Sean Kelly
Free Thinker
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Registered: Jan 2003
Local time: 08:26 AM
Location: Silicon Valley
Posts: 4292
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It is without a doubt that other able countries must be considering or are already pursuing similar technology in order to counter U.S. gov/mil space operations.
It would be a hard learned lesson for the U.S. to have one of its own satellites taken out one day by, say, a Chinese space robot capable of deploying and magnetically attaching space mines which will detonate upon removal to all of our key satelites including spy, GPS and communications systems. This would be the most cost effective approach compared to "jamming signals" which would require multiple "asat"s to individually jam enemy sats during a real offensive. By contrast, they could launch a single machine so armed with self-attaching ordnance ammunition and rove around hunting targets, firing the remotely detonated mines at the targets as they pass near. Once all their targets are acquired, they would simply need to arrange a "small demonstration" to show that they have the capability and then start making demands with their finger hovering over the button. They would have the U.S. in a choker collar that we wouldn't be able to afford to remove.
Space warfare like this really presents a formidable foe as space is unmanned. Thus technology must be high to implement counter operations and additional missions come at great monetary expense. If there were humans in space, then it would perhaps be a somehwat less costly endeavor to put together a manned mission to intercept and evaluate the situation for mined satellites to figure out how to disarm them. But since this is not the case, countermeasures would have to be remotely operated. Without ANY prior knowledge of what they are up against, it would be impossible to estimate the requirements for neutralizing the threat before hand. Thus there would have to be surveillance missions, probably the sacrifice of additional satellites during the course of figuring out how to ssuccessfully remove or disarm the mines in follow-up missions, and probably further final missions capable of disabling the things. We're talking billions upon billions of dollars in expenses here - no light or laughing matter - only to neutralize a single enemy robotic space attack.
Very dangerous territory, indeed.
Smile; It confuses people.  |
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12-12-2004 10:18 PM
