Orbital defense platforms

[mr friendly guy]

In Babylon 5 we see that Earth has orbital defense platforms able to churn out missiles against Sheriden's fleet and in turn was used by Clarke against Earth in a failed scorch earth policy. I want to know is it viable with today's technology to do something similar and put missiles on satellites and gain space superiority. A quick glance at the numbers (ie mass) would suggest that a missile itself doesn't appear to be that heavy compared to some of the satellites we have sent up. However I am not sure about the number of missiles you can put on there, especially in light of anti satellite weapons available.

So assuming there is no treaty preventing the weaponisation of space, in this alternative universe is it possible to put satellites into space with missiles like an orbital defense platform for the purpose of gaining air / space superiority? My gut feeling is that even if its possible, it can't have the same utility as having a submarine which can move in an unpredictable path, rendering it harder to neutralise.

[Stark]

What are you defending against? What's the target?

[mr friendly guy]

Well given that its with modern technology, the idea is to use an extra level of nuclear deterrent against other nations. Instead of launching from land or sea, you launch from space.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Submarines (or surface-based weaponry in general) and satellite weapons come at the same problem from different directions. A technologically-competitive missile submarine is very difficult to track and destroy, and carries a substantial amount of firepower effective at quite long distances. This is a useful feature in a nuclear standoff, since it significantly lowers the likelihood of an enemy knocking out your nuclear capability in a sneak attack. As a result, you can afford not to continually edge your finger towards the big red button, for if the other guy launches, your subs can avenge you.

The problem lies with the missiles themselves, since they have to be able to get a payload up to very high altitudes at very high speeds, which is why ballistic missiles tend to be so big. Satellite weapons have it slightly worse, in that one must be able to move them right up into orbit (preferably in one package). On the other hand, once they're up there the weapons themselves don't need to be anything like as complex or expensive. In theory, all you need is a warhead or Kinetic Kill Vehicle (KKV) with some manoeuvering thrusters. A further advantage is that getting rid of said satellites is rather tricky, requiring a specialised ASAT capability and some means of telling satellites apart. The alternative is to fire a nuke up there and hope the owners of the other destroyed satellites (and whoever gets caught in the EMP field) are in a forgiving mood.

Whether or not satellites are an escalatory or de-escalatory weapon depends precisely on whether or not the intended target can shoot them down. If the target country already has an ASAT capability, then first strike becomes a necessity, making them escalatory. If a country has neither ASAT nor nuclear capability, then there's nothing they can do but acquire one or both, which in way also makes them escalatory.

[Stark]

Well given that its with modern technology, the idea is to use an extra level of nuclear deterrent against other nations. Instead of launching from land or sea, you launch from space.

Oh, you want to grip the world in a fist of terror and make heaps of money for military contractors! You may have to invent someone to deter to get funding, but don't worry, we're working on building up a list. Don't forget to act surprised when so many more people hate you and become willing to die to hurt you afterward, of course. Must keep up appearances.

If you feel that the world isn't enough under your heel, I'd suggest also making the system largely automatic to ensure no negotiation is possible. That way you're guaranteed to kill millions, which will make the expenditure look quite worthwhile afterward.

The idea of terming such devices 'planetary defence platforms' is charmingly backwards. Perhaps 'us defence platforms' is a better name, or perhaps the implication that 'we' own the entire planet is deliberate. I can assure you you'll never get funding for the 'kill everyone platform' from the current administration.

[mr friendly guy]

Well actually I think such an idea seems not workable, but since I am no expert I thought to ask. I put it under the heading of orbital defense platform because the idea reminded me of the devices seen in B5, which in turn was turned against the population in the manner I am asking about. And yes I have seen this idea floated about as someone's idea of futuristic weapons.

[Sea Skimmer]

Nothings going to stop you from placing nukes in orbit except money, which would be a massive issue since the warheads would need servicing every few years, requiring either replacement or deorbiting and recovery. They'd also be incredibly destabilizing and incredibly vulnerable to an enemy first strike that could destroy them or simply render communication impossible which tends to counteract any advantage gained out of reduced reaction times.

