New Space Race

[LordShaithis]

Yes, I would like to know precisely what Degan thinks would happen in the scenario which forms the basis of this thread. Or can't you read?

[Patrick Degan]

No answer to a direct question as to what you believe would actually happen in the topic scenario? u sux0r

Direct question? All I see is demented ravings about Germans landing in New York. Sure you even know which war we're talking about?

[Edi]

Oh come on if we did put these white elephants in orbit the rest of the world would bitch, and purchase a few simple weapons to take down the suckers if they desire.

Frankly we already have most of the cabability here, exactly how far is any population center away from airstrike by our planes? What happens when we begin deploying F-35's? What happens when every carrier in the world can launch unstoppable raids blowing buildings as we like?

Nobody attacks the big powers until other options are exhausted. Preempting the US over these satellites is laughable. No serious power in the world is going to openly do anything of real consequence over these satellites. They realize that such actions could be construed as an act of war, and at best they hope that world opinion eventually gives rise to a coalition that can stand down the US. Frankly most of the countries of the world wouldn't risk their own necks without a MAJOR garuntee that they don't risk it alone.

What would happen is one of the major states would loan one of the failing states, like say NK, the weapons to take such a satellite down. Let such a state with little to lose risk US wrath and then gauge the response.

History is pretty clear on this one, you don't dick with the big guy until other options are exhausted, or you see clear advantage in doing so.

Taking the satellites out wouldn't be difficult at all. Launch a perfectly normal comsat launch, with an additional payload of ball bearings that gets released to the path of the deathbeam satellite and BOOM! goes orbital superweapon.

"Yes, we launched a communications satellite. See, there it is! Oh, you lost one of your orbital superweapons? What a- *snicker* -pity. Must have been a technical failure. *snicker* What, you accuse us of destroying it? How about some proof first?"

Satellites fail due to technical glitches, impacts with micro-meteors and other such things, and the loss of a couple of satellites is hardly a pretext for war as your argument presupposes. Aside from a few lunatics like Axis Kast, Iceberg and the Duchess, you'd also have a fucking lot of domestic opposition to unilateral US world dictatorship.

Edi

[phongn]

Satellites fail due to technical glitches, impacts with micro-meteors and other such things, and the loss of a couple of satellites is hardly a pretext for war as your argument presupposes.

Loss of a couple satellites via hostile action would be a pretext for war. Is it not an attack on a US military system?

Also, it would be rather unusual for a satellite launch to be pointed in just the right direction for an intercept course, would it not? Especially if tracking radar managed to catch a glimpse of all those bearings being thrown out before they scatter?

[Iceberg]

Oh come on if we did put these white elephants in orbit the rest of the world would bitch, and purchase a few simple weapons to take down the suckers if they desire.

Frankly we already have most of the cabability here, exactly how far is any population center away from airstrike by our planes? What happens when we begin deploying F-35's? What happens when every carrier in the world can launch unstoppable raids blowing buildings as we like?

Nobody attacks the big powers until other options are exhausted. Preempting the US over these satellites is laughable. No serious power in the world is going to openly do anything of real consequence over these satellites. They realize that such actions could be construed as an act of war, and at best they hope that world opinion eventually gives rise to a coalition that can stand down the US. Frankly most of the countries of the world wouldn't risk their own necks without a MAJOR garuntee that they don't risk it alone.

What would happen is one of the major states would loan one of the failing states, like say NK, the weapons to take such a satellite down. Let such a state with little to lose risk US wrath and then gauge the response.

History is pretty clear on this one, you don't dick with the big guy until other options are exhausted, or you see clear advantage in doing so.

Taking the satellites out wouldn't be difficult at all. Launch a perfectly normal comsat launch, with an additional payload of ball bearings that gets released to the path of the deathbeam satellite and BOOM! goes orbital superweapon.

"Yes, we launched a communications satellite. See, there it is! Oh, you lost one of your orbital superweapons? What a- *snicker* -pity. Must have been a technical failure. *snicker* What, you accuse us of destroying it? How about some proof first?"

