Weaponization Of Space

[drac]

Deployed? Based upon what info?

Wade.

not deployed, operated in. I read some info on it during the "activation" of the missile shield project here. I can try to look it up.
Basically russians answer was to send missiles through space or use "suicide" satelites against ours, as far as i remember.

 

[wade]

Well, I do not believe the Russians have any nukes of any kind in orbit. It's kinda hard to hide such things, and we wouldn't tolerate it. I can believe they had such weapons ready to launch, but not deployed.

Wade.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

You're an interesting cat, Wade. You appear to be concerned about American Security on the surface, yet your dubious conclusions, if set in policy, would be a dismal failure of our national security.

 

[drac]

not deployed, operated in. I read some info on it during the "activation" of the missile shield project here. I can try to look it up.
Basically russians answer was to send missiles through space or use "suicide" satelites against ours, as far as i remember.

Wade
here is quick google search
http://www.cnduk.org/pages/synopsis.htm
http://www.russianforces.org/podvig/eng/publications/space/20040700aaas.shtml
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/centers.html

Again, i did not say russians have nukes in space.

 

[drac]

Well, I do not believe the Russians have any nukes of any kind in orbit. It's kinda hard to hide such things, and we wouldn't tolerate it. I can believe they had such weapons ready to launch, but not deployed.

Wade.

I have not heard about russians having any nukes in space. But honestly, i do not see why would it be difficult to have one. It is just a rocket, but i can be wrong. In the case of hiding it, hm how would we know?

 

[ajwps]

Grow up: http://www.cia.gov/nic/confreports_chinawmd.html

Kathianne the fact that China does not want a space war (really an anti-missile system) in space is that they cannot afford to keep up with the West.

They know all to well what busted Communist Russia and brought it down. Reagan called for the 'star wars' program which resulted in a race to have parity in preventing the other side from having a tactical advantage.

China has just got their first space vehicle into space. Israel, the US and a few others have already accompllished this feat. Even a private American entreprise has sent a vehicle into space.

China is still a backward country trying to achieve economic parity with the West. Is there any wonder that they don't want to spend themselves into bankruptcy? A bankruptcy that would effectively end their communist rulers from office.

 

[Zhukov]

Our defenses are planed arround a hypothetical Soviet first strike

I wonder then how we'd do after a surprise decapitation attack caused by multiple simultaneous nuclear detonations from bombs smuggled into country. The whole point of my initial comment was about providing an invulnerable means of delivering an overwhelming nuclear strike. China wouldn't have to hit every single one of our ICBM installations to knock out their ability to fire.

The concern is over their potential to deliver nukes to US cities, not thier capability to defeat our offensive weapons, and especially not their ability to track or destroy our subs.

"Following several years of relative inaction, the U.S. Navy is charging ahead with plans to neutralize what it sees as the growing menace of
enemy diesel-electric submarines. Diesel-electric boats, although relatively low-tech, are emerging as a decided threat to military assets around the world and civilian targets in the United States, officials said."

I'm living in the year 2004. You must be living in the year 2050 or beyond if you think such a solution is practical within your lifetime.

Actually I've saw plans for just such an installation while I interned for Dr. Borowski back when I was in high school. Those particular reactors weren't designed to produce weapons grade material but such a reactor wouldn't be too different.

With proper funding (which of course will never happen) we could probably have such an installation up in 15 years.

To detonate a fusion bomb still requires a critical mass, so you cannot really reduce the amount of weapons grade material that has to be launched into space.

Tritium and deutirium are hardly as much of a health threat as weapons grade plutonium.

Hydrogen bombs actually require two fissionable critical masses, so that means at least 2-6 KG per warhead.

Your analysis of fusion bombs is completely wrong. First, a hydrogen bomb requires only one fissionable critical mass to compress the tritium-deutirium pit. Likewise, a fusion boosted fission device requires only a single fission charge. Finally, considering a fusion bomb is on the order of over 2-20X more powerful than a fission device while being not much heavier or larger than fission bombs, and as I already mentioned in a fusion bomb some fissile material is replaced with tritium and deuterium, you have reduced the amount of radioactive weapons grade plutonium.

Then there's neutron bombs detonated in the upper atmosphere to knock out missile guidance systems. They don't need two seperate fission charges.

Pure fusion devices, as their name implies, need no fission charge at all.

and for defensive purposes it makes no sense to go thermo-nuclear anyway, a .1 or .2 kt warhead is more than sufficient.

The purpose of these platforms is to possess the capability of annhilating every single thing in China from space. That's the 'defensive' role I had in mind. Which means multiple KT's at least.

Ejecting it? Sealing it in lead? If their is a failure, the delivery vehicle is going to explode and it is unlikely the material is going to be ejected,

And yet our shuttles have ejectable cockpits do they not? I wonder why that is...

It's called a contingency. Obviously a sudden catastrophic failure will render the ejection option useless, but any failure which would simply prevent the rocket from entering orbit, engine misfire or failure for instance, and thus fall to back Earth would not require that the rocket impact with it's payload still intact.