[Sky Captain]

Theoretically deorbiting a warhead since it would require only small engine would be less detectable than ICBM launch that creates huge IR signature making a first strike more easy hovewer if enemy also have missile subs on patrol they could still retaliate even if most ground based missiles and bombers were succesfuly destroyed.

[Sea Skimmer]

A deorbit is much less accurate then an ICBM ballistic though, unless you turn the warhead into some kind of MARV, which will cost even more weight in orbit and more signature, its not going to be effective for more then city busting. This is a major reason why the US and USSR did not have a hard time agreeing to ban nuclear weapons in space. All they'd do is present this constant risk of a bolt from the blue city busting attack that had no military purpose. If all you want to do is bust cities then even the early inaccurate submarine launched ballistic missiles worked fine, for far less money,

The Soviets did field a FOBS weapon, with rather poor accuracy, for a time but only in small numbers and only then to exploit gaps in the US early warning system which were soon filled in. A deorbiting warhead will still be detected by radar, and you can bet if such weapons became common place in orbit much more spending would go into early warning radars, even if it meant placing them on ships around the globe.

Today we've moved past that, and the US is now orbiting the first satellite based satellite tracking system, using optics, ever. One satellite is up out of four planned.

[Blayne]

Couldn't part of the expense/time in servicing orbital nukes be somewhat alleviated if you had a large pre existing orbital presence in the first place? Astronauts already were military personnel for the most part right? If you were already maintaining a half dozen space stations then you already have people going up who could do the job.

[Simon_Jester]

Servicing takes some special facilities. You'd need either a really big on-orbit facility, or be routinely shuttling nukes up and down in spacecraft. The latter option poses accident risks too; shuttlecraft crash once in a while.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah the facility and personal needed to do all of that work would amount to placing a good sized factory in orbit. The Pantext plant that handles all such work in the US employees about 3,000 people, and while some of the guards won't be needed in space and some of the administrative staff could stay on the ground in the end you are still talking about a huge space station.

Also the handfuls of people actually approved to do the hands on warhead work may fucking hate being stuck with high paying jobs… in space... in which money is useless and demand regular long vacations and lots of replacements ect.... Its doubtful you've save a dime even after you went to all the trouble of placing such an elaborate and somewhat generally dangerous explosives (the conventional fusing and triggering system) handling facility in orbit. Since the warhead bus and all its maneuvering systems will also need servicing, and refueling at some set points since low orbits need serious fuel burn to sustain themselves, it makes little sense to try do it all in More likely every 5-10 years each system is taken back to earth and the whole thing is rebuilt.

Also since now all these nuclear weapons are exclusively controlled by radio, your going to have to invest in a very elaborate communication system which is regularly changed, since the first time you know the enemy compromise it could be your entire warhead constellation deorbiting onto friendly soil. Lilkely a combination of multiple EHF and laser satellite links with a million channels and antennas aimed in every directions. Otherwise your be very exposed to the enemy orbiting lots of high power jammers or attacking the control centers, which by nature will be dead easy to destroy, or filling space itself with vast amounts of radiation from high yield nukes burst in orbit.

At least for the US, right now the only way a nuclear weapon can be actually launched by radio, with no further human interference, is E-6B TACAMO aircraft can command ICBM silos to fire by UHF radio. But that setup only functions if the ground control system has already been destroyed or otherwise disrupted to that silo and each silo has multiple links to its control bunker and other ICBM control bunkers. Hard wired systems and humans in the loop are of very deadly serious utility.

Plus anyway, nukes in space can still be shot down by ABM systems, while they will cost more then the same weight of warhead thrown by ICBMs. Other then gaining an advantage in reaction time you aren't accomplishing much in terms of attacking ground targets. Nukes in orbit to defend a planet from space attack are of course a bit different.