To reach X orbit with vehicle+payload = Y you need to launch on trajectory Z. Therefore, if the satellite launched into X orbit weighs Y-(a+b) (where a is the known weight of the launching rocket and b is some unknown), but it launched on trajectory Z anyway, you can safely assume that b is something other than satellite. Elementary, Mr. Poopsmith.

[LordShaithis]

Direct question? All I see is demented ravings about Germans landing in New York. Sure you even know which war we're talking about?

*Slaps a dunce cap on Degan*

No wonder he thinks he won with the Duchess, the poor lad is clearly only semi-literate. Don't worry Patrick, Prawny is here to help you with your reading comprehension. Let's look at what I wrote before:

"What EXACTLY are you claiming would happen if the US deployed the death-beam sattelites described earlier in this thread? Would French and German troops try to land in New York?"

See that first sentence? That was addressed toward you. Notice that it begins with "what" and ends with a question mark, indicating that the sentence is a query for which an answer is requested. Note that the second sentence is phrased as a question as well.

[Ignorant twit]

Taking the satellites out wouldn't be difficult at all. Launch a perfectly normal comsat launch, with an additional payload of ball bearings that gets released to the path of the deathbeam satellite and BOOM! goes orbital superweapon.

And the US is too stupid to figure out which satellite launch was in the proper position at the proper time to deliver them? You honestly think we don't have any humint to bring these things to light?

"Yes, we launched a communications satellite. See, there it is! Oh, you lost one of your orbital superweapons? What a- *snicker* -pity. Must have been a technical failure. *snicker* What, you accuse us of destroying it? How about some proof first?"

Okay you assume that a US which burnt money to put these white elephants into space is going to care a whit about hard proof?

Satellites fail due to technical glitches, impacts with micro-meteors and other such things, and the loss of a couple of satellites is hardly a pretext for war as your argument presupposes. Aside from a few lunatics like Axis Kast, Iceberg and the Duchess, you'd also have a fucking lot of domestic opposition to unilateral US world dictatorship.

If we ever deployed this white elephant I can safely assume domesitic opinion is irrelevant. Contrary to popular beleif, the majority of Americans are not sufficiently stupid or bellicose to burn money to place a delibrately provacative system into orbit that has few advantages over current armaments.

In any event taking down a handful of these elephants would be a SYMBOLIC gesture. It does nothing to change the strategic situation. Why would any nation bother to clandestinely take a few out? It has no practical effect and carries a good bit of risk. You either take em all out, take a few out publically, or don't take em out. Nothing is gained by making a symbolic gesture, and then sweeping it under the rug.

[Patrick Degan]

Direct question? All I see is demented ravings about Germans landing in New York. Sure you even know which war we're talking about?

*Slaps a dunce cap on Degan*

You mean you finally ripped off the dunce-cap glued to your own head?

No wonder he thinks he won with the Duchess, the poor lad is clearly only semi-literate. Don't worry Patrick, Prawny is here to help you with your reading comprehension. Let's look at what I wrote before:

Oh, this should be amusing; an idiot troll presuming to give lessons. By all means, fire away...

"What EXACTLY are you claiming would happen if the US deployed the death-beam sattelites described earlier in this thread? Would French and German troops try to land in New York?"

The aforementioned demented ravings on your part, I believe.

See that first sentence? That was addressed toward you. Notice that it begins with "what" and ends with a question mark, indicating that the sentence is a query for which an answer is requested. Note that the second sentence is phrased as a question as well.

Gee, let's see now. Exactly what was said in the thread record?

Oh, here's at least one item:

Parking bombs in the same orbit with the big, fancy deathbeam platform would be a cheap and effective countermeasure, easily available to any nation even capable of putting satellites in orbit in the first place. One reason why such projects have no basis in reality, no matter what the Church of the High Frontier say. The expense would not be worth the effort to put up what essentially would be an indefensible high-tech target.

And:

And one of the advantages of the cheap and simple orbital cannister is that once it releases its cloud of debris (ball-bearings, or even nails) in the pathway of its target, either by self-detonation or impact with another object, it's accomplished its mission. The target's own momentum will do the rest.

