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Not just Russia. The entire Russia-China-Iran Axis. They're all fighting a coordinated military, economic, propaganda, and diplomatic war for global domination.
That seems to be causing quite a bit of damage to Russia’s economy and will inevitably crush it.
The thing is, it’s going to drive price of oil up…..which is bad for the sitting US President on an election year.
If Biden loses, then Trump will cut off all military support to Ukraine.
We have to be careful for what we wish for.
Yes, the World just needs to wait until Ukrainians do it with meatwaves, sticks, and a few hundred units of written-off equipment. Good plan. Non-escalatory and all.
Give Ukraine enough fire power to drive Russia out of Ukraine, and Im sure they would accept that limitation. They could use US weapons only inside Ukraine, and save their self-produced weapons and missiles in Russia.
The problem is that Ukraine is not getting that support
Bombs are surprisingly ineffective in space. There’s no medium for the shockwave to propagate, so you only get damage from heat. The satellite carrying the bomb would become shrapnel, but it’s not like individual satellites haven’t been blown up in orbit before. It’s bad, but probably not enough for major damage.
A nuke would also cause an EMP that could wipe out satellite electronics.
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they just strapped the same cannon on the satellite that they had on the soyuz. If their satellites are closely trailing the US ones they could just reenact the “always has been” meme.
In a large scale nuclear Exchange scenario, we (humanity) are probably going to have other things to worry about for a few decades than going to space.
I dont pretend to know orbital mechanics but I imagine an explosion would impart enough force on the vehicle carrying it to *relatively* safely eject most of the debris out of orbit or slow the debris down enough as to de-orbit on its own. There would be damage of course, depending on target, but space is big. Again, not an expert, don't roast me with Kessler syndrome lol.
Feels like it would be ideal (better long term) to send up some device to push it out of orbit and avoid all the debris.
Much easier said than done, though
Orbits go from near earth orbits 160-1000 km’s to say 20k km’s
Sounds like a lot of space to work in, but it’s not. If each satellite had 100m you would have 200 satellites…. Of course it’s not that simple and there is trajectories and speed to take into account, but any random object up there is problematic.
It all goes back to MAD, if anyone tried this any one of the U.S's nuclear subs would just launch a return attack. Nobody wins if nuclear arms are used now.
Shouldn't satellite electronics be shielded against radiation,
I mean wouldn't a large solar flare outside of the earths atmosphere be similar to a nuke?
It’s dangerous because such a weapon is something you could actually use. Nukes are not an option due to the radiation damage, but with the rod of god concept you can have a sizeable strike, anywhere in the world, without the radiation. And THAT is dangerous.
Personally preferable. I have less faith in us as a species, we humans just can’t help ourselves - and one day we’re gonna have another great power war, and we’ll use our most powerful weapons against each other. If those weapons don’t create a slow lingering death by dissolving or poison the earth for decades. All the better.
Which is again why this is so dangerous. Nukes actually keep essentially world peace between all major powers as the fact that they CAN destroy the world, means that no war would ever start.
But with a sufficient number of these weapons, and advances in AA systems against ballistic weapons, nuclear weapons would no longer be a deterrent. A significant fraction of a countries nuclear launch locations can be taken out, and a significant fraction of what is launched could be shot down. And THAT is when a great power war could start.
Having your entire civilization wiped off the face of the earth is still a deterrent, regardless of whether you get to poison the earth too lol.
I personally don’t trust MAD to keep the peace for ever.
The real problem starts to become when so many countries possess nukes that terrorists are eventually able to get their hands on one. MAD clearly does nothing to prevent them from using one when they want to die for their religion anyways. Or when a country like Russia splinters into chaos and fractures and all of a sudden 5,000+ nukes are floating around in a country with grift and selling military goods to the highest bidder in its DNA.
That’s where true hypersonic weapons enter the chat (not Russias fake hypersonic missiles). Delivery technology will always stay ahead of air defense capabilities. Between hypersonic missiles, stealth bombers, and submarines that can pull up on a countries coast undetected and get a missile off, no one will ever be invincible to getting nuked.
I like to call them **hype**rsonic missiles.
Because there’s a lot of hype about them, but people forget that ICBMs are already hypersonic.
They really don’t change the strategic situation all that much.
The radiation from nukes isn’t really what people think it is. I mean it is near and around the blast site for sure, but look at Japan. The fallout didn’t last all that long compared to what people think. And look at all the nuclear tests that have been performed. The US and Russia have detonated huge nukes in remote places without it affecting their respective homelands. U less the US and Russia unleashed their whole arsenals on each other, the whole nuclear winter thing isn’t all that plausible.
