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Does India's Anti-Satellite Missile Test Mean The Weaponization of Space? (reuters.com)
Reuters reports:
India expects space debris from its anti-satellite weapons launch to burn out in less than 45 days, its top defense scientist said on Thursday, seeking to allay global concern about fragments hitting objects. The comments came a day after India said it used an indigenously developed ballistic missile interceptor to destroy one of its own satellites at a height of 300 km (186 miles), in a test aimed at boosting its defenses in space.
Critics say such technology, known to be possessed only by the United States, Russia and China, raises the prospect of an arms race in outer space, besides posing a hazard by creating a cloud of fragments that could persist for years. G. Satheesh Reddy, the chief of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation, said a low-altitude military satellite was picked for the test, to reduce the risk of debris left in space.
Space.com shared a reaction from a national security affairs professor at Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. They argued that India's test "likely represents a feeling by other countries, specifically India in this case, that the weaponization of space is forthcoming, and India doesn't want to be left out of the 'have' category if arms-control agreements are eventually reached."
Critics say such technology, known to be possessed only by the United States, Russia and China, raises the prospect of an arms race in outer space, besides posing a hazard by creating a cloud of fragments that could persist for years. G. Satheesh Reddy, the chief of India's Defence Research and Development Organisation, said a low-altitude military satellite was picked for the test, to reduce the risk of debris left in space.
Space.com shared a reaction from a national security affairs professor at Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. They argued that India's test "likely represents a feeling by other countries, specifically India in this case, that the weaponization of space is forthcoming, and India doesn't want to be left out of the 'have' category if arms-control agreements are eventually reached."
India is a typical failed nation.
New Delhi wastes money on military satellites and nuclear weapons when most Indians live in poverty. By contrast, when Poland was an impoverished nation, Warsaw deliberately refused to spend money on military satellites and nuclear weapons; the Polish government spent most of its resources on economic development.
Today, India remains economically poor, but Poland is relatively wealthy.
Among the Russian elites, supporters of Vladimir Putin use India to justify rejecting democracy. They point to the poverty and poor governance in India. They recommend autocratic China as a model for Russian development.
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Because india tends to claim a lot of things, only to turn out not to be true.
And in all honesty, india has other priorities, like poverty, and substandard hygene. But no , lets pretend to be a high tech country while most of us walk through shit literraly.
Does India's Anti-Satellite Missile Test Mean The Weaponization of Space
I thought it meant the dawn of a new era of peace, love, reason and understanding. No?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
"Is this the weaponization of space?"
"Space" has been weaponized since at least 1966, when Robert Heinlein wrote The Moon is a Harsh Mistress... Remember dropping grain carriers loaded with tons of rocks?
Just as geosynchronous satellites became a foregone conclusion once Clarke postulated about the math for them in 1945.
Duh
It means that the Muppets will never get Pigs in Space.
He went on to add that he always shits near the edge of the street so that it will get into the drain more quickly.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What other objective can you see there?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
US and Russia held back for decades due to treaties. But when china really got into space & was not bound by the treaty, well, all 3 almost certainly have weapons up there.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The general election in India is scheduled to start in a couple of weeks, and they recently had yet another big row with Pakistan. Just saying.
For the sufficiently clueless, even trivial applications of common sense are indistinguishable from wisdom
Other powerful countries did the same test earlier. Indian test reported produced lesser splinters in space compared to others.
India did it now only to avoid future ban in developing such technologies, it was a purely calculated move. They got into serious trouble procuring nuclear material earlier because of such limitations by elite members, mainly China was not ready to accept India.
India MEA argued in favour of creating substantive legal measures to prevent weapons race in the outer space. India supported UNGA resolution 69/32 which is intended to prevent placement of weapons in the outer space. Significantly the A-SAT test comes ahead of the annual meeting of the Legal Subcommittee of the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) during 1-12 April which will be held in Vienna under the auspices of the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). India has been participating in all meetings of the UNCOPUOS.
peace love and understanding with a flower in your hair and yummy-yummy-yummy-you-got-love-in-your-tummy?
There are too many security launches with classified payloads to pretend that the USA and Russia have not been launching at least anti-satellite weapons systems. Too many peaceful but energetic projects are also potentially weapons to be unwilling to acknowledge their danger. Solar mirrors can be aimed at space targets or ground targets, as can the "flying crowbar" project known as Project Pluto. The LEO cleanup tools, still on the drawing board, could take down accidental or obsolete debris in low Earth orbit. They could also destroy satellites.
