Right-wingers think Obama seeks ban on Space Shuttle.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Don't bring up red herrings if you don't want them to be summarily ignored. That's a pretty simple thing to manage. An internet tough guy description of vandalism-porn to show how you can think up creative ways to turn everyday objects into weapons isn't really relevant to the discussion.

So apparently astronauts trained to sabotage satellites isn't relevant to the discussion?

[General Zod]

Don't bring up red herrings if you don't want them to be summarily ignored. That's a pretty simple thing to manage. An internet tough guy description of vandalism-porn to show how you can think up creative ways to turn everyday objects into weapons isn't really relevant to the discussion.

So apparently astronauts trained to sabotage satellites isn't relevant to the discussion?

Aside from the fact that training someone to sabotage a satellite using things like wrenches or a rifle is such an infinitesimally small threat as to be nonexistent? Even if it were legitimate, what nation would risk it who wasn't out to start an all out war? I can't imagine it would be difficult to track down the offending country given how expensive the endeavor would be, and how few optimal launch points there are with fuel constraints in mind.

[Patrick Degan]

Degan, with a hammer and no keys, I can hole all four tires of a car, open the trunk and steal/destroy the contents, break all the windows and gain access to the interior, open the hood and rip out all the hoses and electrics, smash the stereo, do superficial but wide-ranging damage to the body panels, and rip off pieces and then drop them into the engine, rendering it nonfunctional without a complete rebuild.

That's nice. It's also a red herring and a very obvious one. Even you should be able to distinguish between a device specifically crafted to inflict physical damage upon an object and something which is improvised out of anything you care to name and, in the example you give, with some considerable degree of individual effort.

Wait, I'm sorry, you can't improvise a hammer? Really? That's the best you can come up with? Have you told the apes?

Is this bullshit pretending to be a legitimate argument you're spewing the best you can come up with?

Now, what part of the analogy fails? It's not the hammer, which is a common hand tool. I could use a wrench as easily, if you prefer. It's not the object to be destroyed; a car is LUDICROUSLY more heavily built than a satellite (which, in 1g, must be handled with special cradles so that its own weight does not destroy it). It's not the premise; even with warning, it would take any nation on earth hours to respond to such an attack. And it's not my own presence - men have walked in space, and both the American and Russian space programs have matched orbits and spacewalked with other objects.

Would you like to explain why the idea of a dude with a wrench, whacking the shit out of a satellite, is outside the realm of possibility?

For a start, it's horribly impractical to send up a capsule just to deliver a spacesuited man next to a satellite (just in terms of justifying the fuel expenditure) to "whack the shit out of it" with a wrench —a task which is a lot more difficult in zero-g than a lot of people suspect. So sure, it's not "outside the realm of possibility". The same thing can be said about planning my future financial security upon winning the Powerball each time I buy a ticket. In other words, impractical to the point of meaninglessness.

I'm sure the folks who spend weeks rehearsing activity in NASA's neutral buoyancy tank would love to hear that satellites are durable little critters that can be manhandled and roughhoused with like a large dog. I think they've been operating under a different assumption.

As to fuel cost, it'd take about 150 tons of fuel to put a man up there to rendezvous with whatever LEO satellite you choose, using technology that the Soviet Union could reliably build in the late 1950s. The unit cost of a SM-3 is on the order of ten million dollars, never mind the cost of the cruiser to put it in launch position or the radar aboard used to guide it. That'd pay for your fuel on the order of $100-200/gallon, by the way.

The present cost of an EVA figures out to around $70,000 per man/hour, and the average cost of a space launch figures out to around $500 million per flight.

In short, you are a moron.

Please explain to me why one is practical and the other is not. I've worked in the space launch vehicle industry, but I'm apparently not as knowledgeable as you.

Suuuuure you have, kiddo. Your evident credentials simply take my breath away —or would if you weren't here spewing nonsense about undertaking a very expensive procedure in terms of vehicle preparation, fuel load cost, preparation time and expense, mission training and preparation for EVA, just to do a bit of vandalism with a wrench.

In short, you are a moron and I don't believe your occupational claims any further than I could pick up and throw a car.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Aside from the fact that training someone to sabotage a satellite using things like wrenches or a rifle is such an infinitesimally small threat as to be nonexistent? Even if it were legitimate, what nation would risk it who wasn't out to start an all out war? I can't imagine it would be difficult to track down the offending country given how expensive the endeavor would be, and how few optimal launch points there are with fuel constraints in mind.

