US Military Prepares for Space Warfare As Potential Threats Grow From China (wsj.com) 52
America's Department of Defense "is gearing up for a future conflict in space," reports the Wall Street Journal, "as China and Russia deploy missiles and lasers that can take out satellites and disrupt military and civilian communications."
The White House this month proposed a $30 billion annual budget for the U.S. Space Force, almost $4 billion more than last year and a bigger jump than for other services including the Air Force and the Navy.... A key aim of a stand-alone force was to plan, equip and defend U.S. interests in space for all of the services and focus attention on the emerging threats. For the first time, the spending request also includes plans for simulators and other equipment to train Guardians, as Space Force members are known, for potential battle....
Just as it is on Earth, China is the Pentagon's big worry in space. In unveiling a defense strategy late last year, the Biden administration cast China as the greatest danger to U.S. security. In space, the threats from China range from ground-launched missiles or lasers that could destroy or disable U.S. satellites, to jamming and other cyber interference and attacks in space, said Pentagon officials. China has invested heavily in its space program, with a crewed orbiting station, developing ground-based missiles and lasers as well as more surveillance capabilities. This is part of its broader military aims of denying adversaries access to space-based assets.
China is "testing on-orbit satellite systems which could be weaponized as they have already shown the capability to physically control and move other satellites," Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, told a congressional hearing this month. "There's nothing we can do in space that's of any value if the networks that process the information and data are vulnerable to attack," Gen. Saltzman said. A central part of the Space Force's next tranche of military contracts for rocket launches is protecting them from attacks by China and other adversaries. The hope is to make satellites tougher to approach by adversaries' equipment as well as less susceptible to lasers and jamming from space or the ground, said Space Force leaders.
The article also notes the US Defense Department "is moving away from a small number of school bus-size satellites to a planned constellation of hundreds of smaller ones.
"The larger number of targets makes any one satellite less crucial to the network but also requires changes in the capabilities of the satellites themselves, the rockets that put them into orbit and the communications systems they host."
Just as it is on Earth, China is the Pentagon's big worry in space. In unveiling a defense strategy late last year, the Biden administration cast China as the greatest danger to U.S. security. In space, the threats from China range from ground-launched missiles or lasers that could destroy or disable U.S. satellites, to jamming and other cyber interference and attacks in space, said Pentagon officials. China has invested heavily in its space program, with a crewed orbiting station, developing ground-based missiles and lasers as well as more surveillance capabilities. This is part of its broader military aims of denying adversaries access to space-based assets.
China is "testing on-orbit satellite systems which could be weaponized as they have already shown the capability to physically control and move other satellites," Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, told a congressional hearing this month. "There's nothing we can do in space that's of any value if the networks that process the information and data are vulnerable to attack," Gen. Saltzman said. A central part of the Space Force's next tranche of military contracts for rocket launches is protecting them from attacks by China and other adversaries. The hope is to make satellites tougher to approach by adversaries' equipment as well as less susceptible to lasers and jamming from space or the ground, said Space Force leaders.
The article also notes the US Defense Department "is moving away from a small number of school bus-size satellites to a planned constellation of hundreds of smaller ones.
"The larger number of targets makes any one satellite less crucial to the network but also requires changes in the capabilities of the satellites themselves, the rockets that put them into orbit and the communications systems they host."
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> they better not take out the satellite with the spice channel on it.
The spice must flow...
My VMs like it better that way ...
Re: they better not take out the satellite with sp (Score:2)
It took me quite a while to recollect that Spice was a thing and what it was.
Re:they better not take out the satellite with spi (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus, forty year old references in that joke.
God, 2000 year old reference in that comment.
This is how you get Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
The article also notes the US Defense Department "is moving away from a small number of school bus-size satellites to a planned constellation of hundreds of smaller ones.
That sounds familiar.
Defense contractors: "It's possibly only a matter of time before our enemies weaponize space."
Let's make sure we do it first and leave them no alternative.
