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Reagen had his failed star wars back in 1984. Not sure what planet we are gonna fight, but no one has licked a way to get from another planet to the next.
My desperate hope is that war between nations will be obsolete before we might end up having any kind of space war. We're really not that far away from that now. We still have lots and lots of wars, but never when both nations have equal technology anymore.
That's because if we do have a space war, we'ere going to be totally screwed. If there's enough debris, it'll start a chain reaction rendering orbit uninhabitable for the next century, which destroys every single satellite...and satellites are already breaking apart once in awhile now. Eventually, we might have to find a way to clean up space, just as things are.
Maybe we could have some kind of very light defenses, just to stop some rogue group from going from satellite to satellite obliterating them...but I think the better solution, oftentimes, would be to treat attacking satellites as similar to an act of nuclear war: everybody just declares war on the nation that does it, and we take care of it on the ground.
We don't don't necessarily need to defend satellites in space. We can unify against any nation that attacks satellites and collectively hammer them into the ground here on earth to combat the very serious threat against us all.
Kinetic weapons deployed from space that wouldn't even have an explosive charge could have the energy of a nuclear weapon and would be even more effective than the nuclear tipped bunker buster. This is one of the things that my evolve from a space force.
Slightly overrated, IMNSHO. The classic "tungsten telephone pole" of 30 cm diameter and 10 m length - sorry I went metric, but it's so much easier across units - arriving at MIRV re-entry speed (7 km/sec) - delivers the equivalent of 80 tons (not kilotons or anything exotic) of TNT. Which is slightly disappointing, because it weighs 13.5 tons in and of itself.
A Falcon 9 FT, expendable, can loft 22.5 tons to LEO, so allowing for orbital insertion fuel, deorbit fuel and the necessary aiming and maneuvering hardware, getting just one of our warheads to orbit is a $60 million undertaking. And we'll have to either launch a buttload of them, or adjust our weapons usage to match with orbital mechanics.
ETA: I forgot we have to launch in a polar orbit, so perhaps a Falcon won't do after all? Not sure about that one.
Slightly overrated, IMNSHO. The classic "tungsten telephone pole" of 30 cm diameter and 10 m length - sorry I went metric, but it's so much easier across units - arriving at MIRV re-entry speed (7 km/sec) - delivers the equivalent of 80 tons (not kilotons or anything exotic) of TNT. Which is slightly disappointing, because it weighs 13.5 tons in and of itself.
A Falcon 9 FT, expendable, can loft 22.5 tons to LEO, so allowing for orbital insertion fuel, deorbit fuel and the necessary aiming and maneuvering hardware, getting just one of our warheads to orbit is a $60 million undertaking. And we'll have to either launch a buttload of them, or adjust our weapons usage to match with orbital mechanics.
ETA: I forgot we have to launch in a polar orbit, so perhaps a Falcon won't do after all? Not sure about that one.
And what you forget is how deep those rods will penetrate. No bunker system in the world would be able to withstand one of those rods unless VERY VERY deep beneath the surface... or under some very very dense material, like a granite mountain.
It isn't necessarily the blast force we are looking at. Rather penetration...
And what you forget is how deep those rods will penetrate. No bunker system in the world would be able to withstand one of those rods unless VERY VERY deep beneath the surface... or under some very very dense material, like a granite mountain.
It isn't necessarily the blast force we are looking at. Rather penetration...
I don't want it. By the time they build it, someone will be able to shoot it down, and if they shoot it down, it's "bye-bye civilization."
Although, the bright side of that would be we won't have to worry about the sorts of international wars those militant satellites would be used for anyway...because the worlds' governments will have collapsed and our nations won't be organized enough to conduct anything like that for several decades...because all satellites will be destroyed in the chain reaction that results from space combat.
Last edited by CaseyB; 08-12-2018 at 05:32 PM..
Reason: yuck
And what you forget is how deep those rods will penetrate. No bunker system in the world would be able to withstand one of those rods unless VERY VERY deep beneath the surface... or under some very very dense material, like a granite mountain.
It isn't necessarily the blast force we are looking at. Rather penetration...
Meh, still seems to be a lot of bucks for a modest bang with very limited application.
Particularly as we'd have to either launch hundred of the damn things or be willing to wait for days if not weeks until the orbits work out. And that's overlooking the fact that orbital velocities make a satellite in LEO a very fragile thing. If our target country has enough space launch capacity to lob a bucket of buckshot in front of the orbiters - a comparatively cheap thing to do, without having to actually go into orbit - it'll be a brief and exciting fireworks show.
I'm not blind to the application or the neat-o concept, it's just that it seems very Rube Goldbergesque. And expensive.
It’s really happening. A bipartisan budget agreement for 2020 will see the creation of a new branch of the military specifically oriented towards space. The United States Space Force will be the first new service branch in more than 60 years, tasked to ensure America’s freedom to operate in outer space—or take space away from somebody else.
I don't like the idea of the Space Force but if it happens I hope it comes to Houston, would help diversify the economy a bit and we already have NASA so more space stuff would be great.
I think it's funny that people are saying we don't need Space Force while foreign countries develop space weapons... Apparently the bipartisan Congressman know something the common idiot doesn't....
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