8 ms·

Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. Especially since the consequences of space debris might trigger the Kessler effect [1], denying humanit

Space 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 18d ago
> Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. Cute, Antarctica is just future beachfront...give it time.
voidUpdate 18d ago
There 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 18d ago
  Not that the US ever gave a shit about international treaties.
  - _djo_ 18d ago
    To 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.
    - aa-jv 18d ago
      >fairly strong evidence Got some?
      - _djo_ 18d ago
        Sure. https://www.ifri.org/en/studies/current-and-future-trends-chinese-counterspace-capabilities https://www.ifri.org/en/studies/current-and-future-trends-ch... https://www.swfound.org/publications-and-reports/2026-global-counterspace-capabilities-report https://www.swfound.org/publications-and-reports/2026-global... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2024.2388658#d1e1232 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2024.2... https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4431/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4431/1 https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Annual_Report/Chapters/Chapter%202%2C%20Section%202%20-%20China%27s%20Space%20and%20Counterspace%20Programs.pdf https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Annual_Report/Chapt...
        aa-jv 18d ago
        I see a lot of fear-mongering reports from sources claiming authority. I don't see any evidence.
        _djo_ 18d ago
        What kind of evidence are you expecting? Detailed photographs of the satellites on orbit? These are credible institutions, with their statements regarding unusual orbital movements backed up by observations made by several independent groups.
        aa-jv 18d ago
        I'd like to see evidence which supports the claims and not have to rely on a call to authority fallacy[1] in order to agree with this collective-derived reality. I have no doubt that there are weapons in space - Russian, Chinese, American - why wouldn't there be? - but I still want to see actual evidence. None of the sources you give are impartial - all of them serve to profit from perpetuating fear of Chinese space activities. Too often, xenophobic movements rely on authority figures to perpetuate their myths. Don't you agree? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
- rjsw 18d ago
  Almaz had a 23mm cannon [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz_program#Defense_measures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz_program#Defense_measures
  - voidUpdate 18d ago
    Yes, but again that was a conventional weapon, and would have been fine under the treaty. I don't exactly condone it but it was also crap and never flew again. This video https://youtu.be/e-n_V5iEwAs https://youtu.be/e-n_V5iEwAs goes into some of the reasons it was a particularly crap idea
- notahacker 18d ago
  Realistically pretty much anything in orbit is a viable space to space weapon (for related reasons all space propulsion is ITAR controlled) so it was never practical to ban them. Space to earth, maybe, but that isn't unless it hits vague 'WMD' categories, and I'm not sure space to ground is necessarily what the US is declaring here. I suspect whatever capability the US is referring to is far more "counter space" than WMD in scope and an incremental improvement on kinetic and electronic warfare capabilities it's long had. You can do a lot of irresponsible damage in to space assets with ground launched anti-satellite capability, as multiple tests have already demonstrated...
  - spwa4 18d ago
    But people want laws to not have to face this, and yet systematically refuse to actually do anything when those laws get violated. A law is fundamentally what's enforced, not what's on the paper. Which means if countries vote against any kind of enforcement, like happened here, those laws (whether rights or something else) don't exist. And they don't exist because regular people may shout about them (most don't), but they won't actually do anything, which, for most people, means pay for it. What's worrying is that human rights are definitely on the same train. When you critique this you get an angry retort that for example China commits large scale human rights violations against it's own population, and how unreasonable it is to expect anyone to do anything about it. Okay, but then we don't have human rights, please don't claim otherwise.
    - zenbane 18d ago
      This is why culture is important to. You can't legislate morals and ethics.
      - Forgeties79 18d ago
        You absolutely can legislate morals and ethics. That’s why you can’t murder people.
        brookst 18d ago
- exe34 18d ago
  > used for defending yourself against wild animals > in the event that you land in a forest or similar. I was very confused and wondered where this was going!
- nojvek 18d ago
  Do US and Russia even give a shit about treaties. Like Pompey “ Will you stop reciting laws to us? We are men girded with swords” Might also mean, our civilization gets wiped out due to our stupidity m. In 1000 years, other galaxies also wonder, why are there no aliens? Are we the most advanced civilization? Then get get “high IQ” president and wipe themselves out.
- ak39 18d ago
