implied that they don't but anyone familiar with how China positions itself knows that they always say things like: "our space stuff is 100% peaceful we dont have any military stuff there, the imperialist West is lying! we are never aggressive, we are only peaceful and defensive" and when someone else does something they always urge them to act according to international law and to not escalate
- Revanche1367 20d agoHow many wars has China started in the last century?
- SubmarineClub 20d agoVery convenient of you to not include what China is doing in Nepal, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and on the Indian border. And if China hadn’t stuck its dick into the Korean War, the whole peninsula would probably be as prosperous as the south.
- m4rtink 20d agoSo what is it, just kill sats, or something more interesting like rods-from-god, briliant pebbles, orbit to ground laser cannon or somethong else entirely ? Inquiring minds want to know! :-)
- vondur 20d agoI've assumed that they put weapons on satellites as soon as it was possible.
- Lammy 20d agoRelevant: - USAF Directed Energy Directorate home page during the years 1999–2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20060831035044/http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/ https://web.archive.org/web/20060831035044/http://www.de.afr... - USAF Directed Energy Directorate home page during the years 2009–2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20160428181404/http://www.kirtland.af.mil/afrl_de/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160428181404/http://www.kirtla... - LASER Effects Test Facility fact sheet from 2002 showing a 50-kilowatt CO² LASER setting a test target on fire: https://web.archive.org/web/20070315131556/http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/factsheets/letf.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20070315131556/http://www.de.afr...
- LargoLasskhyfv 19d agoLame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casaba-Howitzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casaba-Howitzer would 'Rock the Casbah' even more.
- skyhvr 20d agoKatsuhiro Otomo would be proud.
- throw158a3 20d agoAmerica is just another rouge state like Russia and China
- hereme888 20d agoThe part where China "begs" the US not to weaponize space, and then talks of how China wants to militarily dominate space... Such typical tactics to delay US progress.
- MotoriX 19d agoIf they’re showing us this weapon, it probably means it’s already outdated...
- danny_codes 19d agoPathetic. US leadership is trash right now. It’s like a bunch of 3 year olds. Unbelievable.