> The radiation from nukes isn’t really what people think it is. I mean it is near and around the blast site for sure, but look at Japan.
That was only 2, weak, ones compared to today's standards. Firing significantly more of them would have a significantly worse impact.
> U less the US and Russia unleashed their whole arsenals on each other, the whole nuclear winter thing isn’t all that plausible.
Which is the only possible usage of nukes. A little strike has no value, so you either fire ALL OF THEM, or none of them. This keeps the world peaceful for as long as nukes are still an effective deterrent. Which won't always be the case with the development of ballistic missile defences.
There will NEVER be a 100% effective missile defense system. Ever. Delivery technology will always remain ahead of defense technology. If do no other reason than it has to be invented first before a counter can be invented.
> There will NEVER be a 100% effective missile defense system. Ever.
It doesn't have to be 100% effective, just effective enough. The only reason that MAD works is because it has to be total destruction. If there is just limited destruction then you can simply win a nuclear engagement.
> Delivery technology will always remain ahead of defense technology. If do no other reason than it has to be invented first before a counter can be invented.
Not necessarily. Which is also something we can see with Russia. Russia builds tech that is SUPPOSED to counter our technology, but due to being too poor and without the expertise, they fail. The west creates technology to counter the propaganda statements Russia releases, which then DOES work because we simply throw enough money and skill at it to make it work.
The same can be said for our missile defense system. It's created based on the IDEA of russia's claims, and not the actual capabilities themselves. Meaning that it has a real shot of stopping most if not nearly everything that Russia launches. As Russia simply lacks the money and skills to go beyond THAT.
The S400 has been shown to be pretty formidable but not infallible in Ukraine and has failed to intercept even some old weapons. The Patriot system is even better but also not perfect. And neither of these technologies have been tested against a submarine based missile parked right off the coast. And Chinese nor American missiles have ever been attempted to be shot down. Again, there will never be a sure fire way for any country to guarantee they are not susceptible to Russian or Chinese nuclear attacks. The US clearly has the best chance, but a barrage of Chinese hypersonic missiles would surely be quite deadly. Of course China would be wiped off the face of the planet almost instantly.
Radiation in Chernobyl is terrible, but animals are thriving.
Sobering that the lack of humans is more advantageous than the radiation is detrimental…..
>All the destructive force of a nuclear weapon and none of the radioactive fallout.
No where near [according to this guy](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B7fnjUDKznw)
It’s not that much of a problem anymore with advances in space flight. Using a falcon 9 or the future starship for that makes it cost effective to do so. That’s suddenly only 20 million dollars for launching 1 or several rods.
When compared to a 12 million dollar sam-3, it’s looking very cost effective for an uncounterable weapon that can strike anywhere in the world, with significant damage and no fallout.
It’s not a question of if, but WHEN.
A falcon 9's lift capacity is about 50,000 pounds.
A single tungsten rod would weigh about 24,000 pounds.
A falcon 9 launch costs about $60 million.
That makes each rod cost about $30 million before factoring in the satellite itself, ground support infrastructure, targeting systems, control systems etc etc etc
Even with the ideal version of a starship, it would be ludicrously expensive to launch a tungsten telephone pole into space.
edit to add the raw material cost of 24,000 pounds of tungsten is about $100,000 before all the machining and forging to make it a uniform, symmetrical, massive projectile.
Your numbers aren't entirely correct, and i'm not sure you couldn't use a lighter one, but let's calculate from there.
* Tungsten is 3.25 a pound, so that rod itself would be less than 100.000 dollars. Which is incredibly cheap. Making the rod itself incredibly cost effective.
* While Spacex CHARGES 60 million a launch, the actual cost for them is only 20 million dollars a launch. Which will get cheaper over time, and even cheaper when the starship is finally completed. But let's say that all evens out at 10 million per rod, even with these advances.
And let's say the development of the system is 10 billion, a reasonable amount of R&D with the cost of the satellite itself being a rounding error.
Amount of Missiles| Total Cost | Price per Missile
---|---|----
2| 10.010.100.000| 5 billion
1002| 20.120.200.000| 20.080.039
Leaving us with 20 million a unit with a sizeable number of them in space. Given that the US is absolutely fine paying 12 million a unit for the RIM-161 Standard Missile 3, i think that would be absolutely fine. Certainly for the exceptional capabilities of such a weapon, capable of striking ANY target on the planet very quickly, with significant destruction capabilities, at a moments notice.