Nonexistent? At the height of the Cold War, the Soviets and Americans planned to launch numerous weaponized satellites. Even the Mir was supposed to be part of the Soviet space defence initiative. There were even plans on both sides to launch space planes into space with clear military proposes. I would say, that the threat in the future isn't nonexistent, particularly when China is gunning for space and probably has plans to emulate what the Soviets did some 10-20 years away. Any fool knows the over-reliance of the American military on GPS satellites and any nation who has plans to defend itself against American attack would have plans to target those satellites. Shuttling up some astronauts and sending them out to destroy one satellite after another is one of many ways to destroy a satellite constellation. More so when ASATs work only when you build massive and very expensive and very destroyable X-band radars.

[Guardsman Bass]

He's pointing out that the proposed ban is unnecessarily broad, because almost anything that can be attached to a some of propulsion (ranging from rockets to a wrench thrown by an astronaut) can become a "space weapon", taking out a satellite simply from the kinetic energy. There's no clear boundary. You've taken to criticizing the ludicrousness of launching a wrench out of a spacecraft, which is entirely irrelevant - it was simply an example pointing out the above concern.

As for qualifications, erik_t 's former title here was Howedar, if I recall correctly (he left for a long period), and he actually works (or worked) as an engineer in the production of the Space Shuttle's booster rockets.

[Patrick Degan]

Aside from the fact that training someone to sabotage a satellite using things like wrenches or a rifle is such an infinitesimally small threat as to be nonexistent? Even if it were legitimate, what nation would risk it who wasn't out to start an all out war? I can't imagine it would be difficult to track down the offending country given how expensive the endeavor would be, and how few optimal launch points there are with fuel constraints in mind.

Nonexistent? At the height of the Cold War, the Soviets and Americans planned to launch numerous weaponized satellites. Even the Mir was supposed to be part of the Soviet space defence initiative. There were even plans on both sides to launch space planes into space with clear military proposes. I would say, that the threat in the future isn't nonexistent, particularly when China is gunning for space and probably has plans to emulate what the Soviets did some 10-20 years away. Any fool knows the over-reliance of the American military on GPS satellites and any nation who has plans to defend itself against American attack would have plans to target those satellites. Shuttling up some astronauts and sending them out to destroy one satellite after another is one of many ways to destroy a satellite constellation.

No, it is not, for reasons which should be all too obvious. Setting aside the expense and logistical effort required to get a manned spaceflight off the ground in the first place, astronauts going out for an EVA of any sort require at least 40 minutes preparation time to get into their spacesuits, then spend another four hours prebreathing as their suit pressures and life support gas mixtures are steadily adjusted. Physical stresses involved in performing even simple tasks, along with limitations upon movement simply to keep from spinning yourself out of control, and the heat and radiation hazards, limits the amount of time an astronaut can spend outside. He then must spend hours in decompression after the EVA in order to avoid the bends, not unlike having to readjust after a deep sea dive. For all this, you maybe will be able to sabotage one satellite in one mission-day. The next one will be in its own orbit hundreds of kilometres from your present position (and any vehicle more than 150km in altitude is one which your LEO space capsule will never reach). Computing that rate of advance, the crew will be lucky if they can actually put more than two satellites out of action before return Earthside is compelled by the endurance limitation of the spacecraft and crew.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Or you can do the fucking practical thing and stick an low recoil cannon on the maniupulator arm.

[K. A. Pital]

Having astronauts attack satellites directly from EVA is ridiculous (and it's only slightly more feasible with handheld blasters). Of course most nations envisioned space combat as it should be - with space-to-space missiles and large-caliber autocannons, as well as large lasers, killing everything within range, which could possibly be measured in dozens of kms for missiles and hundreds - in case of the laser.

Of course, all this infrastructure is very expensive. EVA cosmonauts weren't seriously considered being a "space weapon", because it's more practical and a thousand times more rational to fit their vehicles (space stations, space ships) with dedicated weapons. Wrench-throwing is a ridiculous hype of course: to be effective, a space weapon should be controllable and not connected to EVA cosmonauts.

[Shroom Man 777]

It WOULD be awesome to see war in the Space Age degenerate into spacemen throwing sticks and stones at each other in the final frontier. Maybe their radio chatter could also be filled with ape-men noises.

If nations agree to not stick weapons into space, then won't they mostly adhere to it if they can confirm that the other side is keeping their word? Building big honking space guns, or trying to make a mineshaft gap, is pretty costly and I think both the Russkeies and the ChiComs would rather spend their monies on cheap electronics to sell to everyone else for more monies.

[K. A. Pital]

If nations agree to not stick weapons into space, then won't they mostly adhere to it if they can confirm that the other side is keeping their word?

Well yeah, but the gist is, when someone is conducting independent launches, and so many carrier missiles available to China, Russia and the US to lift their shit up there's no effective way of "checking" on the other person.