[Sky Captain]

IIRC one of proposed applications for Project Orion were large manned spacecraft armed with hundreds of nukes sittling in high orbit where it would be safe from attack. If ordered to attack it would drop into lower orbit that intersects the target and release the warheads.
However missile submarines perform the same function at much lower cost.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah an Orion 'battleship' was proposed, I think it was supposed to have missiles as well as the ability to use the engine warheads as bombs. It made very little sense given how vulnerable it would be to enemy tricks like simply placing a co orbiting satellite with a 25 megaton warhead near it. Such concepts also predated any serious understanding of the numerous EMP and orbit is now fucking filled with gamma radiation problems setting off nukes in space would cause the earth.

[aussiemuscle308]

wouldn't launching a missile from a satellite cause the satellite to knocked out of orbit?

[Sea Skimmer]

Only if the missile rocket blast deflected off the satellite, and in a direction opposed the satellites orbital direction, such blast deflection could just as well push the satellite into a higher orbit. This is all easily overcome by gently pushing the missile away before it fires, or simply mounting it in such a manner that its blast fires clear of the satellite. As it is while some aircraft missiles fire 'off the rail' plenty of others are ejected or otherwise thrown off or dropped before firing. You'd do the same thing in space. Any orbital change created by this pushing would be slight.

The Soviets actually mounted a 23mm autocannon on one of the space stations they built and successfully fired it, they had big fears the vibration would damage the station, it didn't. Recoil was not a serious problem since the station had considerable mass, and could fire thrusters to make adjustments. If you started mounting heavy artillery in orbit it would become a bigger problem.

[LaCroix]

Getting back to the original meaning of "orbital defense platform" - at some point it will become quite handy to put a couple of those up in orbit, spread around the globe, but with weapons pointed outward.

It never hurts to have a couple of ICBMs up there already if you spot an earthbound city-buster asteroid coming out the sun. Launching them from ground would be very fuel expensive, and result in less terminal velocity - in such situations, time is essential.

[Sea Skimmer]

Weapons pointed outward doesn't mean much politically or militarily when you can rotate the platform on any axis you want.

As for asteroid defense systems, you seem to forget that 'cheaper' missile based in space already had to be launched from the ground. Yet it would be much cheaper and easier to maintain it on the ground ready to fire in say, a silo or just in a hanger near soft launch pad if we don't want it to have any military role. Reaction time isn't going to be a big deal, a few sites spread around the earth would have maybe 20 minute worse reaction time compared to a few orbiting satellites, and reaction time might actually be better against a target that is approaching from an axis which does not align with the satellite orbit. Say polar orbital approach vs equatorial.

[FedRebel]

In Babylon 5 we see that Earth has orbital defense platforms able to churn out missiles against Sheriden's fleet and in turn was used by Clarke against Earth in a failed scorch earth policy. I want to know is it viable with today's technology to do something similar and put missiles on satellites and gain space superiority.

They are possible, treaty prohibits their use though

A quick glance at the numbers (ie mass) would suggest that a missile itself doesn't appear to be that heavy compared to some of the satellites we have sent up. However I am not sure about the number of missiles you can put on there, especially in light of anti satellite weapons available.

Most orbital based strategic platform concepts involve staging them in High Earth Orbit, out of the range of ASAT systems. As far as the missiles utilized by the platform, most of their mass would be warhead, the thrust component would be minimal since gravity will be doing majority of the work

So assuming there is no treaty preventing the weaponisation of space, in this alternative universe is it possible to put satellites into space with missiles like an orbital defense platform for the purpose of gaining air / space superiority?

No Treaty ever? Or just a handwave (as in, history from 1950-present matches OTL, magically no more treaty as of 10/13/2012)

Assuming no space ban treaties ever in all histories, the US would have an orbital platform system in place by 1975 and concerns over fledgling Soviet systems (which would be far sparser, but still deadly) would lead towards the abolition of the Limited Test Ban treaty (if one exists in this AU) so the US can start building Orion Battleships (something that the USSR would not be capable of for resource, infrastructural, and economic reasons)

My gut feeling is that even if its possible, it can't have the same utility as having a submarine which can move in an unpredictable path, rendering it harder to neutralise.

