The United States Space Arsenal

ntmokey writes "When China tested a missile on its own satellite in January, the nation's aggressive statement immediately raised eyebrows among the world's other space-faring nations. Popular Mechanics looks at the implications of a conflict in space — including debris that could render space unusable for decades — and examines the United States' own space arsenal."

Comments

sad but inevitable

[wizardforce]

Judging by how humanity acts on Earth it was a logical step to bring war to space as sad as that is. what happened was China took out one of their clunky near-dead weather satellite with a missile [kinetic warhead I believe] which basically tore the hell out of it with sheer speed and mass. They failed a few times before but by the rate their military spending is going it wont be long before they actually out pace us [if not already] this combined with their long standing rivalry with us on economic, political and cyberspace issues we very much need to watch this a lot closer than Iraq/war on terror because of the real implications of possible future conflict.

Re:sad but inevitable

[QuantumG]

Could also be the best thing that ever happens to mankind.

In order to fight a war in space, you need a launch capability that is beyond what we have today.

You need it to launch space stations that are bigger and stronger than the flimsy tin cans that we have in orbit now.

All the arguments that have been presented for not putting nuclear reactors into space suddenly become irrelevant.. Nuclear propulsion will become a standard feature of spacecraft. Big fat military dollars would then be poured into research to develop better than nuclear propulsion systems, not to mention weapons.

To fight a war in space you really need a working space-based economy. Which also happens to give you something to fight about: control of that economy. A working space-based economy is a necessity to colonization of the solar system - also something to fight over. Colonization of the solar system is essential to the survival of the species.

Re:sad but inevitable

[imkonen]

It's an interesting theory, but I think you're way too optimistic. It's an incredibly unstable situation, because combat in orbit involves almost no defensive options. There are no land formations to hide behind, and no air resistance to slow down projectiles, which is why satellites can be taken down without bothering to mount explosive warheads on the missiles (it's my understanding that is why they are called "kinetic kill vehicles"). Then all the debris created by space conflict becomes a danger to everyone's satellites. The result is that if the player with a satellite disadvantage has satkill technology, they can level the playing field and make it so nobody has any space capabilities. It doesn't help at all to be better at space combat than your opponent as long as your opponent is above a minimum technological threshold (which China is essentially at right now).

Re:sad but inevitable

[sumdumass]

WTF world are you on and what drugs have you been taking. My god, I haven't heard that much easily refutable bullshit in a generic Bush bash in a long time. Are you forgetting that the people your talking to have the internet and can look some thing up? Or that the economy isn't tanking, We have the capacity to deal with North Korea and Iran even with Iraq.

We are in not more of a vulnerable position the we were before Iraq. We have more then half our military force free to do whatever if absolutely needed. Sure, we would need help from other countries, but even if they refused, we have weapons not even in the arena currently that would put an end to anything that threatening. Our goal in the cold war was to fight a world war on two fronts. We have scaled the military down a bit but not that much. We also had a goal that is being realized even more today were we could fight the war without risk to solders.

Now, don't take what is happening in Iraq to mean it would happen anywhere else. The only Reason we aren't waisting Iraq is because we are trying to save it. If another country starts something, we aren't going to be worried about saving it. We won't be worried about rebuilding it. We won't be worried about much of anything outside not losing at that point in time. This means the big guns come out and we kick some ass. You act like we are defenseless. We aren't, we aren't even close. So go pull your little skirt up over your head and cry somewhere else.

Something to note, even if we disarmed the nuclear warheads and loaded conventional explosives, we have enough ICBMs to wipe Iran or N. Korea clean. Sure, we would have some get away, but it would be small enough and dispersed enough the police forces could deal with it.

Life isn't all rosie with peaches and cream. But it isn't bad either. give it a break and just fucking look around man.

Re:sad but inevitable

[Jarjarthejedi]

"It's an incredibly unstable situation, because combat in orbit involves almost no defensive options"

I'm sure someone said that about Sea Warfare once, and it was true until Aegis anti-missile and torpedo decoys were developed. Every battlefield has it's differences and there are many for which defending is difficult without technology. The only real area where you can hide behind things is land battles, and I don't think anyone would suggest that Sea and Air warfare 'Involve almost no defensive options' as there are possible options, they're just not natural to the terrain.

Combat in orbit is no more unstable than combat in air, or combat at sea. The only difference is that the wreckage can remain in orbit. That seems at first to be a big deal however there are ways to deal with that, just as there are ways to deal with sat-kill vehicles. Combat in orbit will be no different than any other battlefield once countermeasures are deployed, I seem to recall an attitude of 'We shouldn't try to combatify air because of (list of reasons) which will inevitably make it a more dangerous and horrible place to fight and end humanity' which seems to be how many people treat space right now. As Fallout once said, "War. War never changes."

Re:Star Wars

[2.7182]

What happened ? It worked. It broke the economy of the Soviet Union. Of course, the technology largely didn't work. Like the x-ray space weapon proposed by Edward Teller.

Why is it shocking?