  What is the point of any treaty with the current US administration which does not play by international laws? Rules and laws that the USA itself spearheaded after WW2.
  - nickff 18d ago
    The Soviets attached cannons to space stations, and the Chinese are believed to have deployed space-based weapons. The USA is actually a laggard in this field.
    - zobzu 18d ago
      Exactly. Most of these things are just big world politics. Same for AI, btw. "OMG dont do this this is horrible" as the other country does it and hasn't talked about it or haven't been caught doing it. It's all information wars at the end of the day, and HN is not impervious to any of it. Its like OAI and Anthropic saying we should all slow down AI model work. Like, lol, right. As if others would do that. The only way to be safe, so far, has to be that everyone is second guessing everyone's capabilities - not "ahah they dont do it anyway lets go crush em". Same as nuclear weapons basically, we all have them.
  - deleted 18d ago
    [deleted]
- SG- 18d ago
  The US doesn't care about treaties anymore.
- varjag 18d ago
  I think they don't fly survival guns on Soyuz anymore. But cosmonauts on ISS do keep a shank or two onboard for sure.
- tastyfreeze 18d ago
  I have little doubt that the OST was circumvented by definitional tricks. That is how the game of treaties and power is played. Something like rods from God or a conventional bomb orbiting platform wouldn't be considered a WMD but most certainly are the types of weapons common folk would think the OST forbids. I suspect since the OST didn't ban orbital weapons capable of attacking the surface outright that some of the signing parties already had them and didn't want to give them up.
- pseudohadamard 17d ago
  >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 Not to mention the 23mm cannon on Salyut 3, in case you needed to take out the wild animals from orbit.
reptileIllumina 18d ago
Funny you mention Antarctica. Pretty sure that place is also heavily militarized. Some Norwegian sailors has being severely punished for sailing boats there. The funny thing is people in conspiracy circle has being taking about that space has being militarized for years! China and Japan just openly talked them: https://san.com/cc/nasa-china-wants-military-moon-base/ https://san.com/cc/nasa-china-wants-military-moon-base/ Really at this point between conspiracy and official realize is just matter of a year if not just a couple months now.
- JumpCrisscross 18d ago
  > Pretty sure that place is also heavily militarized To what end? Seriously. Maybe submarine listening devices on the seabed?
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 18d ago
    No one expects the Antarctic Inquisition
damnesian 18d ago
Oh I'm sure it will be "neutral," in the sense that all of us normal humans are potential targets in this day and age, under this leadership.
aaron695 18d ago
[dead]
preisschild 18d ago
Not really possible. For example, the Soviet Union had naval radar satellites (RORSAT) in space that could directly guide missiles to specific ships. If a war would have kicked of in europe where transatlantic convoys would have been critical those satellites would have to be shot down by ASAT weapons.
edgyquant 18d ago
This just isn’t feasible it’s like wanting the ocean to be free of weapons. Space is most of what there is, nations that want to defend themselves will have to utilize space as a war fighting domain all we can do is put that off
- iAMkenough 18d ago
  Sounds like it’s finally time to start blasting random satellites out of the sky.
  - deleted 18d ago
    [deleted]
rtkwe 18d ago
That would likely require basically banning GPS, imaging and communication satellites too, if we get a WW3 I would be shocked if there weren't physical attacks against those assets by anyone with the requisite launch capabilities because they're just that useful to militaries. Maybe it gets relegated mostly to jamming them instead but I'd be surprised if that level of restraint happened.
- scottyah 18d ago
  There are many separate GPS systems and all the big powers know how to jam and work without them. It was one of the first tactics used in Ukraine.
  - rtkwe 18d ago
    Of course. But those are also limited to the areas around the jammers too. In a broader hot conflict there'd be a good reason to disrupt the opposition's GPS capabilities across the globe not just locally. It'd be pretty bad economically for many countries to lose GPS access in their homeland but difficult to achieve without a way to disrupt the satellites directly.
imglorp 18d ago
They're not dumb; everyone knows this. It's like the old "mutually assured destruction" image of two people standing in a pool of gasoline, each with matches at the ready. So one option is they're not planning kinetic weapons: directed EMP to burn out electronics, laser to burn out cameras, etc. Another option is whoever deploys a kinetic weapon does not have investment at that rough altitude and wants to deny all players there; an outsider maybe.
jillesvangurp 18d ago
Space is more like international waters legally. The outer space treaty is rooted in maritime law principles. The Chinese and Russians are in no mood to slow down relative to the US. There will likely be some escalation in debris and damage resulting from that might eventually result in some kind of action. But most of the damage here would be economical and sending more stuff up is now very cheap. Manned flight is relatively infrequent and aside from the space station and very short lived space tourism, most activity in space is unmanned. So, if a lot of satellites get taken out that's a problem but if a few get lost, nobody will care. The space station and other important stuff can be in relatively safe orbits. There's also the notion that a lot of the debris in low earth object comes down pretty quickly. Lots of unstable orbits. LEO is where most of the activity is for things like starlink and competing constellations. Which moderates the risk a bit.