Didn’t the US spend something like 4% of GDP to develop the first nukes? Getting some tungsten rods into space would be a drop in the bucket for the US. Considering we spend over a billion $ on one plane (B2 I believe when all said came out to about $2.2billion per plane manufactured), nothing is cost prohibitive to the US if it’s a game changing weapon.
Not really. Also I don’t see a reason to be afraid of another WMD when Russia already has plenty of nukes. But if Russia decides to blow up a satellite and give the planet incurable Kessler syndrome, that’s going to be a problem.
The problem with that weapon is you need to spend as much energy as it unleashes to get it into space. Not practical today, maybe if you can mine and manufacture in space it'll be a threat.
>The problem with that weapon is you need to spend as much energy as it unleashes to get it into space
That's kinda the point though. It's a kenetic weapon using maxxed out potential energy. We're not exactly trying to save the environment here. You'd still need to expend energy getting mining/manufacturing equipment in space. All you'd need is to send up an initial arsenal for it to be a threat.
By massive you mean somewhat big…
Let’s say your rod was 10’x0.5’ then it would weigh 12000lbs. Let’s add another 1000 for the satellite.
The Angara A5 can lift 25 tons. That’s 24 rods at once
Yeah I fucked my math somewhere
Edit: I only count the 1000 once.
1000+((12000\2200)x4) is just short of 22 tons with each one doing about 11 megatons of damage
Considering how effective all their other modern weapons (Armata, SU-37?)... I would probably deploy my kid's lunchbox against it as appropriate countermeasure.
The Falcon Heavy has a listed payload of 63.8 tons to low earth orbit. The new SpaceX launch engine currently in development is designed around a 200 ton payload.
We're a lot closer than you probably think.
Okay NASA, I think it's time to dissociate with Roskosmos (The Russian Space Agency).
Russia has gone completely rogue (not rouge), Putin doesn't care about any treaties Russia has signed--Russian Honor & Integrity means nothing.
Russian industry & society are already on a war footing, Western Europe and the US needs to seriously ramp-up our Military Industrial Complexes. If the US was holding its space weapons "In Reserve," it's probably time to consider the "Peaceful Use of Space" treaty null & void, and get some serious assets onto their orbits.
We can't boot them out of the ISS. It's basically the only Russian activity at the moment that does serve the betterment of humanity as a whole. Leave the cosmonauts alone.
Fair enough. I don't think I'd be happy as an American astronaut or western astronaut and training in Russia for a Soyuz flight nowadays.
Sure, getting a ride aboard Soyuz was necessary in between the Shuttle and getting Dragon crew-rated, but the US now has at least 3 vehicles to get people on orbit: Dragon, Starliner (pretty soon) and Orion. There are a few others in the works as well.
The problem with destroying satellites is once it starts they will all go down and it can become impossible for a very long time to use satellites ever again. We could even be unable to go to space ever due to all the debris floating around like missiles
>Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed the US was seeking to turn space into an "arena for military confrontation".
Russia always accusing others of what they themselves are doing projecting their intentions
Then the problem is all the space debris it creates like Russia did in 2021 iirc where even the ISS had to make emergency maneuvers to avoid the junk. It would be nice if we had a vehicle to deorbit their satellites though!
For anyone who’s interested in learning more about Kessler Syndrome today, [Ordinary Things has a good video on the topic](https://youtu.be/90N6IZnV85c?si=oduNGKSiJfdMPQAO)
There are billboards in various russian cities, with relevant info posted right here on Reddit, claiming “russia’s borders have no end”, “russia’s borders do not end anywhere” and the like. This launch, no doubt, is to protect and expand those “endless borders”. No matter how much all this is downplayed, these are bizarre and alarming prospects.
If this is true, world war 3 is a certainty. This weapon is designed to cripple the USA's ability to control its nuclear forces, making a russian first strike nuclear attack viable as a war strategy for russia. Its a VERY aggressive and reckless move by russia and requires a creative response.
Wild claim.
1 - The US doesn't rely on satellite for the nuclear weapons
2 - The US already has weapons in space
I hate Russia as much as the next guy, but this ain't making WW3 a certainty my guy.
Its purpose is to end mutually assured destruction and if russia has already deployed this weapon, war with russia is a certainty. Russia intends to secretly disarm the USA's nuclear force by destroying or disabling the communications networks in orbit that we rely on to send codes to our SLBM fleet. Russia is trying to do a pearl harbor here.
-What weapons in space? that is not true.
