US Military Plans Space Combat

MacDork writes "Wired news is reporting that the US Air Force has documented its plans to shoot down "commercial spacecraft, neutral countries' launching pads -- even weather satellites" should the need arise. From potential Chinese militarization of space to commercial spy satellites their reasoning seems obvious, but there are just as obvious consequences of such actions. Just glancing at the PDF, I don't see any plans for the aftermath..."

Comments

Nah.

[Anonymous Coward]

By international consent, space is demilitarized (at least until the pod people attack us, or whatever). I doubt the US can afford breaking any more treaties.

Re:Nah.

[ShieldWolf]

You are incorrect.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty only restricts the use or deployment of WEAPONS of MASS DESTRUCTION (more info here ) in space. Conventional warfare is not restricted. What has kept everyone from weaponizing space is:

a) It is expensive
b) Soldiers, Ports, Airstrips and Radar stations are not found there
c) The first nation to do it will be universally despised
d) It is expensive

Now however there are enough 'assets' in space that the US is beginning to fret that a space Pearl Harbour is a distinct possibility because of the military's (over) reliance on GPS and other satellite-based communication. Therefore the costs, both economic and political, are becoming less important to military thinkers.

Re:Nah.

[Dalcius]

"...European armies are mostly ... cold-war style, prepared to fight a large scale land war against the Russian invasion. USA did not have to pay this 'Russian tax', being separated by an ocean."

Actually the main thrust of our R&D during the cold war was towards defeating the Russians on open ground in large scale battles in Europe. The Apache attack helicopter is a good example; it was intended to fly around and mask behind trees and destroy large numbers of Russian tanks on the open grounds of Eastern Europe. A number of our other vehicles were the same way.

Recall that the US has a handful of military bases in Europe and had great interest in stopping any Russian advance. The US army structure was very much devoted to fighting a cold-war type war.

No beef with your post, just wanted to point that out. :)

Cheers

Impact of debris at 3-6km/sec

[SendBot]

I found this in a link from the "consequences" link in the story.

A shuttle windsield impacted by a paint chip at 3 to 6km/sec
http://www.aero.org/cords/debrisks.html

They've toyed with this for years

[cyclone96]

The Air Force has messing with this stuff for quite some time.

In 1959, they launched a missile nicknamed "King Lofus IV" from a B-58 as an early test of satellite intercept using Explorer V as a target...the test was a miserable failure.

They were more successful in 1985, with a successful intercept and kinetic kill of a satellite with an F-15 launched ASAT prototype. The program was terminated in 1988.

Re:Talk about mixed messages...

[rxmd]

In over 50 years of deployment, we've only used nuclear weapons in one campaign and against an enemy that had initiated hostilities and had been at war with for 4 years. Not only that, we had them for over a decade before anybody else, including the Soviet Union, without excercising anything close to Pax Americana. (Emphasis mine.)

If you want to get your point across, it would certainly help if you got your facts straight:

• First US atomic bomb detonation: 12 July 1945 (deliverable)
• First Soviet atomic bomb detonation: 29 August 1949 (deliverable)

Or H-bombs instead:

• First US hydrogen bomb detonation: 1 November 1952 (stationary)
• First Soviet hydrogen bomb detonation: 12 August 1953 (deliverable, first use of fusion in thermonuclear device), 22 November 1955 (deliverable, first "real" H-bomb)

(Sources: Wikipedia; Soviet nuclear weapons program)

We will develope [sic] big fucking sticks and we will make sure you know we have them, but we never use those big fucking sticks unless you absolutely deserve it.

Of course. Tell that the guys who lived near the Nevada desert, they must be terrible wrongdoers indeed. (Then, on the other hand, every American who knows where Semipalatinsk is will comment on how evil the Soviets were to expose their own population to radiation at all.) You should probably try to get out of puberty and get a more balanced world view, where politics isn't explained in terms of "big fucking sticks". I can't help it, you remind me of the bone scene in 2001.