An HEO based deterrent platform works on the same concept as an airborne alert B-52, an SSBN is the incorrect platform to compare, the purpose of the deterrent platform is to have a VISIBLE unpremptable (hence staging at HEO) means of delivering a retaliatory strike if the opposition were to contemplate starting a war.

The big kicker with an Orbital Deterrent Platform is HEO placement, anything in LEO can be interdicted by ASAT systems, in order to get to HEO economically with conventional rockets you need something like Saturn V, which during the Cold War the US had, while the USSR had immense difficulty in that area.

In the modern era no one has a heavy lift capability, Saturn V was discontinued after the moon got boring and nobody could come up with 180 ton payloads that justified launch expense. The US could get Aries V in 15-20 years if motivated, the PRC has the cash but don't have the infrastructure, Russia has the infrastructure to match the US Aries V timescale but lack the cash (luckily Russia and China aren't really hot for eachother, and neither want the other to have an upgraded strategic capability.)

[Simon_Jester]

Most orbital based strategic platform concepts involve staging them in High Earth Orbit, out of the range of ASAT systems. As far as the missiles utilized by the platform, most of their mass would be warhead, the thrust component would be minimal since gravity will be doing majority of the work...

You still had to lift them to high orbit in the first place.

Put this way. Skylab weighed eighty tons, flew in low earth orbit, and took a Saturn V launch to accomplish. Orbiting enough nuclear warheads into high enough orbits to be a serious bombardment capability would probably require you to re-enact the heavy-lift costs of the Apollo program. That is not a cheap weapons system.

No Treaty ever? Or just a handwave (as in, history from 1950-present matches OTL, magically no more treaty as of 10/13/2012)

Assuming no space ban treaties ever in all histories, the US would have an orbital platform system in place by 1975 and concerns over fledgling Soviet systems (which would be far sparser, but still deadly) would lead towards the abolition of the Limited Test Ban treaty (if one exists in this AU) so the US can start building Orion Battleships (something that the USSR would not be capable of for resource, infrastructural, and economic reasons)

Citation needed. I don't think the treaty was the only reason Orion never got off the ground. And I'm not sure militarization of space would be that popular in the '70s, a time when support for bigger nastier weapons was trending down a bit because of the Vietnam War. Plus the general realization that nuclear war had gotten to the point where it would wipe out the developed world several times over if the missiles actually flew.

Remember what happened to the B-1 bomber during the '70s? Like that.

[Sea Skimmer]

Nobody was ever going to be dumb enough to fly an Orion off the earth. Nor would such a billions even in the 1970s ship have any damn point if the objective was simply to control earth and local orbit. Pop off one of its nuclear propulsion units and every satellite around it fries, great job, you just crippled US command and control for that side of the planet. Its not for nothing that such a concept was only remotely serious before HEMP or a lot of other radiation effects were even remotely understood. Also in an era when the US military was talking about fielding 423,000 nuclear weapons and other silly figures like that.

A 1975 orbital weapon system is, not likely. Possible, but not likely because of inherent command and control problems and the considerable unreliability of 1970s satellites. If expending money is the goal then the immensely more serious program for 10,000 single warhead Minuteman missiles would be better in every respect. As it was budget limits stopped the US from even fielding the desired 45 Polaris submarines. Turned into '41 for freedom' instead.

Nothing in any event would be out of reach of a Titan II or similar missile based ASAT weapon, the US has put some more recent communication satellites several hundred thousand miles out so that the shear travel distances provides a measure of security against a first strike, but a missile like that could deliver a nuclear warhead into circumsolar orbit if you wanted. We know this with 100% certainty because the US actually did put a satellite in solar orbit with surplus Titans expended as space boosters. Meanwhile the higher the space weapon system orbit, the slower its reaction time and the more time the enemy has to destroy the warheads with ABM/ASAT systems launched from the ground.