 

[wade]

You're an interesting cat, Wade. You appear to be concerned about American Security on the surface, yet your dubious conclusions, if set in policy, would be a dismal failure of our national security.

You must not understand my position. If we followed my policies, we'd have used neutron bombs in Afgahistan and Iraq, and Bin-Ladin would be dead and we would not need to be occupying Iraq right now. Other nations would be trying real hard not to even appear to be supporting terrorism in any way. Our position w.r.t. the rest of the world would not be any worse than it now is, and we would have a military capable of acting wherever needed, rather than being completely consumed in occupying just two threat nations. And we would have the finanicial capacity to do a lot more in terms of intelligence and boarder security.

As for the nukes in space issue, I simply don't think we need them to create an effective ABM system. A space based ABM system can be successfully deployed using conventional warheads, it would just require more of them. And we simply have no need for such a system to deliver offensive nukes, land, air, and sea based delivery systems are more than sufficient.

Wade.

 

[wade]

I have not heard about russians having any nukes in space. But honestly, i do not see why would it be difficult to have one. It is just a rocket, but i can be wrong. In the case of hiding it, hm how would we know?

Without a very significant containment vessle, the material itself would stand out like a sore thumb to our satalites and even earthbound sensors. And a containment vessle of sufficient size would be conspicuous in and of itself. For years we were able to track soviet subs by watching their reactors from space - until the soviets realized this and sheilded them from such detection (did they succeed?).

Such a system is not so simple, it must be capable of positioning itself and generating specific momentums very quickly and precisely or it would not be able to deliver the weapons where desired. They would also have to have some kind of stealth or significant ECM and/or self defense capacity, or they are sitting ducks for countermeasures. It would be much much easier to take out a space based nuke plateform when conducting a first strike than to take out hardened silos, especially if those silos involve underground rail systems and multiple launch points.

And they also have to carry pretty signficant missiles, simply gravity dropping means a long time (realtively speaking) between launch and impact, defeating the whole intent of the system. Each warhead or MIRV would have to sit on a missile at least 8-12 feet in length to achieve a delivery time advantage.

Wade.

 

[drac]

Without a very significant containment vessle, the material itself would stand out like a sore thumb to our satalites and even earthbound sensors. And a containment vessle of sufficient size would be conspicuous in and of itself. For years we were able to track soviet subs by watching their reactors from space - until the soviets realized this and sheilded them from such detection (did they succeed?).

Such a system is not so simple, it must be capable of positioning itself and generating specific momentums very quickly and precisely or it would not be able to deliver the weapons where desired. They would also have to have some kind of stealth or significant ECM and/or self defense capacity, or they are sitting ducks for countermeasures. It would be much much easier to take out a space based nuke plateform when conducting a first strike than to take out hardened silos, especially if those silos involve underground rail systems and multiple launch points.

And they also have to carry pretty signficant missiles, simply gravity dropping means a long time (realtively speaking) between launch and impact, defeating the whole intent of the system. Each warhead or MIRV would have to sit on a missile at least 8-12 feet in length to achieve a delivery time advantage.

Wade.

ok i do not know much about nuke, so what you posted sounds very reasonable. I would just assume, that if one have a small space station, one might have couple missile attached to it armed with nukes, does not have to be a large one. I will check on that matter, thank you for getting my curiosity up.
On the other note. You know they (russian or china) does not need to have nukes up in the space. I would think couple EM armed satelites will be enough to knock down most of our satelites. Without them i would think most of our "smart" weapons will be as dumb as next simple cannon shell. As well as most of the advance communication systems.

 

[drac]

BTW just wanted to mention, Russia and China were together on the idea of de-weaponization of space

 

[HGROKIT]

The Chinese are simultaneously aggressively pursuing space and nuclear programs. No wonder they want to stop us. They know that if they play to the left in this country, the left will insist we stop and that will then give China time to catch up using a lot of the info they obtained during the Clinton administration.

This is just an attempt at a stall tactic by the Chinese.

The Chinese and Koreans are very tough negotiators. If you give an inch, they will try to take a mile. The more you give, the more they want, so we better not fall into their trap.

Let's also not forget about the stuff that has been "disappearing" out of Los Alamos.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

You must not understand my position. If we followed my policies, we'd have used neutron bombs in Afgahistan and Iraq, and Bin-Ladin would be dead and we would not need to be occupying Iraq right now. Other nations would be trying real hard not to even appear to be supporting terrorism in any way. Our position w.r.t. the rest of the world would not be any worse than it now is, and we would have a military capable of acting wherever needed, rather than being completely consumed in occupying just two threat nations. And we would have the finanicial capacity to do a lot more in terms of intelligence and boarder security.

As for the nukes in space issue, I simply don't think we need them to create an effective ABM system. A space based ABM system can be successfully deployed using conventional warheads, it would just require more of them. And we simply have no need for such a system to deliver offensive nukes, land, air, and sea based delivery systems are more than sufficient.