- hajile 18d ago
  SpaceX satellites are doing about 1000 collision avoidance maneuvers every single day. The addition of new networks is going to congest things even more and the risk of unavoidable cascading failure keeps increasing at a massive rate.
  - jillesvangurp 18d ago
    Those are pre-emptive moves for minimizing what is a very small chance of collisions, not narrowly escaped near certain collisions. Air traffic control does a similar thing with keeping planes spaced apart in zones under their control. In space a small thruster nudge will have a huge impact at a very low cost
  - hydrogen7800 18d ago
    I learned that within the 2 hour launch window for Artemis 2 there were many blackout periods ranging from seconds to minutes for collision avoidance.
  - throwitaway222 18d ago
    At some point they need to remove all the objects that can't do 1000 collision avoidance maneuvers per day.
bpodgursky 18d ago
I agree with the principle but Russia and China absolutely already have armed satellites in orbit, so that needs to be negotiated before unilaterally stopping.
micromacrofoot 18d ago
There's not really enough stuff up there to cause the kessler syndrome yet, maybe at some specific bands you could cause some annoyances... but ~75% of satellites are operating in bands that would decay into the atmosphere, fortunately it's just easier to operate in the decaying band anyway
cindyllm 18d ago
[dead]
mikeweiss 18d ago
Only works when the thing you want to make off limits isn't all that desirable in the first place.
gadders 18d ago
You don't need to have weapons in orbit for the Kessler Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...
bilsbie 18d ago
Really the whole world should be.
mytailorisrich 18d ago
Space is too important and strategic for it to remain free of weapons and military presence.
GiorgioG 18d ago
> Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. That's cute that you think that. The reality is you can't do less than your adversaries may/will/are doing.
surfingdino 18d ago
Too late https://www.reddit.com/r/Planes/comments/15fh5js/a_us_air_force_f15_once_shot_down_a_satellite/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Planes/comments/15fh5js/a_us_air_fo... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59299101 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59299101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi... and this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_systems_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_systems_... The outer space is already a dumpster and a disaster.
JumpCrisscross 18d ago
> Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica "They are dismantling these systems because they do not expect they will ever have a use for these weapons. Not because chemical weapons are immoral. Because they are ineffective, whereas landmines, cluster munitions and nuclear weapons are assumed to have future uses. Morality was never at issue, effectiveness was. That has some big consequences, most of which are actually unpleasant. It means that efforts to ban ‘immoral’ weapons that are effective will likely never succeed. The model that activists thought they were building on is a foundation of sand – the only way you ban weapons is after they are basically useless anyway (to cut that point finer: you get to ban weapons after they stop being useful to the great powers, who may then enforce the ban on smaller states). The idea that we might summon up enough moral indignation to set these weapons aside seems unfounded. We are not nearly so moral as my high school teachers imagined, nor are we so cowardly as a ‘Fremen apologist’ might think. We’ve simply made an amoral calculation about effectiveness" [1]. > the consequences of space debris might trigger the Kessler effect Kessler is terribly understood in the public consciousness. There is no known solution for generally denying access to space using anything less than orders of magnitudes of the resources it would take to just continually shoot everything down. In high orbits, Kessler can deny specific orbits–GEO is a notable one that we could generationally fuck. But the idea that nobody will be able to go to space, much less LEO, is wrong and distracts from the real issues with space-based weapons, especially ones in LEO. [1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
- KludgeShySir 17d ago
  "generationally fuck" - Oxford English Dictionary's phrase of the decade
Retric 18d ago
Ion thrusters allow satellites to stay in low orbits with significant drag, providing significant protection from Kessler syndrome.
BurningFrog 18d ago
Unless you can enforce a weapons ban, "should be a neutral ground" means absolutely nothing. Everyone would launch weapons while they deny it, because that is the rational and responsible thing to do.
sesteel 17d ago
We do things in response to the actions of others; I'll leave it there.
snvzz 17d ago
Regulations are only as strong as the power to enforce them.