If I was a 3rd world shithole then I would launch a million rockets in to orbit then blow them up. Nobody can have nice things because I'm a 3rd world shithole.
Weaponization of space has been a reality since Sputnik.
Weapons were the whole POINT of the exercise by both sides though the 70's, regardless of the propaganda saying otherwise.
The treaties that keep weapons from being based in space is very clearly only limiting WMD type weapons (nuclear bombs, chemical weapons etc) but they do not address conventional weapons, anti-satellite weapons or much else for that matter.
So India's actions are not evidence of anything new, just the continued realization that national defense *requires* a significant focus on controlling space in some way. Denying your adversaries the high ground, as we used to call it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You blame the U.S. but the fact is that the Chinese are the ones who were very blatant about leaving debris in orbit. The Americans and Russians were responsible enough to not trash the lowest orbits. The Chinese on the other hand, wanted every space faring nation to see the threat.
They will explode on the launchpad.
Corporatism != Free Market
The weaponization of space if when there are weapons placed in space. The anti-satellite weapon was Earth-based. Currently, space is only used for intelligence gathering and so this is a means to potentially knock out another's ability to see what you are doing.
This sort of missile is already bad enough since destroying several satellites could create a huge amount of debris in orbit. However, putting weapons in space - which is usually what we mean by the weaponization of space - is a lot more troubling because, as the old saying goes, what goes up must come down. So even if they are never used they could pose a real hazard and if they are ever used then the amount of lethal debris in orbit they would create might severely limit our future access to space.
Don't worry, citizens- the new Space Force (powered by Clean Coal®) will save the day and enforce our Space Borders!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Russian, China, and US have the capability and this question wasnâ(TM)t raised. India joins the party and, suddenly, itâ(TM)s the âoeweaponizationâ of space? Wtf?
On 27th March 2019, India test fired its indigenously developed anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles successfully by destroying a low orbiting satellite, thus entering an elite group of countries who possess the ability to destroy satellites that are deployed in space. While in India, most of the immediate reaction had a distinct political tone and revolved around the timing of the tests: Why did the government choose to test the ASAT missile now, with elections right around the corner? Was it merely fireworks to kickstart the election season? Why was it important for the Prime Minister of India to address the nation?
The answers to the questions lie outside India, in events that were unfolding over the past weekend in Geneva, Switzerland. Beginning on 18th March, a week long closed door meeting was hosted by the United Nations between diplomats and experts from 25 nations, aimed at bringing into force an international space non-proliferation law that given the sensitive nature of space, would potentially outlaw countries from building their own anti-satellite technology, much along the lines of the nuclear non-proliferation treaties (NPT) that was signed first in 1968. This law would essentially mean that India could not test its ASAT missiles on its own, and instead would have to go through a process similar to Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which exists for acquiring nuclear technology. Only the United States of America, Russia, China and perhaps few other countries would be allowed to possess these missiles and the transfer the technology to other countries would involve complex international laws intended to prevent proliferation of the technology.
During the meeting held in Geneva, the Space's Big 3 - USA, Russia and China - countries which already possess ASAT technology were at logger heads with the European Union over the usage of this new age technology, with much of the debates ranging around the space debris left behind after the destruction of satellites, and how the debris would interfere with other objects in space. The European Union representatives had maintained that the tests conducted by the Space's Big 3 already resulted in significant debris, and none of the Big 3 showed interest in resolving the space debris problem. Instead they were merely interested in testing their missiles further.
The United States under the Trump administration has made no secret of its ambition to develop advanced space weapons. Apart from possessing ASAT missiles, the Pentagon is reportedly studying particle beam and laser gun based space weapons. Trump has publicly declared space to be a "war-fighting domain" and has called for creating a military branch devoted to space. Beijing for its part has blamed USA for fostering a space race and create a competition to develop advanced weapons, while maintaining that China does not considering space as a frontier for war.
It is in this context that India's successful ASAT test, which was timed to perfection and right on the last day of the UN hosted meeting in Geneva, assumes much greater importance than what is being assigned to it. By deploying ASAT missiles, India announced its arrival in the space race with a bang right at the time when the existing powers were looking to close the door. From not being in the picture at all, with one swift move India became part of the select few nations who possessed this technology. The Big - 4, as it stands now.