[JointStrikeFighter]

No comrade is not military grade autocannon, is reaction control system.

[Pablo Sanchez]

He's pointing out that the proposed ban is unnecessarily broad, because almost anything that can be attached to a some of propulsion (ranging from rockets to a wrench thrown by an astronaut) can become a "space weapon", taking out a satellite simply from the kinetic energy.

As I said some time ago, and which no one actually bothered to address, this proposal by Obama doesn't even exist as a draft yet. At this point it's nothing more than floating a general idea of avoiding the weaponization of space. Retorting "in space everything is a weapon, so obviously the ban is useless/Obama is stupid" isn't a useful argument, because even if a primitive ad hoc satellite killer could be strapped to a space capsule, it's going to be dramatically less efficient than the kind of dedicated ASAT weapons that the final treaty resulting from this initiative is likely to target. Obama is probably thinking about the possibility of a future war in which ASAT weapons are used by both sides and sweep the skies of satellites, civilian as well as military, causing immense damage to the world communications infrastructure which would take years and billions of dollars to repair.

[General Zod]

Nonexistent? At the height of the Cold War, the Soviets and Americans planned to launch numerous weaponized satellites. Even the Mir was supposed to be part of the Soviet space defence initiative. There were even plans on both sides to launch space planes into space with clear military proposes. I would say, that the threat in the future isn't nonexistent, particularly when China is gunning for space and probably has plans to emulate what the Soviets did some 10-20 years away. Any fool knows the over-reliance of the American military on GPS satellites and any nation who has plans to defend itself against American attack would have plans to target those satellites. Shuttling up some astronauts and sending them out to destroy one satellite after another is one of many ways to destroy a satellite constellation. More so when ASATs work only when you build massive and very expensive and very destroyable X-band radars.

You're completely missing my point. If you're going to send up people to destroy satellites you're going to use dedicated tools or specialized weapons just for that job. Not wrenches or juried rifles.

[Vehrec]

This argument that the Space Shuttle and other artificial satellites are space weapons is about as ridiculous as the argument that people in Gaza shouldn't have cars because they can make them into car bombs. Or maybe that women shouldn't have ovaries because fertilized eggs can turn into mass murderers.

[The Original Nex]

Are people seriously trying to argue that the proposed treaty -- which isn't even in a DRAFT form yet -- wouldn't define "space weapon" in a manner than allows everything currently in space and more?

It's not like these treaties say "no space weapons" and that's that. Enough fear mongering "ooo Obama's gonna bring down our satellites and ground our space shuttles!!!!"

[erik_t]

Wait, I'm sorry, you can't improvise a hammer? Really? That's the best you can come up with? Have you told the apes?

Is this bullshit pretending to be a legitimate argument you're spewing the best you can come up with?

Since all you can do is declare my argument to be "bullshit" by fiat, I'll go ahead and accept that you have no reason not to consider this a legitimate threat.

I'm sure the folks who spend weeks rehearsing activity in NASA's neutral buoyancy tank would love to hear that satellites are durable little critters that can be manhandled and roughhoused with like a large dog. I think they've been operating under a different assumption.

As to fuel cost, it'd take about 150 tons of fuel to put a man up there to rendezvous with whatever LEO satellite you choose, using technology that the Soviet Union could reliably build in the late 1950s. The unit cost of a SM-3 is on the order of ten million dollars, never mind the cost of the cruiser to put it in launch position or the radar aboard used to guide it. That'd pay for your fuel on the order of $100-200/gallon, by the way.

The present cost of an EVA figures out to around $70,000 per man/hour, and the average cost of a space launch figures out to around $500 million per flight.

In short, you are a moron.

Dunno why you think an average is representative, since that'd include lots of GEO launches, heavy lift, etc. Particularly when you could just do some research and discover that you can go buy yourself a 11A57 Voskhod, and launch it, for the princely sum of $18 million (1994 dollars). You may need to provide the pilot with some dog food.

Now, Degan, explain why a ~$10million missile is a reasonable threat, while a ~$20million space launch is "bullshit pretending to be a legitimate argument".


I do like how you're using figures from the, uh, "white elephant space shuttle" to be representative of manned lift as a whole.

Please explain to me why one is practical and the other is not. I've worked in the space launch vehicle industry, but I'm apparently not as knowledgeable as you.

Suuuuure you have, kiddo. Your evident credentials simply take my breath away —or would if you weren't here spewing nonsense about undertaking a very expensive procedure in terms of vehicle preparation, fuel load cost, preparation time and expense, mission training and preparation for EVA, just to do a bit of vandalism with a wrench.

In short, you are a moron and I don't believe your occupational claims any further than I could pick up and throw a car.

