The U.S. informed its NATO and Asian allies that Russia could deploy a nuclear weapon into space this year after details of American intelligence assessments of its ambitions circulated last week, according to The New York Times.
U.S. intelligence agencies also told allies Moscow could also send a harmless “dummy” warhead into space that would likely leave questions about Russia’s capabilities, the Times reported Wednesday.
American officials are reportedly divided in their predictions about Russia’s space ambitions. Officials pointed to Russia’s series of satellite launches in early 2022 and how American intelligence officials found out Russia was developing a new space-based weapon.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the U.S.’s Chinese and Indian counterparts on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend that a nuclear detonation in space would knock out American satellites, along with those of Beijing and New Delhi, the Times reported Saturday.
So an unstable hunk of nuclear material floating up in space that could fail and crash into a random spot of the planet?
This is somehow scarier than Russia being competent and putting a nuke up there. At least then you could predict what it may hit…
Not to mention the horrific consequences of Kessler Syndrome when space is weaponized with any explosive ordinance…
Explosives- even nukes- in space are kinda dumb. They rely on atmosphere to transmit the kinetic energy. Without substantial atmospheric pressure, they loose strength very quickly.
Which is why most ASAT ordinance is some variation of kinetic kill- shot gun shells or just big masses that smash stuff.
A nuke won’t be used for its explosion, but rather the EMP.
In space sure, but detonate one on the surface of a spaceship, and you’re still ripping apart a huge section of just about every spaceship we’ve imagined, outside of 40K because they’re insane. Especially a shaped charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV4HY5ymDMU&t=21s
Yeah, this video is about Science Fiction, but he gets into a fair bit of the science part of how to “properly” use a nuke in space
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Alright, lets get some perspective here. The largest-anything we have in orbit is the ISS. it’s also the only thing that’s both permanently in orbit an manned in space. (the capsules necessary to shuttle crew and supplies are the only manned thing.) the ISS is about 350x240 feet.
For comparison, it would happily occupy about half the flight deck of the Gerald R. Ford super carrier. (which measures 1,092 x 252 ft).
even a strategic nuclear warhead wouldn’t be able to reasonably hit the ISS. or any specific satellite- it’s designed to targets the size of cities, not targets the size of your mom’s minivan. Even deep inside the Earth’s atmosphere, you wouldn’t use a nuke to take out a carrier group, nor a single carrier. They’re expensive, relatively rare, and baring some sort of wonky russian logistics failures, any military in the world that has the capability of launching a nuke at all; has the capability of fielding anti-ship missiles.
Nukes tuned for a giant explosion are not so great at pumping out EMP’s (EMP’s are seen as an unwanted byproduct because that’s energy that’s not going to the big boom.) nukes that are tuned for EMP bursts have weaker explosive power anyhow. They’re very effective at knocking out un-hardened equipment across broad stretches of orbit. Which, incidentally, is now the kind of thing Russian needs in an ASAT weapon. With Starlink microsats being a thing now; they can’t afford to use missiles to take out individual satellites, and it’s very hard to harden a microsat against that kind of attack. (and the starlinks, for example, are disposable anyhow.).
But it’s not the explosion that’s doing the damage. it’s the EMP burst (that was originally an unwanted side effect.)
And just for the record, if this is an ASAT weapon… we, uh, already have the capability. (a RIM 161 Standard Missile 3 was used to “decomission” US 193 which had failed shortly after it’s launch. (it did have a shitload of hydrazine on board… but, it was a convenient time to test the SM-3’s ASAT capability.). I doubt very much that we couldn’t put a tactical nuke onto that platform and get into space. (actually, I doubt very much that it wasn’t a somewhat morbid consideration in the ballistic missile’s development. even if nobody is going to admit that. it was developed as part of the aegis missile defense system.)
Now, as for far-future-battle spaces, I suspect everything will go in one of two ways. Probably both, actually. Project RHO has a lot about all of this. ignore the 90’s website design, lol. But they make the case for massive orbital installations. there won’t be anything like ‘fighters’ or even manned attack craft. I would add, the other way things might go is “disposable”. I.E. things that people accept will get destroyed, and designed to be cheap enough so that at least some will get through defenses.
I suspect, that IRL space combat is going to fall into the “lol, wut?” category, at some point. largely because of the economic costs of actually fielding an “effective” military is just ridiculous compared to how effective such a military force in space will actually be. A bit like in the Dune series with the spacer guild responding to attacks simply by refusing their services to that house (and effectively isolating all of their territorial holding.) Wars would be fought on and around planets without disrupting anyone’s non-military shit. because that invites retaliation.
