| Author | Message | ||
     Willmrx |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-sa tellite_missile_test So we didn't care much when they shot down their satellite, with technology we gave them 14 years earlier. So now when Russia does it,we need to go to war? | ||
| Hootowl |
You proceed from a false assumption. NASA had the same concerns back then. | ||
| Willmrx |
Yes they did,but the political class and the media did not seem to care. | ||
| Rick_a |
According to the experts, the Chinese test was at a lower orbit where debris would fall out of orbit much more quickly and was far less of a hazard. The Russian test is at a height where there's a lot of people's stuff floating around, and it'll be there for a long time. To be brief, it was a jerk move. Only the debris that is 10cm in diameter or larger can be tracked. The rest of the stuff is hypersonic missiles floating in a spreading orbital cloud. | ||
| Aesquire |
It's area denial tactics. Deny the enemy access to information, by killing camera, radar, and radio listening satellites. Deny the enemy weapons platforms access. Deny the enemy GPS for targeting and navigation. The principles are the same in Sun Tzu, ditches and caltrops are now ditches and land mines. Smashed satellite clouds are just Space age caltrops. When we suffer a Kessler Cascade, it becomes a need to build ground based lasers to vaporize tiny scraps, nuts, bolts, shattered solar panels. I presume they'll power them with treadmills. They'll help the unemployment problem. | ||
| Hootowl |
The press and pols were angry about it too. And no one has declared war on Russia over this. | ||
| Willmrx |
531 miles is not low earth orbit, the Russian was 400 something. | ||
| Aesquire |
https://science.howstuffworks.com/satellite6.htm Geostationary is 22,223 ( 22,236 ) miles up. https://ourplnt.com/orbital-altitudes-significant- satellites-earth/ Low Earth Orbit is 12,000 miles or less. GPS satellites are in the Medium orbits. The Moon is in a High orbit. Theoretically the ISS, like the Moon, wobbles the planet, but unlike the obvious Lunar and Solar tides, I'm pretty sure you can't measure it, you just calculate a tiny fraction of a whatever length scale you use. Still, I BET you some Congresscritters will demand no more satellites because they cause tides. Or Tsunamis! Since most of Congress are lawyers, they don't know witchcraft from alchemy from orbital mechanics. ( except they will ABSOLUTELY want to tax those overpaid price gouging mechanics! Unless their Union bribes them enough ) A Kessler Cascade will eventually turn everything inside the Moon into thin rings. You'd be able to track it by which services you lose, assuming a Low orbit beginning. Lots of pretty meteoroid showers every night. satellite Internet, then GPS, then Communication, then the stealth Alien ship that telepathically tells AOC & Harris* what to think. ( not much, possibly undetectable, like tides from GPS sats ) One of the problems with "advanced" civilizations is their dependency on stuff ( technologies and infrastructure ) that barbarian ones can destroy. One of the problems with illiterate barbarians is they don't understand that stuff feeds them. ( technological speaking, most of Congress are illiterate barbarians ) Sure, Vladimir understands just fine. He can make the cold calculations that taking out satellites hurts us far worse than him. The Leaders of backward cultural hells like Pakistan probably intellectually understand that without GPS & Western Tech half their population would starve. They just don't care. ( but, are less likely to have the ability to take out satellites without nukes... And Pakistan has nukes. ) Any reasonably educated person should understand that the policy of MAD, ( Mutually Assured Destruction ) between the Soviet Empire and the American Republic depended on rational leaders who didn't figure they could survive the results of nuclear war. MAD doesn't work with ignorant and irrational leaders. Bet you that if anyone asked Harris* how satellites stay up, she'd laugh nervously. | ||
| Willmrx |
I stand corrected, Thanks for the info! |