By acquiring indigenously developed technology before the space NPT treaty comes into effect, India has established itself as a key player in the space arms race. Any space NPT treaty cannot be signed without making India a key party to the discussion. This marks a strategic shift in India's role in space technology, unlike the Nuclear NPT treaty where India was excluded from the elite nuclear group after 1974, and was denied access to nuclear technology by the western world in an effort to coerce India to sign the nuclear NPT treaty. Even today, as a non signatory to the nuclear NPT, India has to negotiat
No, that happened when the US refused to sign up to the “Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects” ref
There was also the massive Polyus Orbital Weapons Platform that the Soviet Union actually launched in 1987. This would have been a major step to space weaponization as an armed orbital platform designed to attack other orbital stuff, unlike Reagan's SDI which was proposed (but never launched) as a system to shoot down non-orbital ICBMS.
The only reason Polyus never became operational is that it failed to achieve orbit, and then the Soviet Union collapsed before another could be attempted.
Countries will weaponize everything they can — and use it against an adversary, whenever suitable. Those who wouldn't, have lost the evolution race countless generations ago.
Did you know, that a crossbow was once believed to be so horrible a weapon, a movement was afoot to ban its use in Europe against fellow Christians?
Like, yeah, I'm gonna just let him kill me, but will not shoot him with this loaded weapon I have here, because he is a Christian like myself?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Killing satellites is actually pretty easy. It is a broad side of the barn type accuracy needed.
Pretty much if you can get a rocket to orbital velocity and make it go kaboom, you are 90 percent of the way there.
No, it isn't; The fact that only 4 countries in the world can do it, should tell you how difficult it is. You obviously are not an expert in various forms of rocketry and satellite technology.
The utter stupidity of humans amazes me though.
Agreed - a lot of posts on this site are testament to that: Like your reply.
The US and the old Soviet Union understood and worked within the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction.
You make it sound as if cold war was just high school girls playing clapping games. I think you don't understand what the concept of mutually assured destruction means. It's not lack of capability; Rather it's deterrence on using it. Both US and USSR didn't drop H-bombs on each other, because the outcome was guaranteed to be apocalyptic. Not because of any mutual higher order empathy which only a select few nations are capable of. Case in point - the US did drop two nuclear bombs on the Japanese, when they needed to; It's no more humane than any other country is.
As long as countries accrue advantages in terms of weapon systems, there will always be an arms race. Other countries will always try to catch up or outdo it's rivals. Just like India did. And i believe other countries will too in the near future. I hope it's not some country like North Korea, but there's no reason to believe they can't.
China understands this now.
China is no more responsible than any other country in the world. In fact, it's probably the most enabled totalitarian state which ever existed, simply because it's technologically enabled as such. As far as democracy, liberalism and human rights are concerned, the Chinese state is an enormous challenge - probably the first illiberal totalitarian entity which actually works in some ways without imploding!
Sending up Satellite killers is neither difficult nor smart.
Again, this is dumb.
Our first war in space will be our last one for a long, long time. And it will destroy a lot of things that are very beneficial to everyone, as well as destroy things that are beneficial to the country that thinks it is smart to put a lot of high velocity space debris in orbit.
On this, i do agree one hundred percent - but :-
a. The only solution that i can see are de-nuclearization of the world and globalization. When you don't care about people living behind random lines, you don't care about sending a warhead that way; And neither do they.
b. I'm not hopeful though; What i see is collapse of the liberal global order and a geopolitical pivot back to nativist conservative theocratic/autocratic governance models. Problems like Climate change and De-armament, which require global consensus, will remain unsolved and lead to species extinction. We already see Trump clones in every country (now Brazil, India, Czech republic) and the vox-populi very anti-immigrant : in short dumb and condemned to repeat the horrific history of the second world war.
I don't know if our grandchildren are going to drown in the atlantic ocean; Or will their bones melt in nuclear fire? I don't know. All i know is, it will be hell.
All because, a few rednecks hate dark skin. What a pity the story of this species is.
It would mean the end of space weaponization because why spend millions to send something into orbit only to have it shot down by a missile. STUPID.
Yea, we all saw that one coming...
So you're admitting you just made shit up in your other post are you?
Our words are backed with... anti-satellite missiles!
Nah, doesn't have the same ring to it.