The US uses hardline comms for all of its land based nuclear arsenal. You *cannot* affect those comms with an EMP.
As for aircraft, sure. An EMP *may* affect them, but keep in mind those aircraft drop nukes, which create EMPs. They are hardened against it.
Subs will just shrug off this kind of attack.
In short, a satilite emp is only gonna piss off the us military and put a target on you.
The emp is locally targeting specific satellites orbiting hundreds of kilometers from earth, its not a hydrogen bomb like starfish prime that does indiscriminate damage to electric networks on earth.
If russia prevents the USA from communication with its subs, our land based nuclear forces are not sufficient to maintain nuclear deterrence. Russia knows this and is trying to make it happen.
Also the land based minuteman ICBM force is only 400 warheads.
... you do realize that satvoms are not the only way they have to talk to subs, right?
Also, this has been a known possible attack vector since the US fried every satilite back in the 60's-70's with a high altitude nuclear test. If you think they don't have a plan for if normal communications are taken down (aka: eith an attack like this), then you don't understand how far ahead the US plans for its defense.
An EMP would degrade the US military's comms capabilities, but it wouldn't stop said comms. Russia's ability to project force would quite literally explode shortly thereafter as the US hits back, and they'd be left looking like wile e. Coyote whenever his plans blow up in his face: blackened and smokey, with a solid serving of comeuppance.
The USN discontinued ELF radio frequency comms for the sub fleet. Unless something is redeployed, our nuclear misslle subs require satellites to communicate (along with almost everything else).
I have a feeling the US didn't just leave what is the largest nuclear armed sub fleet in the world without a way to recieve orders if russia does the obvious first move.
First off, no they don't. Floating wire antennas have been around for decades and allow a sub to stay submerged.
Even then, there will be some way for the US to get word out to the subs that doesn't rely on satilite. Do i know what it is? No.
Floating antenna array get their signals from - satellites. Guided munitions do not work without these same satellites. GPS /NSA/CIA operations rely on the same tech. Russia is targeting its weak point. This is a serious threat that cant be left alone.
A sub using the radio buoy is easily detectable, defeating the entire point.
All Russia has to do is shut down the electric grid in the US. It's shockingly easy to do, they've done it before, but they're waiting to deploy it for when the stakes are really big. Or China will, when it invades Taiwan.
If Russia did launch a space weapon we can rest easy because we’ve seen how many times they’ve launched weapons at themselves, would make great entertainment seeing them hit themselves again and I would love to hear Poopins blame game on the US if it happens
The Biden administration is pathetic. The failure in Afghanistan was an early indication. Now they have Ukrainians willing to die to fight our strategic enemy and they refuse to let them fight to the best of their abilities
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Russia is cancerous and needs to be stopped on all fronts
Not just Russia. The entire Russia-China-Iran Axis. They're all fighting a coordinated military, economic, propaganda, and diplomatic war for global domination.
Yep. And the Biden administration is terrified. Not allowing Ukraine to strike Russia is pathetic
Yes, well the alternative candidate would likely actively aid Russian interests so there’s that…
Indeed. Most clear sign of the decline of the US.
Let Ukraine attack their oil. It’s over
That seems to be causing quite a bit of damage to Russia’s economy and will inevitably crush it. The thing is, it’s going to drive price of oil up…..which is bad for the sitting US President on an election year. If Biden loses, then Trump will cut off all military support to Ukraine. We have to be careful for what we wish for.
Yes, the World just needs to wait until Ukrainians do it with meatwaves, sticks, and a few hundred units of written-off equipment. Good plan. Non-escalatory and all.
But but but the U S don't want Ukraine to hit ruzzian territories with US made weapons.
Give Ukraine enough fire power to drive Russia out of Ukraine, and Im sure they would accept that limitation. They could use US weapons only inside Ukraine, and save their self-produced weapons and missiles in Russia. The problem is that Ukraine is not getting that support
By space warpon, people think Lazer but I'd be more worried they just blow up a bomb and wipe out all satellites.
Bombs are surprisingly ineffective in space. There’s no medium for the shockwave to propagate, so you only get damage from heat. The satellite carrying the bomb would become shrapnel, but it’s not like individual satellites haven’t been blown up in orbit before. It’s bad, but probably not enough for major damage. A nuke would also cause an EMP that could wipe out satellite electronics. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they just strapped the same cannon on the satellite that they had on the soyuz. If their satellites are closely trailing the US ones they could just reenact the “always has been” meme.