Oh, and here's this one:

Originally posted by The Duchess of Zeon:

quote:
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Originally posted by salm:
i´m not sure if there would be any legal problems. it would be a stupid thing to do anyway. i mean, when some one has the power to strike a deadly attack on anything at any time it doesn´t give people a good feeling. the usa would lose even more image and even more people worldwide are going to hate the usa. of course like always, the us government won´t give a shit.
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No, people would be terrified of us - Or at least those who have a reason to, at any rate. And that terror would, furthermore, only last as long as we were applying that power against those who warranted to suffer from its application. But the terror would be useful, in that it would cow others, and cause them to avoid from falling under it themselves.
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Or it might cause them to attempt a preemptive strike before we could get any such capability. The doctrine of preemption will not remain an exclusive U.S. property, I'm afraid.

(That, BTW, is a mental process called "putting yourself in the other guy's shoes")

And this:

Originally posted by The Duchess of Zeon:

A second consideration for this: Our supremacy is sufficient that even if a strike was able to disable whatever we were developing, our conventional (or if necessary unconventional) arms would be sufficient for the retaliation at this point.
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You just don't see the larger picture, do you? If the entire point of the SPECTRE Deathbeam satellite is to terrify other nations into submission to the U.S., and instead it results in a preemptive strike and a general war, then the object of the exercise has necessarily failed. And if any nation were to launch such a strike, do you imagine that they would not consider the possibility of retaliation beforehand and have already figured that into their plans?

And this:

Originally posted by The Duchess of Zeon:

Exactly so on the last part - Which is why anyone sensible wouldn't engage in such a preemptive strike. Irrational leaders are a problem, but honestly rarely occur (and the world is safer without them).
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Wrong. A preemptive strike is one of the most natural countermoves any rational leader would consider, if the alternative is to be placed in a position of permanent disadvantage and ultimately a threat to national independence and survival.

Now what was your difficulty, Prawn? Didn't bother to actually read the thread all the way through before you started acting the fool? Or perhaps you can't pick up clues on your own and have to have things laid out nice and simple for you, unlike say Edi and Ignorant Twit (who now seems misnamed).

Well, let's put two and two together for you, shall we? The SPECTRE Deathbeam platform is launched into orbit. The preemptive action is to disable or destroy the thing in orbit. Using the aforementioned orbital cannister, to deny the orbital bombing capability to the nation putting up the SDP.

Simple enough for you, Prawn? Did that connect all the dots for you?

[LordShaithis]

Poor, poor, Degan... Did you not notice the word "exactly" printed entirely with capital letters? It was a simple request for greater detail than a muttered "other countries would attack us and stuff."

A serious pre-emptive strike on the United States by a foreign power is impossible unless the attacker is willing to absorb a hail of nuclear warheads in return. You do remember that little "Cold War" thing we had a few years ago, right?

[Edi]

To reach X orbit with vehicle+payload = Y you need to launch on trajectory Z. Therefore, if the satellite launched into X orbit weighs Y-(a+b) (where a is the known weight of the launching rocket and b is some unknown), but it launched on trajectory Z anyway, you can safely assume that b is something other than satellite. Elementary, Mr. Poopsmith.

If trajectory Z is required anyway, as per your statement here, your elementary and elementarily fallacious reasoning falls flat on its face. You assume complete knowledge of all factors about the satellite being launched. You would not by any means be guaranteed to have them.

Loss of a couple satellites via hostile action would be a pretext for war. Is it not an attack on a US military system?

If you're placing a military system in orbit over my country without permission, you're encroaching in our airspace with hostile intent, which is itself an act of war, and releasing those ball bearings is justified.

Also, it would be rather unusual for a satellite launch to be pointed in just the right direction for an intercept course, would it not? Especially if tracking radar managed to catch a glimpse of all those bearings being thrown out before they scatter?

There are only a limited number of viable orbits for certain types of satellites, and of course those ball bearings would be put into a load going into one of the relevant orbits. You're also placing a lot of faith in your tracking radars. You don't need such a huge amount of the ball bearings to cripple the deathbeam.

And the US is too stupid to figure out which satellite launch was in the proper position at the proper time to deliver them? You honestly think we don't have any humint to bring these things to light?

And you're assuming that you're always going to get all the info you ever want?

Okay you assume that a US which burnt money to put these white elephants into space is going to care a whit about hard proof?