"Possibly"? No. China and Russia already there (Score:5, Informative)
Both China and Russia have blown up satellites in weapons tests recently. It makes sense to plan for a future where they would blow up our sats.
1. Operate constellations
2. Have defensible sats
3. Be able to retaliate
https://carnegieendowment.org/... [carnegieendowment.org]
https://www.space.com/3415-chi... [space.com]
Re:"Possibly"? No. China and Russia already there (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I have considered this, and, it's a classic case of mutually assured destruction.
If the cold war is any indication, the satellites are relatively safe.
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You may be right. In WWII, both Britain and Germany considered air-dropping counterfeit currency on each other but refrained for fear of receiving the same in retaliation.
Also, in a hot war between nuclear powers, multiple missile launches to attack satellite targets would be hard to distinguish from ICBM launches aimed at home cities, and could easily trigger the aforementioned M.A.D.
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India also blew up a satellite in 2019, and the US has done so in 1985 and 2008.
(The US and Russia were developing anti-satellite missiles as far back as the 1960s.)
Re: "Possibly"? No. China and Russia already there (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
the Chinese are more focused on trading
Well that and rounding up ethnic minorities in mass and claiming parts of many of their neighbors countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and saber rattling over that and just generally acting in a destabilizing manner around the South China Sea.
Re: "Possibly"? No. China and Russia already ther (Score:2)
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The US has blown up satellites too. All those countries wanted to demonstrate the capability as a warning to others. It's a form of Mutually Assured Destruction, as in if you shoot down one of our satellites we can certainly take out all yours as well, so your only choice is everyone has satellites or nobody does.
Realistically, if it ever gets to the point where countries are shooting at satellites, we are probably screwed anyway. If it doesn't result in a hot terrestrial war, it will probably end up spread
And defend against Kessler syndrome? (Score:5, Interesting)
* collect one Ton of ball bearings
* place on top of a rocket
* launch in a very elliptical orbit against the Earth's spin
Anything they hit is a head-on collision at orbital speed
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Re:And defend against Kessler syndrome? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is another form of MAD [wikipedia.org] where everyone threatens to take out anyone who attacks them. It is a shame that we cannot get on with each other and spend the money usefully, for instance: fixing diseases or hunger. As a species we are mad.
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All we have to do is find a cure for greed. The biggest problem is "greed" is relative. I, as a firmly-middle-class member, look at multi-billionaires as "greedy". I'm sure someone making $50k/year looks at me as greedy. And someone who literally fed their child dirt today [wikipedia.org] would call that $50k/year person greedy.
Don't get me wrong, your point about our species being mad is 100% spot-on. Imagine if we, as a people, suddenly decided from top-to-bottom that helping people was better than trying to kill each o
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As the median weekly earnings of full time wage and salary workers in the last quarter of 2022 was $1,085, which works out to $56,000 to $57,000 a year, you might consider that $50k/year worker as part of the lower middle class, or upper middle class if there's two people in the household earning that.
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It stops countries with nuclear weapons (DPRK/China, India, Pakistan, Russia, Israel, France, UK & USA/Canada/Australia/New Zealand) being assholes to each other: Everyone else is under "A nice country you have there" blackmail from 'world peace' treaties or fear of nuclear attack.
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I was unaware that Canada/Australia/New Zealand had nuclear weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In fact I don't think New Zealand lets US war ships in because they might be nuclear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Canadian nuclear weapons (Score:3)
The Canadian air force was equipped with nuclear weapons for 20 years in Europe during the Cold War.
Canada is part of NORAD which through the American military has nuclear weapons.
Canadian WMD [wikipedia.org]
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Australia and New Zealand most definately do not have Nukes (and NZ is adamantly opposed to others having them, and even historically to nuclear powered vessels to the point of banning US nuclear powered vessels from their waters. Unsure if that policy still stands, but its reasonable to observe that as a pacific islands nation, the pacific island nuclear testing did *not* endear the nuclear-military complex to NZs large islander population one bit).