Well we've all known for a while that you live in your own little world, Degan. Hell, we've had a member go ahead and vouch for my qualifications before I even made it back to reply. But by all means, take a bold stand against reality, see how that goes for you.

[General Zod]

Since all you can do is declare my argument to be "bullshit" by fiat, I'll go ahead and accept that you have no reason not to consider this a legitimate threat.

What kind of nutjob would spend millions of dollars just to send someone in space to vandalize a few satellites at best with a wrench instead of building a weapon dedicated to the task to destroy as many as possible if they were really out to cripple our communications infrastructure? The idea that this is any kind of serious threat is ludicrous.

[Patrick Degan]

Now, Degan, explain why a ~$10million missile is a reasonable threat, while a ~$20million space launch is "bullshit pretending to be a legitimate argument".

Asked and answered, bullshitter —not only by myself but by several other posters in this thread.

Well we've all known for a while that you live in your own little world, Degan. Hell, we've had a member go ahead and vouch for my qualifications before I even made it back to reply. But by all means, take a bold stand against reality, see how that goes for you.

Sayeth the alleged "rocket engineer" who's twittering on about sending up spacesuited men to perform a little vandalism on satellites —a job best taken care of with an ASAT barrage— and uses as support for that "argument" blather about car vandalism. Talk about living in one's own little world...

[Kanastrous]

astronauts going out for an EVA of any sort require at least 40 minutes preparation time to get into their spacesuits, then spend another four hours prebreathing as their suit pressures and life support gas mixtures are steadily adjusted.

This sounds like what I've read regarding the US EVA equipment and practices, but don't Russian suits and procedures allow more rapid egress/ingress with less prep time?

[erik_t]

Now, Degan, explain why a ~$10million missile is a reasonable threat, while a ~$20million space launch is "bullshit pretending to be a legitimate argument".

Asked and answered, bullshitter —not only by myself but by several other posters in this thread.

Then it must be very easy to just cut and paste, yeah? I must have missed it. Please point me to the relevant post, or copy and paste it.

Well we've all known for a while that you live in your own little world, Degan. Hell, we've had a member go ahead and vouch for my qualifications before I even made it back to reply. But by all means, take a bold stand against reality, see how that goes for you.

Sayeth the alleged "rocket engineer" who's twittering on about sending up spacesuited men to perform a little vandalism on satellites —a job best taken care of with an ASAT barrage— and uses as support for that "argument" blather about car vandalism. Talk about living in one's own little world...

Red herring. Of course a purpose-designed weapon would be superior. The point is that the ban of purpose-designed weapons does not negate the threat of having satellites destroyed. Did you forget how we got on this subject?

I'll thank you to either come out and challenge my qualifications in an honest and forthright manner or quit sniping.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Moderator, isn't this a misleading thread title?

[General Zod]

Red herring. Of course a purpose-designed weapon would be superior. The point is that the ban of purpose-designed weapons does not negate the threat of having satellites destroyed. Did you forget how we got on this subject?

We got on it because some people seem incapable of distinguishing the concept of "possible but so remote as to be negligible threat" from "credible threat"

[D.Turtle]

There is so much bullshit in this thread it really is sad.

This is all that is known about President Obama's proposal:

Ensure Freedom of Space: The Obama-Biden Administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. They will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.

Thats it. Theres nothing more.

How about waiting until just a bit more is known before building up a huge fucking strawman to tear down?

[Thirdfain]

Hold on a second- isn't the question here whether or not a ban on space warfare would be effective? It looks like erik_T is saying no, on account of the possibility of the usage of jury-rigged sabotage. Everyone is then responding by saying that no, it wouldn't be effective because people would just use normal anti-satellite weapons. So, isn't there essentially agreement on the matter? A worldwide ban on space warfare would be ineffective, on account of the fact that people *could* conceivably use jury-rigged methods of ASAT warfare; and would be even more likely to just ignore the ban completely and use purpose built anti-space weaponry.

Or am I missing the point in some way?

[erik_t]

Red herring. Of course a purpose-designed weapon would be superior. The point is that the ban of purpose-designed weapons does not negate the threat of having satellites destroyed. Did you forget how we got on this subject?

We got on it because some people seem incapable of distinguishing the concept of "possible but so remote as to be negligible threat" from "credible threat"

And again, you declare it not to be credible because... you say so. Difference in cost is about a factor of two, although even this is misleading because you need a ship to carry SM-3 to your desired launch point (it's only got a range in the 100-200mi sort of scale), while you can nail folks with your vintage Soviet olive-drab hardware from anywhere in the world.






Thirdfain, I think you've got it exactly right.