Even assuming you got the proof, will the cost of flattening the offending nation be worth what is gained by such a maneuver? If the neighbor's kid throws a rock that breaks my 150cm x 3m window, am I justified in getting a gun and killing him in retaliation? Actions have consequences relative to their gravity usually, and breaking a satellite and starting a war because of it are in two entirely different leagues, especially when the first action was legitimate self defense.

If we ever deployed this white elephant I can safely assume domesitic opinion is irrelevant. Contrary to popular beleif, the majority of Americans are not sufficiently stupid or bellicose to burn money to place a delibrately provacative system into orbit that has few advantages over current armaments.

That might be the facts of the world as it is right now, but we're not dealing with the current world, but a hypothetical one where that white elephant system is reality (as stipulated by Stravo's original post). I do get the point, it just isn't relevant in the hypothetical scenario.

In any event taking down a handful of these elephants would be a SYMBOLIC gesture. It does nothing to change the strategic situation. Why would any nation bother to clandestinely take a few out? It has no practical effect and carries a good bit of risk. You either take em all out, take a few out publically, or don't take em out. Nothing is gained by making a symbolic gesture, and then sweeping it under the rug.

No, it doesn't change the overall strategic equation, but it sure as hell raises the threshold for unilateral blackmail, because instead of just pressing a trigger button, you'd have to use conventional forces, which is far less convenient and expedient and is therefore used with greater reluctance, and additionally would cost you far more in terms of money, hardware and lives. So it's hardly as symbolic as you make it out to be. Besides, if it is possibility for the guilty party to obfuscate their tracks enough that their identity can't be reliably determined, what will you do? Attack everyone? It'd be stupid to come out and proclaim "I did it!", because it would be possible (not guaranteed, though) to gain more otherwise.

Edi

[Beowulf]

Loss of a couple satellites via hostile action would be a pretext for war. Is it not an attack on a US military system?

If you're placing a military system in orbit over my country without permission, you're encroaching in our airspace with hostile intent, which is itself an act of war, and releasing those ball bearings is justified.

Your territory stops at the edge of the atmosphere, or about 50 miles up. This has been the case ever since Sputnik flew. It cannot be encroaching on your airspace, because it is above your airspace.

[Cpt_Frank]

Your territory stops at the edge of the atmosphere, or about 50 miles up. This has been the case ever since Sputnik flew. It cannot be encroaching on your airspace, because it is above your airspace.

Indeed, it'd be more like parking nuclear missiles at your frontdoor.
Hmm, I swear we had something like that in the past....

[Edi]

Then you wouldn't have problems with somebody placing a similar deathbeam orbiter over the US? And the self-defense argument would still be applicable. It's a clear and present danger, so why should it not get pre-empted?

Edi

[Aeolus]

Here's a hypothetical. Say that in the current atmosphere of growing American militarism and a more offensive posture in terms of use of militray might, say that Bush decides to implement a program that would begin placing space based weapons like satellites that can fire particle beams onto the surface of the Earth with pinpoint accuracy by the start of teh next decade.

And its operating system is written by Microsoft. Run like hell, everybody!

Say you get a lead that a member of a terrorist cell is in a car driving to a meet in Sudan, you fire up the particle beam weapon, aim and fire, the car explodes into a fireball and all of it lasted a total of fifteen minutes. This would take pressure off our militray and allow the US to respond to threats or potential targets of oppurtunity without having to deploy troops or ask permission to cross sovereign territory to get to where we're going.

Got an Al-Qaeda cell building vest bombs for suicide bombers in a ghetto in Pakistan....BLAM, the building is gone with little or no collateral damage.

So you execute people anywhere in the world without trial or even close-in inspection and verification of their activities, based SOLELY on leads from the CIA? You've got a "lead" on something, and that's good enough to fire weapons on people, blow up entire buildings even though you can't possibly tell who else is in there from orbit, and ignore national sovereignty?

If you storm a building and confirm that they were making vest bombs, that's one thing. But what you're talking about is killing people and blowing up buildings anywhere on Earth based solely on intel.

The question becomes rather obvious, would the rest of the world stand for this weapons platform in US hands or would some powers decide to either get their own platforms in place or more likely try to develop counter measures?