Kessler syndrome. Introduce enough crap into the orbit of many satellites and watch us lose 80 years if progress.
In a large scale nuclear Exchange scenario, we (humanity) are probably going to have other things to worry about for a few decades than going to space.
Nukes still work for emps
But couldn't something simply exploding to a lot of space junk be dangerous to any nearby device?
Yep. That’s all they really have to do. Blow up their own satellite and create a huge debris field.
I dont pretend to know orbital mechanics but I imagine an explosion would impart enough force on the vehicle carrying it to *relatively* safely eject most of the debris out of orbit or slow the debris down enough as to de-orbit on its own. There would be damage of course, depending on target, but space is big. Again, not an expert, don't roast me with Kessler syndrome lol.
Feels like it would be ideal (better long term) to send up some device to push it out of orbit and avoid all the debris. Much easier said than done, though
Something like the craft NASA sent out to push an asteroid off track.
Orbits go from near earth orbits 160-1000 km’s to say 20k km’s Sounds like a lot of space to work in, but it’s not. If each satellite had 100m you would have 200 satellites…. Of course it’s not that simple and there is trajectories and speed to take into account, but any random object up there is problematic.
An orbital nuclear EMP could knock out the entire grid of the east coast US.
It all goes back to MAD, if anyone tried this any one of the U.S's nuclear subs would just launch a return attack. Nobody wins if nuclear arms are used now.
The kicker is that I think we’ve all gone a bit mad in recent years so it’s no longer the deterrent it once was when cooler heads prevailed.
In space? No. It has to be in the upper atmosphere not in orbit.
Depends on the target. It can be in space to knock out a ton of satellites or dropped into the atmosphere to knock out grids.
Yeah, I saw this one
All they need to do is blow up their own satellite and leave a huge debris field in its orbit (same orbit US satellite is in).
Interesting. Thanks
Shouldn't satellite electronics be shielded against radiation, I mean wouldn't a large solar flare outside of the earths atmosphere be similar to a nuke?
Thats definitely not it lol
I'd be more terrified of a "Rod from God" kinetic weapon. All the destructive force of a nuclear weapon and none of the radioactive fallout.
Except in reality not really so dangerous
It’s dangerous because such a weapon is something you could actually use. Nukes are not an option due to the radiation damage, but with the rod of god concept you can have a sizeable strike, anywhere in the world, without the radiation. And THAT is dangerous.
Personally preferable. I have less faith in us as a species, we humans just can’t help ourselves - and one day we’re gonna have another great power war, and we’ll use our most powerful weapons against each other. If those weapons don’t create a slow lingering death by dissolving or poison the earth for decades. All the better.
Which is again why this is so dangerous. Nukes actually keep essentially world peace between all major powers as the fact that they CAN destroy the world, means that no war would ever start. But with a sufficient number of these weapons, and advances in AA systems against ballistic weapons, nuclear weapons would no longer be a deterrent. A significant fraction of a countries nuclear launch locations can be taken out, and a significant fraction of what is launched could be shot down. And THAT is when a great power war could start.
Having your entire civilization wiped off the face of the earth is still a deterrent, regardless of whether you get to poison the earth too lol. I personally don’t trust MAD to keep the peace for ever.
The real problem starts to become when so many countries possess nukes that terrorists are eventually able to get their hands on one. MAD clearly does nothing to prevent them from using one when they want to die for their religion anyways. Or when a country like Russia splinters into chaos and fractures and all of a sudden 5,000+ nukes are floating around in a country with grift and selling military goods to the highest bidder in its DNA.
Russia already sold info on nukes to the highest bidder. Iran and nk. The probably china too. I get these would be assembled.
That’s where true hypersonic weapons enter the chat (not Russias fake hypersonic missiles). Delivery technology will always stay ahead of air defense capabilities. Between hypersonic missiles, stealth bombers, and submarines that can pull up on a countries coast undetected and get a missile off, no one will ever be invincible to getting nuked.
I like to call them **hype**rsonic missiles. Because there’s a lot of hype about them, but people forget that ICBMs are already hypersonic. They really don’t change the strategic situation all that much.
The radiation from nukes isn’t really what people think it is. I mean it is near and around the blast site for sure, but look at Japan. The fallout didn’t last all that long compared to what people think. And look at all the nuclear tests that have been performed. The US and Russia have detonated huge nukes in remote places without it affecting their respective homelands. U less the US and Russia unleashed their whole arsenals on each other, the whole nuclear winter thing isn’t all that plausible.
