The Dozen Space Weapon Myths

Thanks to Disowned Sky for finding a good debunking piece on space based weapon systems. Slightly disheartening, because I really want to have solar energy satellites that are also lasers. The article does a good job of looking further afield at nations besides the United States efforts in this area.

Overly Ideal is Bad in Any Case

[WED Fan]

Overly ideal treaties, laws, bans, etc. are just bad.

While banning the militarization of space is a nice idea, it would be nearly as difficult to implement as the demilitarization of our oceans.

Existing treaties that are overly idealistic have had the bad side effect of limiting or halting the development of other projects (as mentioned before: Orion).

I say, militarize, it will happen, then defend. If the U.S. and Russia were to be the only ones to abide by a non-militarization of space, eventually, the other players, India, China, and Japan, will gain the supremecy in space and eventually on the ground. Space war will be the new air war.

I'm all for poking fun at tinfoil hatters...

[Anonymous Coward]

But half these myths contradict the other half.

First, it says putting missiles in space is expensive and slow "Even planning a space-to-space attack can take hours or days or longer for the moving attacker and target to line up in a proper position."

But wait! The Soviets "demonstrated the high reliability of the operational Soviet 'killer satellite'". Not only that, but there is an "enormous advantage" to orbital systems.

Also "They could even use the Moon's gravity to surreptitiously slip into the high-altitude orbits of key US observation, communications, and navigation satellites." Only if the government continues to cut the junk-tracking budget, otherwise any "junk" moving strangely would be noticed pretty quickly. Also, based on the orbit of the junk that's been around since the dawn of the space program, the Moon's gravity does not cause sudden major orbital changes, and I would suspect that with no other propulsion, the Moon's gravity is not enough to prevent the orbit of a "stealth" satellite with no boosters from decaying.

The Cold War wrote

[theolein]

They want their Soviet Union back.

The article is part fact and part of the same kind of tit for tat idiocy that brought and perpetuated the Cold War for over 40 years. "The Americans did this", "The Russians so totally did too" kind of crap that is this article is just painful to those of us who lived through the red scare bullshit of the Cold war. Not only that but the article tries to paint Russia as still being the Soviet Union. They talk about anti ballistic missiles being based in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is and has been independent since 1991. It leases the old Soviet manned rocket launching site at Baikonur to Russia, but it, along with the Ukraine and Byelorus destroyed all of its Soviet era nukes in the 90's, and no longer hosts any strategic Russian military equipment.

I Disagree With Your Assessment

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems the author of the article reads Slashdot. Anyone remember back when the "official U.S. position on space weapons" story broke? As I recall, there was a torrent of comments (especially from those who failed to read the document) suggesting that the space policy was that only the U.S. was going to have access to space.

You mean this story [slashdot.org]? Well, as I recall, the bulk of the conversation was about your Nuclear Space Drive [slashdot.org] conversation and also your trite arguments about who hates Bush and whatnot [slashdot.org].

I think you have this misconceived notion that Slashdot has one liberal mentality. But you're wrong, we're not a homogeneous mixture like an alloy that ends up at a mean of ideas. Instead, you read a story and you see posts that are well written and make good points. Those are moderated highly and deserve rebuttals. Things that don't deserve rebuttals are troll statements or people accusing you of stupid things (like you often receive and debate for some reason).

While you may have seen one single attitude (which you provided no posts), I saw people questioning the logic [slashdot.org], people pointing out that he phrased it in an evil sounding manner [slashdot.org] anda few people defending it [slashdot.org].

If you don't like Slashdot, don't read it. And if you're going to accuse a mentality, present evidence for it and maybe limit it to discussions that are relevant for it. It's weird but people on Slashdot love to hate each other and accuse them of being idiots who don't read articles. I just think you don't agree with a lot of people, AKAImBatman--to which I respond: deal with it.

Re:Terminating other sattelites

[Martin Blank]

The problem with that is that it's unrealistic. Debris from the Chinese test is expected to remain in orbit for thousands of years. Pop enough satellites in a major war, and space may truly become unusable for decades or centuries. I suspect that if it came down to it, we'd soft-kill enemy satellites. The ABL is going to be ready for use in a couple of years, and it might be suitable for taking out an enemy satellite without shattering it.

Re:Item 5 is not a correct statement.

[twiddlingbits]

Trying to hit the warhead AFTER it has re-entered and is using decoys is exactly the WRONG time to hit it. You want to hit it BEFORE it is released from the booster if at all possible. It's a bigger target to hit, you hit it and you got all the warheads. Technology does exist to distinquish decoys from real warheads but it's not 100%. Killing the wrong target can ruin your day. Currently ASATs use several different technologies to find the target, not just the heat (IR) signature. What is used, when it us used and how it is used classified.

Re:Hey look, just for Slashdot!

[zippthorne]

We've had enough media hysteria about "nookyoolear" that we don't even build nuclear power plants anymore. I think there would be sufficient public outcry following a nuclear attack (even just a "dirty-bomb") to release the nuclear arsenal. And politicians always do whatever they think will get or maintain power. Only a few clear-thinking military officers could stand in the way.

Which brings to mind the important question: "What should we do if attacked domestically with nuclear weapons by a non-state actor*?" And also, "What if it is Israel who is attacked?"

*and do such exist with that capability or is it merely convenient for the states involved to create the fiction?

Armchair Military Analysis

[zennsunni]

While the poster does bring up a few decent points regarding misinformation and what is likely happening in the field of space weaponization, he/she provides a number of facts and or arguments that I find either false, or confusing. Some of these items may be confusing to me merely because the writer is not launching into a full explanation for the sake of internet brevity, but some are simply incorrect, incomplete, or half true. "Many of these stories deal with weapons that travel through space on their way to surface targets--as military missiles have done since about 1944" 1944? Are you kidding me? The most advanced rocket technology at this time was the as yet unveiled V-3 being designed by the Germans. "Even planning a space-to-space attack can take hours or days or longer for the moving attacker and target to line up in a proper position." Again, this statement displays a seeming lack of understanding of the potential for orbital weapons. No space weapons platform would be reliant on a single satellite. Furthermore, for all I know geosynch orbit would still allow for fast delivery despite its very high orbital distance (around 22,000 miles). Furthermore the prospect of kinetic energy weapons, or dense rods "falling" from an orbiting satellite, is not all that farfetched and would be essentially impossible to intercept. As I suggested above, this individual did not do their homework. "It can't be a target if it's invisible to the weapon system under development." Evidently the writer is under the impression that thermal imaging is the only viable targetting system in existence, and furthermore that a weapon designed to use it could never have its principles applied to a weapon utilizing a more varied and complex targetting system.

All they need are nudgers, not explosives

[jayslambast]

I'm amazed at how everyone wants blow up sats. Its not in anyones interest to leave all that space debris around for other satellites and spacecraft to be hit with. It seems like it would be better to launch multiple satellites that latched onto the target and pushed it into the atmosphere. The victim satellite burns up on reentry and there isn't all that crap floating around to poke holes with.