The rest of the world would demand that the US not orbit a weapon like that over their territories. It is no less provocative than loading up B-2's with nuclear weapons and then circling over a foreign nation continuously.

WOuld such an platform kick off a space race like the one for the moon with every major power trying to get a platform up in space OR would they rely on diplomatic means to try and pressure the US to NOT deploy the system and what sort of arguments would you make to convince the US to NOT deploy it that sound rational. ( I want to avoid any virulent anti-Americanism here, think of yourself as a head of state of another nation and how you might approach the problem.)

The argument is simple: you need permission to overfly our land with
military aircraft, and this satellite is no communications satellite. It is a military spacecraft, and we demand that you not violate our national sovereignty by overflying our territory with it.

1.National Airspace only goes up 50 miles.
2.The outerspace treaty only bans Weapons of mass distruction in space.
3. Theoretically Kinetic Kill Clusters and energy weapons are "legal" of course in practice other nations would be furious.
4. The weaponisation of space is inevitable in the long run...the more money nations invest in space the more they will want some sort of defenses. Once mining or colonisation of any size takes place The various "space capable nations will start orbiting weapons. Hopefully some form of treatys will limit what weapons are deployed.

[phongn]

To reach X orbit with vehicle+payload = Y you need to launch on trajectory Z. Therefore, if the satellite launched into X orbit weighs Y-(a+b) (where a is the known weight of the launching rocket and b is some unknown), but it launched on trajectory Z anyway, you can safely assume that b is something other than satellite. Elementary, Mr. Poopsmith.

If trajectory Z is required anyway, as per your statement here, your elementary and elementarily fallacious reasoning falls flat on its face. You assume complete knowledge of all factors about the satellite being launched. You would not by any means be guaranteed to have them.

Not guarunteed, no, but the DSP (and presumably SBIRS Hi/Lo will be operational by the time this platform is operational) satellites are rather accurate at tracking and anticipating the launch trajectory of boosters or missiles. SPACECOM and NASA do keep an eye on these things, and presumably would watch for ASAT launches against their new toy.

How are you going to stop SPACECOM from tracking who killed their weapons platform? Knock out the early-warning satellites as well?

If you're placing a military system in orbit over my country without permission, you're encroaching in our airspace with hostile intent, which is itself an act of war, and releasing those ball bearings is justified.

One question: does LEO (or higher) count as airspace? Does it count as legitimate self-defense?

There are only a limited number of viable orbits for certain types of satellites, and of course those ball bearings would be put into a load going into one of the relevant orbits. You're also placing a lot of faith in your tracking radars. You don't need such a huge amount of the ball bearings to cripple the deathbeam.

You don't need a large amount, true, but you still need a decent number to get a good spread on it (or risk hitting something trivial) which risks being tracked.

Even assuming you got the proof, will the cost of flattening the offending nation be worth what is gained by such a maneuver? If the neighbor's kid throws a rock that breaks my 150cm x 3m window, am I justified in getting a gun and killing him in retaliation? Actions have consequences relative to their gravity usually, and breaking a satellite and starting a war because of it are in two entirely different leagues, especially when the first action was legitimate self defense.

Interception of this satellite may be interpreted as a precursor to war, especially as this might be considered a strategic weapons platform. That entails an extremely high risk of escalation, regardless of if a nation considers it self-defense.

[phongn]

Then you wouldn't have problems with somebody placing a similar deathbeam orbiter over the US? And the self-defense argument would still be applicable. It's a clear and present danger, so why should it not get pre-empted?

I wouldn't exactly be happy, but I wouldn't shoot it down out of spite in peacetime. Escalation applies.

[Vympel]

I wouldn't exactly be happy, but I wouldn't shoot it down out of spite in peacetime. Escalation applies.

The Soviet Union regularly tried to bring down spy planes overflying it's territory, but of course didn't try and destroy Western spy satellites in space. However, is the situation the same with weapons aimed above you, with the intent to strike at any target whenever their masters see fit? I think not. The moment the thing actually fires, it is guaranteed that the aforementioned satellite bombs launch. It's a gross violation of national sovereignty and would be dealt with harshly

[NecronLord]

Has anyone considered how much of a liability it would be if some enemy got hold of the command system for this thing? Anything that can be encrpted can be decrypted.