Orion really is a joke. Very cool, but it has so many practical problems, including that the more we use space the less we would want it, that it was never happening. NERVA was safer, more reliable, cheaper, generally far more sane and not limited by treaties and it still could never get to the point of operational hardware for even a single test flight.

[McKitten]

Orion really is a joke. Very cool, but it has so many practical problems, including that the more we use space the less we would want it, that it was never happening. NERVA was safer, more reliable, cheaper, generally far more sane and not limited by treaties and it still could never get to the point of operational hardware for even a single test flight.

Nah, Orion is a pretty good idea in principle. Compared to NERVA (let alone a NSWR), it is actually clean enough to start from earth, with a correctly prepared starting pad and large enough bombs, the fallout is minimal. The big problem with Orion is that you really need a million-tons spaceship to make it feasible, especially with cold-war technology. Nukes are expensive as hell, and if you're firing off that many, you better need every pound of thrust you get. Orion only really gets feasible once you can manage inertial confinement fusion, which allows you to scale down the drive to a manageable size. Especially if you get laser powerful enough to enable aneutronic fusion because then your drive is perfectly clean, not just "clean enough".
But we can't do that with today's technology in prototype reactors yet, with cold war technology, no way in hell. Especially lasers today are lightyears ( hur-hur) ahead.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Orion really is a joke. Very cool, but it has so many practical problems, including that the more we use space the less we would want it, that it was never happening. NERVA was safer, more reliable, cheaper, generally far more sane and not limited by treaties and it still could never get to the point of operational hardware for even a single test flight.

It never got to a test flight because Congress slashed the budget. NERVA woudl have been essential for a NASA Mars mission (The Saturn-N concept) and that would have meant another decade of big NASA budgets. Congress didn't like that idea (shock, horror) and so killed NERVA to kill the Mars plans.

I have no odubt that had the NERVA system been flown it would have been highly successful.

[Sea Skimmer]

Nah, Orion is a pretty good idea in principle. Compared to NERVA (let alone a NSWR), it is actually clean enough to start from earth, with a correctly prepared starting pad and large enough bombs, the fallout is minimal.

Someone I don't think you realize what 'minimal' fallout from a nuclear weapon still does to life, let alone when you set off hundreds of them in a row and all the radioactive emissions interact to supercharge the fallout. Bad things happen when highly radioactive material is further irradiated, the details are not well understood since nobody has gotten to test this full scale since the limited test ban treaty but we still see the same hot spot effect from nuclear reactor disasters. Meanwhile it is possible to make NERVA designs that would emit no radioactive particulate matter at all, though none was ever demonstrated. Orion is not cleaner.

It never got to a test flight because Congress slashed the budget. NERVA woudl have been essential for a NASA Mars mission (The Saturn-N concept) and that would have meant another decade of big NASA budgets. Congress didn't like that idea (shock, horror) and so killed NERVA to kill the Mars plans.

I have no odubt that had the NERVA system been flown it would have been highly successful.

As long as you orbited it cold, and then fired it in space, it would be okay. Firing it on the earth was unlikely to be ever accepted given the immense risk of dropping a meltdown onto someones head, or more likely, spreading it over hundreds of miles of ground. The fact that it only died because congress cut its budget is silly thinking, congress also ended up cutting the budget for bioweapons and a few other really bad ideas. That's how they kill stuff. Only other way a project formally dies is the executive branch directs the money not be spent, and that actually has some serious legal limits. It isn't for nothing that Orion and NERVA and PLUTO got started in an era when it was thought perfectly fine to throw nuclear waste and nerve gas into the ocean, even fueled reactors, and all became far less serious as soon as the slightest thought was put into the impact that kind of action had on the planet.

[Solauren]

Quite frankly, wouldn't an orbital railgun be more effective/useful?

On one hand, you have a nice big space gun for blasting planetary targets, without all that nasty fall out.

On the other, you have an orbital method of launching stuff out into the solar system/rest of the universe.

Use it as the 'launch into Deep space' device most of the time, and in an act of war, it's just an 180 degree flip on the Z axis to turn it into you orbiting space gun of doom.