Russia Is Building a Nuclear Space Bomber (thedailybeast.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Beast: The Russian military claims it's making progress on a space plane similar to the U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B robotic mini-shuttle. The tech is pretty basic. But alone among space-plane developers, the Kremlin is proposing to arm its space plane. With nukes. Lt. Col. Aleksei Solodovnikov, a rocketry instructor at the Russian Strategic Missile Forces Academy in St. Petersburg who is overseeing the space plane's development, said the orbital bomber would be flight-ready by 2020. It's unclear how much money the Kremlin is investing in the project, and how serious senior officers are about actually deploying the space plane, if and when Solodovnikov and his team finish it. In any event, the military space plane could give Russia a potentially history-altering nuclear first-strike capability. "The idea is that the bomber will take off from a normal home airfield to patrol Russian airspace," Solodovnikov said, according to Sputnik, a government-owned news site. "Upon command, it will ascend into outer space, strike a target with nuclear warheads and then return to its home base." Thanks to its orbital capability, the bomber would be able to nuke any target on Earth no longer than two hours after taking off, Solodovnikov claimed.

Comments

So this is Russia answer to the ,,

[quax]

... anti-missle systems.

Re:So this is Russia answer to the ,,

[pslytely psycho]

Not to mention that they need to invent the single stage to orbit spaceplane first....

Ehh ok Russia, fine. Whatever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure how this is better than an ICBM? Sounds more like they are just grasping for an actual use for spaceplanes.

This is better than an ICBM because...?

[Hognoxious]

This is better than an ICBM because...? I don't see the point.

Re:This is better than an ICBM because...?

[Gaerek]

If by better, you mean more effective, it's because we can detect ICBM launches which gives time to possibly intercept and destroy them. With this, they could drop a nuke from orbit and we would have very little time to react. Sure, we're going to be tracking this motherfucker and we'll know when it's overhead, but having to intercept during the re-entry phase only is much more difficult.

This is a scary piece of technology. Could potentially lead to space race 2.0. If russia has nukes in space, it's only a matter of time before we will too.

Re:I believe this violates the Outer Space Treaty

[macklin01]

I am not a legal expert but I believe their plan to produce a nuclear-armed spacecraft violates the Outer Space Treaty (to which Russia is a signatory) and specifically Article IV which says "States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner." (which sounds like exactly what Russia wants to do)

Then again, with the way the Russian economy is these days, I dont think they have the funds to actually build or launch this thing so it wont matter...

Sounds like it's planned to only ascend when needed, so nothing stationed in space. (And in any event, not in orbit until the point where treaties are moot.)

History-altering nuclear first-strike capability

[WoOS]

I really like articles which make large claims (here "a potentially history-altering nuclear first-strike capability") without spending the minimum of thought on them.
A first strike capability encompasses disabling the second strike capability of the opponent. I would be interested to learn how a rather large and slow plane would be able to find all the space-radars switched off so no one noticed the fleet of planes flying two hours through outer space, the early warning system not detecting re-entry of the warheads, and all the nuclear subs in the ports.
Very obviously the author of the article is privy to some information not about space planes but mind-altering capabilities of the Russians. I propose he gets a visits from the nice guys at CIA.

Physics ?

[feufeu]

>The idea is that the bomber will take off from a normal home airfield to patrol Russian airspace,...Upon command, it will ascend into outer space, strike a target with nuclear warheads and then return to its home base.

Yeah, right. Why didn't anybody else build a plane than has the capability of ascending into orbit as needed and come back then ? Perhaps because the enormous energy needed to go from aerodynamic flight speed to orbital velocity can't simply be carried along in a pod or something ?

Let's assume that Mr. Solodovnikov's outline of the modus operandi isn't exact but that what is planned is rather along the lines of Airplane takeoff (vs. ICBM rocket which is much more detectable) and going to orbit and drop a heat shielded nuke from there. (No need to land back, it's nuclear war all over anyway by then.) Even this would be so expensive that it will once again stretch Russia's financial capabilities beyond what's possible.

Re:Because the shortest distance between 2 points

[DamnOregonian]

One does not fire something straight down with 15,000mph of orbital velocity. there's no RV in existence that would survive such a maneuver. You have to hit the 15,000mph winds head on, which means *not* straight down. No matter what, your only way back in is ballistic. The only advantage this really has, is that you may potentially be able to get it into orbit without getting caught, which takes away the biggest early-warning to a hostile party that you're about to nuke them- the launch. With no early warning, a THAAD/Aegis, any terminal interceptor will likely not have enough warning to respond. The space bomber is the easy answer to terminal-stage interception. It carries the drawback of being very easy to shoot down, but likely not before it has de-orbited its payload. So, easy to take out in a first strike (making it a useless second-strike weapon), but also pretty much impossible to stop a first trike from the vehicle. This is an unwise escalation in nuclear armament. I thought we had treaties preventing this nonsense. It's a space Red October.

Re:Because the shortest distance between 2 points

[sg_oneill]

Yep. In fact both the US and Russia are signatories to the Outer Space treaty which pretty much forbids sending wmds into space.

Of course its nukes we're talking about. Once you pull *that* trigger, upsetting some lawyers in Geneva is about the last thing your worried about.

yah think the US doesn't have this sorted yet??

[laurencetux]

do you really think that the launch facility for the x37 does not have in a LockUp the needed bits to go nuclear??

all it would take is a swap of payload and maybe a swap of a server "blade" (to hook to the Football)

trust me lawyers have nothing on Military folks on evading the truth