verelo 18d ago

> Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. Cute, Antarctica is just future beachfront...give it time.

voidUpdate 18d ago

There 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 18d ago
Not that the US ever gave a shit about international treaties.
- _djo_ 18d ago
  To 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.
  - aa-jv 18d ago
    >fairly strong evidence Got some?
    - _djo_ 18d ago
      Sure. https://www.ifri.org/en/studies/current-and-future-trends-chinese-counterspace-capabilities https://www.ifri.org/en/studies/current-and-future-trends-ch... https://www.swfound.org/publications-and-reports/2026-global-counterspace-capabilities-report https://www.swfound.org/publications-and-reports/2026-global... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2024.2388658#d1e1232 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2024.2... https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4431/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4431/1 https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Annual_Report/Chapters/Chapter%202%2C%20Section%202%20-%20China%27s%20Space%20and%20Counterspace%20Programs.pdf https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Annual_Report/Chapt...
      - aa-jv 18d ago
        I see a lot of fear-mongering reports from sources claiming authority. I don't see any evidence.
        _djo_ 18d ago
        What kind of evidence are you expecting? Detailed photographs of the satellites on orbit? These are credible institutions, with their statements regarding unusual orbital movements backed up by observations made by several independent groups.
        aa-jv 18d ago
        I'd like to see evidence which supports the claims and not have to rely on a call to authority fallacy[1] in order to agree with this collective-derived reality. I have no doubt that there are weapons in space - Russian, Chinese, American - why wouldn't there be? - but I still want to see actual evidence. None of the sources you give are impartial - all of them serve to profit from perpetuating fear of Chinese space activities. Too often, xenophobic movements rely on authority figures to perpetuate their myths. Don't you agree? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
rjsw 18d ago
Almaz had a 23mm cannon [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz_program#Defense_measures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz_program#Defense_measures
- voidUpdate 18d ago
  Yes, but again that was a conventional weapon, and would have been fine under the treaty. I don't exactly condone it but it was also crap and never flew again. This video https://youtu.be/e-n_V5iEwAs https://youtu.be/e-n_V5iEwAs goes into some of the reasons it was a particularly crap idea
notahacker 18d ago
Realistically pretty much anything in orbit is a viable space to space weapon (for related reasons all space propulsion is ITAR controlled) so it was never practical to ban them. Space to earth, maybe, but that isn't unless it hits vague 'WMD' categories, and I'm not sure space to ground is necessarily what the US is declaring here. I suspect whatever capability the US is referring to is far more "counter space" than WMD in scope and an incremental improvement on kinetic and electronic warfare capabilities it's long had. You can do a lot of irresponsible damage in to space assets with ground launched anti-satellite capability, as multiple tests have already demonstrated...
- spwa4 18d ago
  But people want laws to not have to face this, and yet systematically refuse to actually do anything when those laws get violated. A law is fundamentally what's enforced, not what's on the paper. Which means if countries vote against any kind of enforcement, like happened here, those laws (whether rights or something else) don't exist. And they don't exist because regular people may shout about them (most don't), but they won't actually do anything, which, for most people, means pay for it. What's worrying is that human rights are definitely on the same train. When you critique this you get an angry retort that for example China commits large scale human rights violations against it's own population, and how unreasonable it is to expect anyone to do anything about it. Okay, but then we don't have human rights, please don't claim otherwise.
  - zenbane 18d ago
    This is why culture is important to. You can't legislate morals and ethics.
    - Forgeties79 18d ago
      You absolutely can legislate morals and ethics. That’s why you can’t murder people.
      - brookst 18d ago
exe34 18d ago
> used for defending yourself against wild animals > in the event that you land in a forest or similar. I was very confused and wondered where this was going!
nojvek 18d ago
Do US and Russia even give a shit about treaties. Like Pompey “ Will you stop reciting laws to us? We are men girded with swords” Might also mean, our civilization gets wiped out due to our stupidity m. In 1000 years, other galaxies also wonder, why are there no aliens? Are we the most advanced civilization? Then get get “high IQ” president and wipe themselves out.
ak39 18d ago
What is the point of any treaty with the current US administration which does not play by international laws? Rules and laws that the USA itself spearheaded after WW2.
- nickff 18d ago
  The Soviets attached cannons to space stations, and the Chinese are believed to have deployed space-based weapons. The USA is actually a laggard in this field.
  - zobzu 18d ago
    Exactly. Most of these things are just big world politics. Same for AI, btw. "OMG dont do this this is horrible" as the other country does it and hasn't talked about it or haven't been caught doing it. It's all information wars at the end of the day, and HN is not impervious to any of it. Its like OAI and Anthropic saying we should all slow down AI model work. Like, lol, right. As if others would do that. The only way to be safe, so far, has to be that everyone is second guessing everyone's capabilities - not "ahah they dont do it anyway lets go crush em". Same as nuclear weapons basically, we all have them.
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
SG- 18d ago
The US doesn't care about treaties anymore.
varjag 18d ago
I think they don't fly survival guns on Soyuz anymore. But cosmonauts on ISS do keep a shank or two onboard for sure.
tastyfreeze 18d ago
I have little doubt that the OST was circumvented by definitional tricks. That is how the game of treaties and power is played. Something like rods from God or a conventional bomb orbiting platform wouldn't be considered a WMD but most certainly are the types of weapons common folk would think the OST forbids. I suspect since the OST didn't ban orbital weapons capable of attacking the surface outright that some of the signing parties already had them and didn't want to give them up.
pseudohadamard 17d ago
>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 Not to mention the 23mm cannon on Salyut 3, in case you needed to take out the wild animals from orbit.