[Anonymous Coward]

China shocked the world with its recent antisatellite missile test. What is so shocking about an obvious method of warfare? Did people really think that space could be a conflict free zone? Even if a country has signed treaties to ban use of such weapons, they still do it (or have the capability to do it within short notice after canceling their agreement).

What -could- be considered shocking is that they'd litter their own skies with junk debris, thus making it harder for them (and everyone else) to use space in the future.

Re:Star Wars

[timeOday]

It worked. It broke the economy of the Soviet Union.

What a convenient post-hoc rationalization for a monumental waste of money that is. I guess that may have accelerated the fall of the Soviet Union by a month or two, at a cost of billions, but I'll bet the ROI from giving Stingers to the Afghanis was at least a million times better. (Just imagine how things would be in Iraq now if the insurgents had more than RPGs and light machine guns to bring down our helicopters and airplanes).

USA tests

[timmarhy]

so if china does it it's shocking, i wonder what it'd be called if you yanks did it

Re:Star Wars

[mi]

If you read the book, you'll see the fact-based analysis showing that the USSR was in serious trouble going into the 80's.

Of course it was — just as Reagan was taking the office (in 1981). USSR's attempts to keep up the arms-race, including SDI — duly decried by the Soviet newspapers daily — helped kill it, instead of allowing it to survive (again) on higher oil prices and slave labor.

Millions of people of the former USSR, myself included, have a lot to thank Ronald Reagan for. The fact, that various Commies (and Commie-sympathizers) still hate him, only adds to the guy's credits.

Re:Star Wars

[Enlightenment]

Of course, it helped that the enemy that we faced was morally bankrupt and couldn't have possibly won the cold war. It frightens me that people actually associate "morally bankrupt" with "couldn't have possibly won." The two don't necessarily go together.

Re:Star Wars

[tftp]

When they tried, it brought their creaky economy crashing down

Your theory is fine, and your friends are entitled to their own views; however USSR never "tried" to make its own Star Wars hardware. USSR's ABM efforts were identical to USA's work and resulted in the ABM-limiting treaty that stood for decades, until Bush tore it up. The reason is that USSR's scientists did some calculations on a napkin and concluded, correctly, that it's impossible to build such a system at this time that would actually work (1000's US's missiles flying in and 100% intercept.) It's still impossible, decades later. Given the number of missiles that both camps had, the system indeed had to have very impressive reliability, or else it would be complete waste of money. So USSR never built one. After Reagan announced his SDI USSR just sent more money to shipyards and built a bunch more of nuclear submarines, that's it. After Bush's démarche Putin also did the same - ordered a bunch of warheads that make zigs and zags at reentry speed.

And if you are interested in why the USSR fell, it's not even because of economy. It was bad, but there was no hunger yet. It might have been, though, if the USSR was allowed to rot some more. But it never happened, and "the people" in the street were as surprised with these developments as anyone in the West. The real reason is that when Gorbachev wanted to liberalize economy he accidentally liberalized the political life, and there were plenty of opportunists waiting and ready to insert themselves into the corridors of power. That's what they did, and that's where all the independent republics got their leaders from. Russia got Yeltsin, and that was not even the worst outcome. Gorbachev saw it happening but wasn't ready to defend the old way. For that he was briefly detained, and the conspirators tried to involve the army to put the toothpaste back; it did not work. So that's how it happened, and I did not even need to talk to anyone to offer you this overview.

The need for -1, Wrong....

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I already modded a different section of the topic, I'm forced to reply anonymously. I was thinking of just modding you as troll, but that would be incorrect - you're just flat out wrong.

The economy isn't tanking, but the overall population isn't benefiting. Median salary has increased by less than inflation in the last 5-6 years, while average salary has gone up. Employees are taking on more risks by having to pay larger health insurance premiums with larger deductibles. What does this mean? The wealthy are getting wealthier, the middle class is getting squeezed. Not the epitome of a tanking economy, but it ain't pretty either.

We don't have the capability of dealing with another war. According to the generals of the Army Reserve, we are at a breaking point with the troops - essentially, we can't stretch the troops any thinner than we are doing now without significantly lowering the quality of the overall force. Another war can only be fought by withdrawing troops from Iraq, which would mean we're essentially giving up on Iraq. Furthermore, just nuking a place is not a proper response either. You've apparently forgotten the saying "War is just diplomacy with other means." Nuking another country would mean we'd essentially be pariahs for the foreseeable future. Is that the price you want to pay? I suspect you'll be like every other warhawk who is now clamoring for a troop return because the war isn't working: too stupid to see the consequences of your actions, but not afraid of blaming others for when the chickens come home to roost.

We're not defenseless. But we're also incapable of dealing with a significant challenge in another country - not unless we just pull up shop and move the troops elsewhere. And don't forget that those troops have been redeployed at least once, and are probably on an 18 months tour right now. Life is indeed not bad. But if you think that we can do anything to Iran outside of diplomatic pressure, you're just as ignorant as Bush was when he ordered the invasion of Iraq. And the consequences would be similarly disastrous.

Re:The true genius of Reagan

[mollymoo]

The Soviet regime may have been evil, but that doesn't mean socialism is evil any more than Pinochet's being evil means capitalism is evil.