The situation is slightly changing with Australia decidin
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Are you really suggesting that the response to ending space travel and satellite communications should be WW3? It will be bad enough that we're Earthbound until the field clears. It would be far worse to be Earthbound in a nuclear wasteland. I think we could come up with some kind of sanctions and/or reparations that don't necessarily lead to the collapse of civilization.
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If any country feels it has lost advantage in space it is very easy to trigger the Kessler syndrome so nobody can use it: * collect one Ton of ball bearings * place on top of a rocket * launch in a very elliptical orbit against the Earth's spin Anything they hit is a head-on collision at orbital speed
I don't think you realize how big space is. Yes, even low Earth orbit. So, imagine a satellite placed on the ground randomly somewhere on the Earth. Now imagine you fly a plane all over the Earth and randomly drop that ton of ball bearings all over the place. What do you think are your odds of blindly hitting that satellite?
Which BTW is kind of fascinating from a psychology standpoint, how we imagine space as (in a sense) much smaller than Earth.
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If you didn't already know, this was indeed Russia's plan during the Cold War to counter "Star Wars." If the US deployed a shield of anti-missile satellites, Russian would have launched a bunch of rocks on collision courses.
However, in actuality the Cold War was complete theater. Russia did not have enough working ICBM launch vehicles to pose a threat to us. They were terrified that we would figure that out and launch the first strike.
In the next one. (Score:5, Insightful)
No need (Score:4, Funny)
Just have Marjorie Taylor Greene deploy the jewish space lasers.
I saw a documentary about those... (Score:2)
I saw a documentary about those: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
more scare tactic (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:An arms race? (Score:4, Insightful)
How classically American of the government to push for yet another one of these.
Russia, China, Eurasia, Eastasia
I just can't keep track of who's turned it is to be hated today.
You know I can only hate one at a time.
Its very simple. We have always been at war with $adversaryOfTheDay
If an enemy didn't exist, one would need to be invented.
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The USA wars and war mongers against those that didn't attack it, decade after decade. Fake liberal and neocon alike love the war machine for blind patriotism, power and profit. Who will stop the homicidal madness?
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Just insert a variable for who to hate and you will be fine..
Just state "we are required to hate $hate_this_week" and you'll be fine.
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All of the players are better at (Score:2)
When are they going to ask for more money? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's just waiting to happen. The DoD is going to say the Space Force needs at least a couple hundred billion more in funding to keep up with this "threat". Budget is going to be more than a $1T in a couple of years.
Re:When are they going to ask for more money? (Score:4, Funny)
Space Force!! (Score:1)
All of the sudden Space Force isn’t sounding like such a horrible idea after all. But hey, Orange Man Bad amirite?
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Do you think there were no space capabilities before the introduction of a separate Space Force in 2019?
That's like thinking there were no air power before the Air Force was made a separate branch in 1947. I'm sure President Harry S Truman gets all the credit for "inventing" the Air Force, amirite?
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notice how the U.S. always couches their agression (Score:2, Insightful)
..as being the victims?
Arthur C. Clarke (Score:1)
Arthur C. Clarke is spinning very, very fast in his grave....
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Arthur C. Clarke is spinning very, very fast in his grave....
...in a highly elliptical retrograde orbit.
Space has already been militarized (Score:1)
Just stop it... (Score:2)
SpaceX (Score:2)
With SpaceX's Starlink, reusable rockets and fast Earth to Earth transport (and thus kinetic warfare, and military transport) potential, the US is positioned very well!
Too bad Musk is partly captured by the CCP through a key Tesla factory in Shanghai, and by extension, the ~3Bn population market in the neighborhood. Let's face it, in case of a fallout between Musk and the CCP, locally employed Chinese Tesla engineers, external logistics chains, industrial espionage and the physical presence of the factory w
What are we doing to avoid space war? (Score:2)