reptileIllumina 18d ago

Funny you mention Antarctica. Pretty sure that place is also heavily militarized. Some Norwegian sailors has being severely punished for sailing boats there. The funny thing is people in conspiracy circle has being taking about that space has being militarized for years! China and Japan just openly talked them: https://san.com/cc/nasa-china-wants-military-moon-base/ https://san.com/cc/nasa-china-wants-military-moon-base/ Really at this point between conspiracy and official realize is just matter of a year if not just a couple months now.

JumpCrisscross 18d ago
> Pretty sure that place is also heavily militarized To what end? Seriously. Maybe submarine listening devices on the seabed?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 18d ago
  No one expects the Antarctic Inquisition

damnesian 18d ago

Oh I'm sure it will be "neutral," in the sense that all of us normal humans are potential targets in this day and age, under this leadership.

aaron695 18d ago

[dead]

preisschild 18d ago

Not really possible. For example, the Soviet Union had naval radar satellites (RORSAT) in space that could directly guide missiles to specific ships. If a war would have kicked of in europe where transatlantic convoys would have been critical those satellites would have to be shot down by ASAT weapons.

edgyquant 18d ago

This just isn’t feasible it’s like wanting the ocean to be free of weapons. Space is most of what there is, nations that want to defend themselves will have to utilize space as a war fighting domain all we can do is put that off

iAMkenough 18d ago
Sounds like it’s finally time to start blasting random satellites out of the sky.
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]

rtkwe 18d ago

That would likely require basically banning GPS, imaging and communication satellites too, if we get a WW3 I would be shocked if there weren't physical attacks against those assets by anyone with the requisite launch capabilities because they're just that useful to militaries. Maybe it gets relegated mostly to jamming them instead but I'd be surprised if that level of restraint happened.

scottyah 18d ago
There are many separate GPS systems and all the big powers know how to jam and work without them. It was one of the first tactics used in Ukraine.
- rtkwe 18d ago
  Of course. But those are also limited to the areas around the jammers too. In a broader hot conflict there'd be a good reason to disrupt the opposition's GPS capabilities across the globe not just locally. It'd be pretty bad economically for many countries to lose GPS access in their homeland but difficult to achieve without a way to disrupt the satellites directly.

imglorp 18d ago

They're not dumb; everyone knows this. It's like the old "mutually assured destruction" image of two people standing in a pool of gasoline, each with matches at the ready. So one option is they're not planning kinetic weapons: directed EMP to burn out electronics, laser to burn out cameras, etc. Another option is whoever deploys a kinetic weapon does not have investment at that rough altitude and wants to deny all players there; an outsider maybe.