Clearly you didn’t watch the video. Literally every one of your points was addressed and proven to be the normal layman’s misunderstanding of nuclear weapons.
You’re completely ignoring the fact that we don’t make nukes for anything other than ground, and that video would have told you that. Meanwhile, with conventional weapons we can shoot down the ISS, or any satellite with an F-15, a freaking space laser, or we can use AEGIS as the USS Eire proved in 2008.
If we actually start making the types of warheads that will be useful in space, rather than eliminating an entire city, and wasting most of the energy, we can easily mount those warheads on already existing weapons platforms to shoot down any satellite or spaceship with a nuke if we want to.
If Russia actually launches this program, we can absolutely shoot it down anytime we want.
If they launch ships, we can make nuclear warheads that we haven’t made specifically for space combat that won’t go boom so much as transfer as much energy as possible, to totally overheat and destroy the ships.
Nope, I didn’t watch the video, and after your little rant, don’t actually think it’s worth my time. Particularly the part about “normal layman’s understanding.” Lay off the condescending attitude.
Let’s start with some basics. A nuclear weapon is, essentially an uncontrolled, run-away nuclear reaction. The blast wave is creating by the interaction of the EM release with whatever is around it. In air, it’s an explosive blast wave, as the air turns to superheated plasma and suddenly starts expanding.
In vacuum, there’s nothing and it’s pretty much mostly just an EM pulse- there’s still plasma and stuff, but it’s a lot less, so the EMP is far stronger than the physical blast wave.
The energy released from that is mostly in the blast and shockwave, about 50%. In atmosphere that is incredibly destructive. In space, far less so.
Roughly 35% of the total energy release is in the form of heat. We’ll get back to that.
Around 5% is ionizing radiation- though that’s higher in a neutron bomb, with another 5-10% in residual radiation.
That is what we’re talking about when we say “nuclear weapon.” You might be inclined to include Project Excalibur here, it compared to an EMP blast, it’s overkill for what it would kill, and I’m not convinced it would be precise enough to hit something the size of a minivan- or a water melon.
Even the nuke-pumped xray lasers suffer from basic physics- the vast majority of its energy is still released as in a typical nuclear detonation. The lasing media lasts just long enough to convert a small fraction of that into a laser. It’s soul advantage is being able to engage across line of sight.
Such a device is simply not an ASAT weapon, and in any case, remains purely hypothetical.
If we actually start making the types of warheads that will be useful in space, rather than eliminating an entire city, and wasting most of the energy, we can easily mount those warheads on already existing weapons platforms to shoot down any satellite or spaceship with a nuke if we want to.
- See the definition of a nuclear explosion.
- A nukes energy is extremely difficult to contain never mind control. It literally vaporizes things near enough to it. In space, “near enough” becomes a lot smaller
- The closest thing humanity has ever built to a “spaceship” is either the ISS, Skylab, or Mir stations and the orbital transports like the shuttles; the Soyuz, Dragon and Apollo capsules. Are you seriously suggesting nukes as a means to attack any of them?
If they launch ships, we can make nuclear warheads that we haven’t made specifically for space combat that won’t go boom so much as transfer as much energy as possible, to totally overheat and destroy the ships.
What fantasy do you live in? Warships in space aren’t a thing. Because they’re too expensive, too vulnerable and too useless. Russia is absolutely not deploying a space navy.
As I’ve been trying to say this entire time, Putin is trying to launch nukes to use the EMP to knock out the hundreds of western satellites that are in orbit above and around Russia.
To take out satellites, it wouldn’t take much of a nuke, a single Starfish Prime test was only 1.4 MT, and would wreck havoc on today’s orbital infrastructure.
Again I agreed that non nuclear weapons are completely viable for taking out satellites, and you have, again, completely ignored the viability of nuclear weapons that already exist to not take out a city.
You’re completely ignoring the rest of what nuclear weapons that we have designed, tested, and are far more powerful because thermonuclear weapons are just more directed energy than you can fathom.
Thermonuclear weapons, which have existed since the late 1960’s to early 1970’s change the entire battlefield and you are currently ignoring anything larger than the fission bombs that we dropped on Hroshima and Nagisaki.
You’re trying to compare current nuclear weapons to the “dick measuring contests” of yesteryear to todays nuclear weapons and there is absolutely no comparison. Today’s nuclear weapons are almost exclusively fusion weapons. Those have literally no comparison to a traditional nuclear weapon.