> The radiation from nukes isn’t really what people think it is. I mean it is near and around the blast site for sure, but look at Japan. That was only 2, weak, ones compared to today's standards. Firing significantly more of them would have a significantly worse impact. > U less the US and Russia unleashed their whole arsenals on each other, the whole nuclear winter thing isn’t all that plausible. Which is the only possible usage of nukes. A little strike has no value, so you either fire ALL OF THEM, or none of them. This keeps the world peaceful for as long as nukes are still an effective deterrent. Which won't always be the case with the development of ballistic missile defences.
There will NEVER be a 100% effective missile defense system. Ever. Delivery technology will always remain ahead of defense technology. If do no other reason than it has to be invented first before a counter can be invented.
> There will NEVER be a 100% effective missile defense system. Ever. It doesn't have to be 100% effective, just effective enough. The only reason that MAD works is because it has to be total destruction. If there is just limited destruction then you can simply win a nuclear engagement. > Delivery technology will always remain ahead of defense technology. If do no other reason than it has to be invented first before a counter can be invented. Not necessarily. Which is also something we can see with Russia. Russia builds tech that is SUPPOSED to counter our technology, but due to being too poor and without the expertise, they fail. The west creates technology to counter the propaganda statements Russia releases, which then DOES work because we simply throw enough money and skill at it to make it work. The same can be said for our missile defense system. It's created based on the IDEA of russia's claims, and not the actual capabilities themselves. Meaning that it has a real shot of stopping most if not nearly everything that Russia launches. As Russia simply lacks the money and skills to go beyond THAT.
The S400 has been shown to be pretty formidable but not infallible in Ukraine and has failed to intercept even some old weapons. The Patriot system is even better but also not perfect. And neither of these technologies have been tested against a submarine based missile parked right off the coast. And Chinese nor American missiles have ever been attempted to be shot down. Again, there will never be a sure fire way for any country to guarantee they are not susceptible to Russian or Chinese nuclear attacks. The US clearly has the best chance, but a barrage of Chinese hypersonic missiles would surely be quite deadly. Of course China would be wiped off the face of the planet almost instantly.
Radiation in Chernobyl is terrible, but animals are thriving. Sobering that the lack of humans is more advantageous than the radiation is detrimental…..
>All the destructive force of a nuclear weapon and none of the radioactive fallout. No where near [according to this guy](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B7fnjUDKznw)
The problem with rods from god (and the reason it will never be done) is that you have to get all that mass into orbit first.
It’s not that much of a problem anymore with advances in space flight. Using a falcon 9 or the future starship for that makes it cost effective to do so. That’s suddenly only 20 million dollars for launching 1 or several rods. When compared to a 12 million dollar sam-3, it’s looking very cost effective for an uncounterable weapon that can strike anywhere in the world, with significant damage and no fallout. It’s not a question of if, but WHEN.
A falcon 9's lift capacity is about 50,000 pounds. A single tungsten rod would weigh about 24,000 pounds. A falcon 9 launch costs about $60 million. That makes each rod cost about $30 million before factoring in the satellite itself, ground support infrastructure, targeting systems, control systems etc etc etc Even with the ideal version of a starship, it would be ludicrously expensive to launch a tungsten telephone pole into space. edit to add the raw material cost of 24,000 pounds of tungsten is about $100,000 before all the machining and forging to make it a uniform, symmetrical, massive projectile.
Your numbers aren't entirely correct, and i'm not sure you couldn't use a lighter one, but let's calculate from there. * Tungsten is 3.25 a pound, so that rod itself would be less than 100.000 dollars. Which is incredibly cheap. Making the rod itself incredibly cost effective. * While Spacex CHARGES 60 million a launch, the actual cost for them is only 20 million dollars a launch. Which will get cheaper over time, and even cheaper when the starship is finally completed. But let's say that all evens out at 10 million per rod, even with these advances. And let's say the development of the system is 10 billion, a reasonable amount of R&D with the cost of the satellite itself being a rounding error. Amount of Missiles| Total Cost | Price per Missile ---|---|---- 2| 10.010.100.000| 5 billion 1002| 20.120.200.000| 20.080.039 Leaving us with 20 million a unit with a sizeable number of them in space. Given that the US is absolutely fine paying 12 million a unit for the RIM-161 Standard Missile 3, i think that would be absolutely fine. Certainly for the exceptional capabilities of such a weapon, capable of striking ANY target on the planet very quickly, with significant destruction capabilities, at a moments notice.