jillesvangurp 18d ago

Space is more like international waters legally. The outer space treaty is rooted in maritime law principles. The Chinese and Russians are in no mood to slow down relative to the US. There will likely be some escalation in debris and damage resulting from that might eventually result in some kind of action. But most of the damage here would be economical and sending more stuff up is now very cheap. Manned flight is relatively infrequent and aside from the space station and very short lived space tourism, most activity in space is unmanned. So, if a lot of satellites get taken out that's a problem but if a few get lost, nobody will care. The space station and other important stuff can be in relatively safe orbits. There's also the notion that a lot of the debris in low earth object comes down pretty quickly. Lots of unstable orbits. LEO is where most of the activity is for things like starlink and competing constellations. Which moderates the risk a bit.

hajile 18d ago
SpaceX satellites are doing about 1000 collision avoidance maneuvers every single day. The addition of new networks is going to congest things even more and the risk of unavoidable cascading failure keeps increasing at a massive rate.
- jillesvangurp 18d ago
  Those are pre-emptive moves for minimizing what is a very small chance of collisions, not narrowly escaped near certain collisions. Air traffic control does a similar thing with keeping planes spaced apart in zones under their control. In space a small thruster nudge will have a huge impact at a very low cost
- hydrogen7800 18d ago
  I learned that within the 2 hour launch window for Artemis 2 there were many blackout periods ranging from seconds to minutes for collision avoidance.
- throwitaway222 18d ago
  At some point they need to remove all the objects that can't do 1000 collision avoidance maneuvers per day.

bpodgursky 18d ago

I agree with the principle but Russia and China absolutely already have armed satellites in orbit, so that needs to be negotiated before unilaterally stopping.

micromacrofoot 18d ago

There's not really enough stuff up there to cause the kessler syndrome yet, maybe at some specific bands you could cause some annoyances... but ~75% of satellites are operating in bands that would decay into the atmosphere, fortunately it's just easier to operate in the decaying band anyway

cindyllm 18d ago

[dead]

mikeweiss 18d ago

Only works when the thing you want to make off limits isn't all that desirable in the first place.

gadders 18d ago

You don't need to have weapons in orbit for the Kessler Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...

bilsbie 18d ago

Really the whole world should be.

mytailorisrich 18d ago

Space is too important and strategic for it to remain free of weapons and military presence.

GiorgioG 18d ago

> Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. That's cute that you think that. The reality is you can't do less than your adversaries may/will/are doing.

surfingdino 18d ago

Too late https://www.reddit.com/r/Planes/comments/15fh5js/a_us_air_force_f15_once_shot_down_a_satellite/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Planes/comments/15fh5js/a_us_air_fo... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59299101 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59299101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi... and this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_systems_in_space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_systems_... The outer space is already a dumpster and a disaster.

JumpCrisscross 18d ago

> Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica "They are dismantling these systems because they do not expect they will ever have a use for these weapons. Not because chemical weapons are immoral. Because they are ineffective, whereas landmines, cluster munitions and nuclear weapons are assumed to have future uses. Morality was never at issue, effectiveness was. That has some big consequences, most of which are actually unpleasant. It means that efforts to ban ‘immoral’ weapons that are effective will likely never succeed. The model that activists thought they were building on is a foundation of sand – the only way you ban weapons is after they are basically useless anyway (to cut that point finer: you get to ban weapons after they stop being useful to the great powers, who may then enforce the ban on smaller states). The idea that we might summon up enough moral indignation to set these weapons aside seems unfounded. We are not nearly so moral as my high school teachers imagined, nor are we so cowardly as a ‘Fremen apologist’ might think. We’ve simply made an amoral calculation about effectiveness" [1]. > the consequences of space debris might trigger the Kessler effect Kessler is terribly understood in the public consciousness. There is no known solution for generally denying access to space using anything less than orders of magnitudes of the resources it would take to just continually shoot everything down. In high orbits, Kessler can deny specific orbits–GEO is a notable one that we could generationally fuck. But the idea that nobody will be able to go to space, much less LEO, is wrong and distracts from the real issues with space-based weapons, especially ones in LEO. [1] https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
KludgeShySir 17d ago
"generationally fuck" - Oxford English Dictionary's phrase of the decade

Retric 18d ago

Ion thrusters allow satellites to stay in low orbits with significant drag, providing significant protection from Kessler syndrome.

BurningFrog 18d ago

Unless you can enforce a weapons ban, "should be a neutral ground" means absolutely nothing. Everyone would launch weapons while they deny it, because that is the rational and responsible thing to do.

sesteel 17d ago

We do things in response to the actions of others; I'll leave it there.

snvzz 17d ago

Regulations are only as strong as the power to enforce them.