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.
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.
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
Thermonuclear bombs… are directed energy weapons now? They’re vastly more energetic. I’ll grant that. But they still bombs. they still detonate in an explosion. lets just lump neutron bombs into here as well. Oh, and by the way, most H-bombs are initiated by a fission device that then triggers fusion of deuterium or tritium;
Further, the Starfish Prime test which I’ve already linked above was a W49 Thermonuclear bomb. (Specifically modified from a Mk 28 Y1 warhead to fit onto a Thor ballistic missile.) So it’s patently ridiculous to say I’m ignoring h-bombs.
it’s also patently ridiculous to say I’m ignoring your singular source (which is a science fiction YTer), while outright dimissing and ignoring my own sources provided. Granted, it’s mostly wikipedia. I like wikipedia as a high-level starting point. The pages are all very well sourced themselves, if you’re curious.
says the guy whose sole source is a scifi YouTuber, and who doesn’t even recognize the distinction between a directed energy weapon (aka a laser, among a few other things) and thermonuclear warhead. Please, continue being insulting. It’s okay, I can ignore you.
I’m not stupid enough to link classified sources. You want real sources? Cool. Find civilian sources on how to make nuclear weapons. You won’t.
Dude. We learned the basics in highschool physics. There’s been enough leaks that the public has enough knowledge to piece it together.
It’s not the knowledge that’s hard, it’s the getting the materials without attracting attention.
Even then, things like the effects of exoatmospheric nukes aren’t classified. It’s kind of hard to classify something that affected Honolulu from past its horizon (Starfish Prime was about 9 deg. Above Hawaii’s horizon; and posed a massive interference in the electrical and communications grid,)
You can’t hide in space. And you really can’t hide a nuke detonating.
Removed by mod
You can’t point to a video you admit yourself is science fiction then say somebody knows nothing. Removed under rule 5:
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (perjorative, perjorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (perjorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!