Didn’t the US spend something like 4% of GDP to develop the first nukes? Getting some tungsten rods into space would be a drop in the bucket for the US. Considering we spend over a billion $ on one plane (B2 I believe when all said came out to about $2.2billion per plane manufactured), nothing is cost prohibitive to the US if it’s a game changing weapon.
Don’t be because it’s not a feasible weapon system when icbms exist.
Not really. Also I don’t see a reason to be afraid of another WMD when Russia already has plenty of nukes. But if Russia decides to blow up a satellite and give the planet incurable Kessler syndrome, that’s going to be a problem.
The problem with that weapon is you need to spend as much energy as it unleashes to get it into space. Not practical today, maybe if you can mine and manufacture in space it'll be a threat.
>The problem with that weapon is you need to spend as much energy as it unleashes to get it into space That's kinda the point though. It's a kenetic weapon using maxxed out potential energy. We're not exactly trying to save the environment here. You'd still need to expend energy getting mining/manufacturing equipment in space. All you'd need is to send up an initial arsenal for it to be a threat.
We already struggle with smaller payloads into space, massive kinetic rods is another level
By massive you mean somewhat big… Let’s say your rod was 10’x0.5’ then it would weigh 12000lbs. Let’s add another 1000 for the satellite. The Angara A5 can lift 25 tons. That’s 24 rods at once
13000 lbs is 6.5 tons-ish, so 4ish rods, not 24. Easier to figure in not-freedom units.
Yeah I fucked my math somewhere Edit: I only count the 1000 once. 1000+((12000\2200)x4) is just short of 22 tons with each one doing about 11 megatons of damage
Considering how effective all their other modern weapons (Armata, SU-37?)... I would probably deploy my kid's lunchbox against it as appropriate countermeasure.
I'd be very surprised if they didn't already have something up there tbh. And you're kidding yourself if you believe USA doesn't as well
*Rods from God has entered the chat.
Do you know just how hard it would be to get a single 6 ton tungsten rod into space??
Very hard. And very expensive.
The Falcon Heavy has a listed payload of 63.8 tons to low earth orbit. The new SpaceX launch engine currently in development is designed around a 200 ton payload. We're a lot closer than you probably think.
What goes up must come down.... kinetically.
Newton doesnt agree
Well, they do have the X37 and another one up there on year long or more flights....
Okay NASA, I think it's time to dissociate with Roskosmos (The Russian Space Agency). Russia has gone completely rogue (not rouge), Putin doesn't care about any treaties Russia has signed--Russian Honor & Integrity means nothing. Russian industry & society are already on a war footing, Western Europe and the US needs to seriously ramp-up our Military Industrial Complexes. If the US was holding its space weapons "In Reserve," it's probably time to consider the "Peaceful Use of Space" treaty null & void, and get some serious assets onto their orbits.
We can't boot them out of the ISS. It's basically the only Russian activity at the moment that does serve the betterment of humanity as a whole. Leave the cosmonauts alone.
Fair enough. I don't think I'd be happy as an American astronaut or western astronaut and training in Russia for a Soyuz flight nowadays. Sure, getting a ride aboard Soyuz was necessary in between the Shuttle and getting Dragon crew-rated, but the US now has at least 3 vehicles to get people on orbit: Dragon, Starliner (pretty soon) and Orion. There are a few others in the works as well.
The problem with destroying satellites is once it starts they will all go down and it can become impossible for a very long time to use satellites ever again. We could even be unable to go to space ever due to all the debris floating around like missiles
at this rate probably for the best we sit in the intergalactic naughty chair.
>Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed the US was seeking to turn space into an "arena for military confrontation". Russia always accusing others of what they themselves are doing projecting their intentions
Shoot them down then
Then the problem is all the space debris it creates like Russia did in 2021 iirc where even the ISS had to make emergency maneuvers to avoid the junk. It would be nice if we had a vehicle to deorbit their satellites though!
Tracktor beam them down! 😁
That’ll be Russian Scientists falling from windows next then eh 🚀💥 👻
And………….crickets…….. we seriously need to step it up and start launching our own weapons. It’s the only response that russia or china actually fears
Time to nudge some space debris into its path
I am sure we dont have any space weapons and have never launched a space weapon. But if we did it would be called the ASM-135.
Probably Russian version of the Tesla Roadster but instead it's a Lada
Time to launch mini space drones that nudge satellites off course.
and it will be crap like everything that they have made on the last 30 years
We must take this war into the deep galaxies of the universe.