Wade.

We do have need.

 

[MrMarbles]

Weapons in space is a very backward concept. The only country in the world that can challenge the US is China, and they are becoming more democratizes and central in policies everyday. Weapons in space is only going to create an arms race and revert the world back to a cold war scenario, ya for progress!

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Weapons in space is a very backward concept. The only country in the world that can challenge the US is China, and they are becoming more democratizes and central in policies everyday. Weapons in space is only going to create an arms race and revert the world back to a cold war scenario, ya for progress!

Actually. china has become the textbook definition of a fascist state, with no clear line whatsoever between government and business, and the government subsidizing any industry it wants to secure world domination, and prisoners being used as slave labor for private industry, yeah for progress. This is why capitalism must come with a constitution and bill of rights.

Weapons in space a backward concept? It seems advanced to me. Did the muslims invent weapons in space along with the concept of zero?

 

[CSM]

Iran has been trying to develop an ICBM capability for some time now. They also have been trying to buy/develop satellite technology. China, Russia, and North Korea are busy helping out.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/missile/iris.htm

 

[CSM]

More:

Tel Aviv Haaretz
August 31, 2004

Media Reports From Tehran: Latest Iranian Missile Has Upgraded Warhead

By Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz Correspondent

The warhead of the Iranian Shihab-3 missile has been considerably upgraded, according to photographs published in Iranian newspapers of test launches three weeks ago.

It is believed that the improvements will permit slower entry into the atmosphere so the warhead, which may be chemical in nature, will be more durable and its contents will be better protected. It is also believed that the missile's range has been extended.

The operational and technological conclusions from the changes in the missile indicate that the Iranians are not resting on their laurels in developing their surface-to-surface missiles, and have shown a daring approach to their technological planning.

Overseas assistance

It is very likely that the Iranians are being assisted by foreign experts from the former Soviet Union hired by Iran under personal contracts, or by experts from North Korea.

It is also likely that the Iranian effort is not limited to the Shihab-3, which has a range of about 1,300 kilometers, but also to the Shihab 4, planned with a range of 2,000 kilometers or more.

At present the Shihab-3 can already come within range of Turkey, which is a member of NATO, as well as most Saudi Arabian cities and oil fields. On the last test of the Shihab-3 on August 11, the missile did not pass the maximum trajectory that had been determined for it.

The Iranians gave the experimental launch extensive media coverage, stressing that the test was a response to an Israeli experimental launch of the Arrow missile, which intercepted a Scud missile in the U.S. at the end of July.

It subsequently turned out that the reported success of the Shihab's launch was intended to camouflage a failure in the missile's flight early in the launch.

New details

However the photographs published by the Iranians show several new details. In addition to the new warhead, the missile was fired from an operational vehicle and not from an ordinary surface launcher. In all the other Shihab-3 tests, the warhead was cone-shaped, but this time it has a new, flatter shape and appears to have various short wings.

Experts from various countries are expected to analyze the technological and operational aspects of the new form of the Shihab-3. It is especially interesting to several European countries, which understand that the day is not far when Iranian missiles will be within range of a considerable portion of Europe.

 

[ajwps]

China remains a dichotomy between captalism and communism. In other words, the communist leaders allow a form of capitalism because they need to be able to compete in the world in an arms race and to maintain total control over their masses.

Ayn Rand born in St. Petersburg, Russia said it best.

(paraphrased) 'By its very nature, Communism must collapse under its own weight.'

 

[rtwngAvngr]

China remains a dichotomy between captalism and communism. In other words, the communist leaders allow a form of capitalism because they need to be able to compete in the world in an arms race and to maintain total control over their masses.

Ayn Rand born in St. Petersburg, Russia said it best.

(paraphrased) 'By its very nature, Communism must collapse under its own weight.'

China will not collapse under it's own weight. Like you said it's a unique hybrid. Pure fascism. Thus, we need space based defense, no matter how much you fear christianity.

 

[Zhukov]

It would be much much easier to take out a space based nuke plateform when conducting a first strike than to take out hardened silos, especially if those silos involve underground rail systems and multiple launch points.

I don't think so.

Considering that your typical land based ICBM has a range of around 5500 to 6000 km, and a nuclear platform in space would be at a geosynchronous orbit of roughly 35,000 km above sea level, one would not only require a multiple staged rocket just to get to the platform but that rocket would take between 2 to 5 times longer to reach the platform than a typical land based ICBM would take from launch to impact. The time difference is further exagerrated when comparing an attack against a platform to a submarine based attack against ground targets.

An aggressor country would not be able to take out a space platform by surprise before lauching a theatre wide attack. The launch of the rocket intended to strike the platform would be detected hours before impact, by which time our response would already be re-entering the atmosphere.

Besides, space platforms, probably being fairly expensive, would undoubtedly have a capacity to defend themselves.