I'm wondering how annoyed everyone would be if this thing were to blast the houses of congress during the state of the union, then moved on and blasted the pentagon, then ICBM silos, then aircraft carriers etc etc...

[Cpt_Frank]

Has anyone considered how much of a liability it would be if some enemy got hold of the command system for this thing?

Multiple redundant controll systems and self-destruction device?

[NecronLord]

Has anyone considered how much of a liability it would be if some enemy got hold of the command system for this thing?

Multiple redundant controll systems and self-destruction device?

Yes, very nice. If you can upload commands, then it is possibe for an enemy to do so too. The only thing that would prevent that was if the sattellite had an AI. Which it doesn't.

You could try to hard wire it to not fire at the US, but that would limit it's utility, as many terrorrists are already in the USA long before anyone notices them (see 9-11)

[Cpt_Frank]

Yes, very nice. If you can upload commands, then it is possibe for an enemy to do so too. The only thing that would prevent that was if the sattellite had an AI. Which it doesn't.

You could try to hard wire it to not fire at the US, but that would limit it's utility, as many terrorrists are already in the USA long before anyone notices them (see 9-11)

Meh, dunno. The idea of such a system is pretty stupid anyways.

[NecronLord]

Yup if you've got to build weapons sattellites, go with the 2001 approach. I.E. Nukes. (or in the case of 2001, super nukes)

(note, those sattellites did have AIs)

[Beowulf]

Anything that can be encrpted can be decrypted.

True in theory. In practice, usually not. Twofish or AES with 448 bit keys would last for the lifetime of the system. It's rather computationally infeasible to break the key of a very large key symetric cipher.

[Iceberg]

To reach X orbit with vehicle+payload = Y you need to launch on trajectory Z. Therefore, if the satellite launched into X orbit weighs Y-(a+b) (where a is the known weight of the launching rocket and b is some unknown), but it launched on trajectory Z anyway, you can safely assume that b is something other than satellite. Elementary, Mr. Poopsmith.

If trajectory Z is required anyway, as per your statement here, your elementary and elementarily fallacious reasoning falls flat on its face. You assume complete knowledge of all factors about the satellite being launched. You would not by any means be guaranteed to have them.

A launch trajectory is calculated by mathematics. Knowing the launch trajectory and the mass of the launch vehicle, and extrapolating from that the desired orbital insertion point (which is easily possible from TDRS data, unless you're planning a massive strike to take out ALL of the operational TDRS satellites, which would definitely be an act of war against the United States of America), you can determine the mass of the payload.

That's the first half. Now (assuming that TDRS doesn't see the volley of junk streaming from the orbital transfer vehicle), a satellite of Y mass will behave differently in an orbit than a satellite of Y-b mass (specifically, given the same launch energy, a satellite of Y-b mass will settle in a higher orbit than the heavier satellite). As dictated by the laws of physics, the center of mass between orbit Y-b and orbit b (orbit b being the center of mass of the attack junk) will be Y. The problem is that there will be nothing actually AT orbit Y, which is where - according to the pre-launch scientific material published, assuming that you're using a scientific or communications satellite launch to cover up your theoretical attack - our theoretical decoy satellite was supposed to end up. Instead, the decoy satellite is at Y-b, which is an IMPOSSIBLE orbit given its published mass and characteristics.

Getting the picture yet? Or do I have to spell it out in terms understandable by a poorly-motivated middle school student?

[phongn]

I wouldn't exactly be happy, but I wouldn't shoot it down out of spite in peacetime. Escalation applies.

The Soviet Union regularly tried to bring down spy planes overflying it's territory, but of course didn't try and destroy Western spy satellites in space. However, is the situation the same with weapons aimed above you, with the intent to strike at any target whenever their masters see fit? I think not. The moment the thing actually fires, it is guaranteed that the aforementioned satellite bombs launch. It's a gross violation of national sovereignty and would be dealt with harshly

Perhaps. Again, the risk may not be worth it. Too bad Polyus never achieved orbit, otherwise we would have had our answer right then and there.