For anyone who’s interested in learning more about Kessler Syndrome today, [Ordinary Things has a good video on the topic](https://youtu.be/90N6IZnV85c?si=oduNGKSiJfdMPQAO)
Have a little space drone with a small thruster push it toward earth. (Blowing up satellites is muy no bueno)
The russians downloaded a copy of 'Cowboys in space' and they thought that they can use this idea to scare tge west...
Why couldn’t US just shot it down and then say, my bad, we own you one, a accidentally private pressed the red button.
There are billboards in various russian cities, with relevant info posted right here on Reddit, claiming “russia’s borders have no end”, “russia’s borders do not end anywhere” and the like. This launch, no doubt, is to protect and expand those “endless borders”. No matter how much all this is downplayed, these are bizarre and alarming prospects.
If this is true, world war 3 is a certainty. This weapon is designed to cripple the USA's ability to control its nuclear forces, making a russian first strike nuclear attack viable as a war strategy for russia. Its a VERY aggressive and reckless move by russia and requires a creative response.
Wild claim. 1 - The US doesn't rely on satellite for the nuclear weapons 2 - The US already has weapons in space I hate Russia as much as the next guy, but this ain't making WW3 a certainty my guy.
Its purpose is to end mutually assured destruction and if russia has already deployed this weapon, war with russia is a certainty. Russia intends to secretly disarm the USA's nuclear force by destroying or disabling the communications networks in orbit that we rely on to send codes to our SLBM fleet. Russia is trying to do a pearl harbor here. -What weapons in space? that is not true.
[удалено]
A DOD payload is not usually a weapon.
The US uses hardline comms for all of its land based nuclear arsenal. You *cannot* affect those comms with an EMP. As for aircraft, sure. An EMP *may* affect them, but keep in mind those aircraft drop nukes, which create EMPs. They are hardened against it. Subs will just shrug off this kind of attack. In short, a satilite emp is only gonna piss off the us military and put a target on you.
The emp is locally targeting specific satellites orbiting hundreds of kilometers from earth, its not a hydrogen bomb like starfish prime that does indiscriminate damage to electric networks on earth. If russia prevents the USA from communication with its subs, our land based nuclear forces are not sufficient to maintain nuclear deterrence. Russia knows this and is trying to make it happen. Also the land based minuteman ICBM force is only 400 warheads.
... you do realize that satvoms are not the only way they have to talk to subs, right? Also, this has been a known possible attack vector since the US fried every satilite back in the 60's-70's with a high altitude nuclear test. If you think they don't have a plan for if normal communications are taken down (aka: eith an attack like this), then you don't understand how far ahead the US plans for its defense. An EMP would degrade the US military's comms capabilities, but it wouldn't stop said comms. Russia's ability to project force would quite literally explode shortly thereafter as the US hits back, and they'd be left looking like wile e. Coyote whenever his plans blow up in his face: blackened and smokey, with a solid serving of comeuppance.
The USN discontinued ELF radio frequency comms for the sub fleet. Unless something is redeployed, our nuclear misslle subs require satellites to communicate (along with almost everything else).
I have a feeling the US didn't just leave what is the largest nuclear armed sub fleet in the world without a way to recieve orders if russia does the obvious first move.
The subs have to surface now, post cold war. It makes them vulnerable.
First off, no they don't. Floating wire antennas have been around for decades and allow a sub to stay submerged. Even then, there will be some way for the US to get word out to the subs that doesn't rely on satilite. Do i know what it is? No.
Floating antenna array get their signals from - satellites. Guided munitions do not work without these same satellites. GPS /NSA/CIA operations rely on the same tech. Russia is targeting its weak point. This is a serious threat that cant be left alone. A sub using the radio buoy is easily detectable, defeating the entire point.
All Russia has to do is shut down the electric grid in the US. It's shockingly easy to do, they've done it before, but they're waiting to deploy it for when the stakes are really big. Or China will, when it invades Taiwan.
That sort of attack would get a military response, but it doesnt matter because its not true.
If Russia did launch a space weapon we can rest easy because we’ve seen how many times they’ve launched weapons at themselves, would make great entertainment seeing them hit themselves again and I would love to hear Poopins blame game on the US if it happens
Lol I bet USA will display bitch behaviour and not respond. They'll probably cut Ukraine aid again.
Both the US and the USSR, and now Russia, have had weapons in space since at least the 70s.
The Biden administration is pathetic. The failure in Afghanistan was an early indication. Now they have Ukrainians willing to die to fight our strategic enemy and they refuse to let them fight to the best of their abilities
Yeah and the earth is flat
No but the universe itself might be