Any Space based Weapon Systems Out There?

Mark Conley

Mark Conley

Active member
It seems to me that that a General once said you need to hold the high ground to win battles. Well the highest ground i know of is space, or rather the orbit area around the earth. Sounds like a good idea: but I almost never hear of anyone that is putting any type of space based weapon system in orbit.

Is there a reason why? Even if there is a treaty, there must still be some sort of wiggle room in it to exploit.

anyone care to shed some light on this? :D
 
The Outer Space Treaty bans nuclear weapons in space and on celestial bodies. Other than that, there isn't much. ASATs are OK, as are anti-ballistic defenses. The Soviets were planning to deploy some armed manned space stations in the '70s, equipped with 37mm automatic cannon and anti-satellite rockets, but in the event they left the ASAT mission to ground-based missiles.
 
Another thing: the Outer Space Treaty also calls for consultations in the event any state feels other countries are doing something that might impede peaceful uses of space, which is an injunction against weaponizing space, a weak one, but nevertheless.

Generally speaking, there are strong lobbies in the US and most other countries against putting weapons in space, not the least of them being all the industries that heavily rely on space communications. Once countries start putting up battlesats and plinking at satellites, civilian or otherwise, the cost of access to space would go immensely due to the higher insurance costs. There are also issues of debris polluting orbits and destroying satellites. It's doubtful even the US would be able to protect civilian satellites against ground-based ASATs and, eventually, ground-based lasers.
 
I think the US was testing a space based defense system at one point. It was designed to shoot down ICBM's in space by throwing out mini missles to blow them up over the atmosphere. It's a bit foggy to my brain, but I think I saw it on PBS(Nova).
 
Silent Driller, yes, it was the Star Wars Missile Defense System that was invisioned during the Cold War.

The idea was that a series of orbital satellites could detect, track, lockon, and use a laser to destroy the guidance of a Soviet ICBM with nuclear payload. However, the idea never really took off because of expense, but the principle is the same behind some IR Jamming systems, shoot a laser into the missile's 'eye' to blind it and it'll go haywire.

Star Wars was revisited by the Bush Administration after the 9/11 attacks as a way of bolstering the US anti-missile defense system. However, it was impractical because of preexisting treaties and expense.
 
cPFC/SAJROTC said:
Star Wars was revisited by the Bush Administration after the 9/11 attacks as a way of bolstering the US anti-missile defense system.
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I never understood that, the terrorists don't have missiles, do they? So what does this prodject have to do with 9/11?
 
probably the old scenario...terrorist takes over missile silo control complex...makes demands...shoots missiles.

that how i see the terrorist tie-in...anything for an excuse to get it going again :D
 
I recently read in popular science about a whole new age of "death star" type sattalites.
 
LeEnfield said:
Nobody knows just what is out there in space on some of these satellites.
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Yeah, that's the truth. The American space agency (I really don't know it's name and I think it's a part of the air force) is very very secrative about what they do. Now, obviously America has a lot of spy satelites up there, that we know. But it would seem logical that if we like satelites as much as we do, we would have the capability to destroy other people's satelites so that they can't enjoy the same bennefits satelites give you in wartime if they happen to be fighting us.

The truth is we just don't know because what actually is up there is kept as hush-hush as Area-51.

But in answer to the other part of your question, it is EXTREMELY expensive to put stuff up in space. There has been talk of putting big ground-penetrating bombs in space to smash into deep-underground bunkers with the force of a meteor impact, but it's just so damned expensive to do none of it has ever left the drawing board.
 
Whispering Death said:
LeEnfield said:
Nobody knows just what is out there in space on some of these satellites.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the truth. The American space agency (I really don't know it's name and I think it's a part of the air force) is very very secrative about what they do. Now, obviously America has a lot of spy satelites up there, that we know. But it would seem logical that if we like satelites as much as we do, we would have the capability to destroy other people's satelites so that they can't enjoy the same bennefits satellites give you in wartime if they happen to be fighting us.

The truth is we just don't know because what actually is up there is kept as hush-hush as Area-51.

But in answer to the other part of your question, it is EXTREMELY expensive to put stuff up in space. There has been talk of putting big ground-penetrating bombs in space to smash into deep-underground bunkers with the force of a meteor impact, but it's just so damned expensive to do none of it has ever left the drawing board.
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afspc100.gif

AFSPC (Air Force Space Command) works directly with NASA to send up satellites and the such, they do a bunch of the hush-hush stuff like the Titan program.


AFSPC command website.
http://www.peterson.af.mil/hqafspc/Default2.asp


I just founs this, seems quite interesting: http://www.af.mil/factsheets/
 
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