You’re a goddamn idiot that refuses to look at sources. Congratulations you just proved to all of Lemmy that your takes are nothing more than lies, or propaganda
Edit: I’m a former US Navy Nuclear Power Program Electronics Technician Instructor. You don’t know how to do this shit beyond theoretical equations. I know how to make this stuff work on the energy side of the equation. Blowing it up is what I tried to prevent at all costs
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I’m not saying Russia hasn’t drawn up plans for this but this story sounds like a PR thing. America is trying to pass a bill to fund Ukraine. Suddenly, this “intelligence” comes out? It’s probably just to light a fire under Congress’s ass.
Putin is a real shitty leader but I’d imagine the U.S., China, India, and everyone else with an interest in space has plans to take out satellites. He’s probably not planning to nuke low earth orbit except in a mutually assured destruction scenario.
There’s been some speculation that it came out to justify killing surveillance reform (ie nsa, feebs, buying location data and stuff from brokers,)
Russian legal bodies recently pushed to close the info on their funding of Roskosmos and other connected structures. If that’s a PR thing they do play into it. But I don’t think they’d really do so, as it’s a very resourcr consuming project out of their current priority, but a convinient mix of showing off and finding a safer way to still buy foreign equipment for a military.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ8FRHJq69U
Yeah, it’s PR. HabiLine is definitely biased, but he’s got some points.
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Yea, this isn’t even a story. More like a high school rumor.
Do you want Kessler syndrome? Because weapons in space is how you get Kessler syndrome
If Putin knew what Kessler syndrome is, he still wouldn’t care.
The destruction of the Kosmos 1408 satellite by a Russian ASAT missile on November 15, 2021, has created a large debris cloud, with 1500 pieces of debris being tracked and an estimated hundreds of thousands of pieces too small to track. Since the satellite was in a polar orbit, and its debris has spread out between the altitudes of 300 km and 1000 km, it could potentially collide with any LEO satellite, including the International Space Station and the Chinese Space Station (Tiangong).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#Anti-satellite_missile_tests
Jokes aside. If there’s any truth to this, there’s no other outcome, right? It’s endgame for telco and society as we know it?
I guess this is WMDs for the 2020s then?
Which was just the extension of cold war red scare propaganda. They know this shit scares people and that’s an effective tool of control. They’re not going to stop using it.
I didn’t expect Russia to be the one doing the Red Scare propaganda
Meanwhile you have a country using actual WMDs on a civilian population but you veto any attempt to stop them.
Edit: Israel has used white phosphorus munitions on civilians.
Missiles and guns are not WMDs
What about white phosphorus?
Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) include chemical, biological, and radiological agents with the potential to cause death at low doses and with serious long term health effects in survivors.
The lethal dose of white phosphorus after oral ingestion is 1 mg/kg of body weight, although small amounts as little as 15 mg have resulted in death.
That’s about 0.000137 lbs per person, so yeah I think it counts. I’d assume the health effects can’t be good for survivors.
Russia also used them in Ukraine.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The U.S. informed its NATO and Asian allies that Russia could deploy a nuclear weapon into space this year after details of American intelligence assessments of its ambitions circulated last week, according to The New York Times.
U.S. intelligence agencies also told allies Moscow could also send a harmless “dummy” warhead into space that would likely leave questions about Russia’s capabilities, the Times reported Wednesday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the U.S.’s Chinese and Indian counterparts on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend that a nuclear detonation in space would knock out American satellites, along with those of Beijing and New Delhi, the Times reported Saturday.
Concerns over Moscow’s possible nuclear plans were brought to the forefront of Capitol Hill last week following a cryptic warning from House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio).
Funding for Ukraine has been left in limbo in Congress amid opposition from some Republicans, who are demanding significant immigration reforms as a condition for more aid.
Susi Snyder, a program coordinator at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told The Hill last week the first step would likely be taken at the United Nations Security Council.
The original article contains 489 words, the summary contains 192 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Sounds like we’re all getting a heads up about the styrofoam satellites he’s putting into orbit.
Russia can’t even launch a three day “police action”.
If they’re good at one thing, it’s space - the Soyuz is one of the most prolific and safe launch vehicles in the world.
That being said, their quality control has certainly been slipping over the last few years.
That was the Soviet Union and their scientists. Russia WISHES they could claim that invention!
Yeah remember the holes in the Russian ISS modules? Clown shoes.
Step 1- get a toilet and running water standardized…figure out the rest later
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