chinese sat killer creates huge cloud of debre

[Karmashock]

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007-01-23T001539Z_01_N22487285_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHINA-USA-SATELLITE.xml&src=rss&rpc=22


hilarious...

[RazielDemon]

Hm, same as every other sat that the ruskies and US blew up during hte cold war.

[Karmashock]

which sats were those? We had them re-enter the atmosphere where they burned up. :lol:


Raziel walks into a bar... and says ouch.

[Devon]

which sats were those? We had them re-enter the atmosphere where they burned up. :lol:


Raziel walks into a bar... and says ouch.
Not all of them, I think you'll find raz is right.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6276543.stm

It would be the first such test since the 1980s, when both the US and the Soviet Union destroyed satellites in space
they stopped for the same reasons that they are putting forward to china now. It was mentioned in the news/ papers over here not long back in more detail than i can find now.

[Karmashock]

hmmm... I'll look into that more... for the time being I extend an apology to RD (Note that I am admitting a possible error and apologizing for it... I only note this to make it clear in later arguments that I do this sort of thing freely... unlike many.)


In any event it's good that the sat is lower in the atmosphere... I'd expect that most of it will fall into the atmosphere in time.


I read another interesting article on this topic... apparently the US isn't too worried about this for a couple reasons... one all the important sats are in MUCH higher orbits and at that range it's easy to evade an enemy missile attack.

Apparently they've already designed "stealth" capable sats with extra maneuvering rockets. The means of evasion seems to be as simple as turning your transmitter off, folding solar sails so that you disappear, and then moving.

And if it's true that the US and Russians were blowing up sats in the 80s then china's act here is just that much more meaningless.


An interesting side note... I think the US would agree to stop space testing if China made a sincere effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

[Devon]

I read another interesting article on this topic... apparently the US isn't too worried about this for a couple reasons... one all the important sats are in MUCH higher orbits and at that range it's easy to evade an enemy missile attack.
But if you can hit sats in a low orbit, with a few more years R&D whats to say that hitting targerts in a high orbit is diffcult?

Apparently they've already designed "stealth" capable sats with extra maneuvering rockets. The means of evasion seems to be as simple as turning your transmitter off, folding solar sails so that you disappear, and then moving.
This subject is of some intrest to me. Do you have the link of the orgional artical where you read this? I dont believe that you can 'hide' the sats in orbit, they can still be tracked

[Karmashock]

But if you can hit sats in a low orbit, with a few more years R&D whats to say that hitting targerts in a high orbit is diffcult?
Apparently our guys say that rate it which it becomes harder to hit increases geometricly with distance. So something twice as high up would could be ten to thousands of times harder to hit depending on your rate of progression.


Needless to say, this is something the US wargamed for... this isn't something we haven't though of obviously as we developed weapons like this in the 80s. It's just that we didn't think we'd need them for a long time. I'm sure our weapons contractors have a solution... for a price.

Which is all to the good... the more money they get the more sophisticated our weapons and defenses become.


This subject is of some intrest to me. Do you have the link of the orgional artical where you read this? I dont believe that you can 'hide' the sats in orbit, they can still be tracked
I'll look for it. They said that it's not hard to hide them. It just comes down to limiting the means by which you can be seen. If you fold the solar sails or turn a non reflective side to the earth then you can't be seen easily with optics. You can also show a side that is the same temperature as space... thus thermal won't work very well... After that you have radar... which can be limited again with stealth technology... carbon fiber etc. Lastly you have the fact that these sats are chatting with each other on tractable frequencies... so turn that off... have the sat go dark... then have it thrust away in a random direction so that the interceptor can't just use a ballistic firing solution.


I'm sure you could still theoretically track and hit it... but it's harder... and with the increased distance that probably means your kill veichile doesn't have a lot of time to reaquire a lock if it loses it... after all slower means you need more fuel... so it has to be fast.


A better weapon would be ground based lasers... we already can make a spot on the moon with lasers... I'm sure you could burn a sat out of the sky with one.

[Devon]

I'll look for it. They said that it's not hard to hide them. It just comes down to limiting the means by which you can be seen. If you fold the solar sails or turn a non reflective side to the earth then you can't be seen easily with optics. You can also show a side that is the same temperature as space... thus thermal won't work very well... After that you have radar... which can be limited again with stealth technology... carbon fiber etc. Lastly you have the fact that these sats are chatting with each other on tractable frequencies... so turn that off... have the sat go dark... then have it thrust away in a random direction so that the interceptor can't just use a ballistic firing solution.
Now, sats will reflect heat from the sun, so im not convinced that if would dissapear that way.
One of the ways a sleath plane limits its radar detection is that its shape (cross section) is noteably narrower than most other planes. In space keeping a narrow cross section constanly pointing towards to ground may be tricky.
And this is before we start considering haveing a radar in space, to track sats from above, rather than radar to track from below on the ground.
But yes, extra technology to hide it would make it harder to shoot down.

A better weapon would be ground based lasers... we already can make a spot on the moon with lasers... I'm sure you could burn a sat out of the sky with one.
They are working on it now.
But i still think that Dr Evil would be a better supplier of 'Lazers' than most defence contractors.

[Karmashock]

Now, sats will reflect heat from the sun, so im not convinced that if would dissapear that way.
It only needs to show cold on ONE side. You could simply have heat pipes pump heat from that side to heat sinks on the other side of the sat.

One of the ways a sleath plane limits its radar detection is that its shape (cross section) is noteably narrower than most other planes. In space keeping a narrow cross section constanly pointing towards to ground may be tricky.
you only need to do it a kill vehicle is launched at you.


And this is before we start considering haveing a radar in space, to track sats from above, rather than radar to track from below on the ground.
But yes, extra technology to hide it would make it harder to shoot down.

In a full blown "space war" I'd put my money on the US bending china over and raping it prison style... which would include peeing on it afterwards.


we are so far beyond the chinese in high tech it's comical. Generally speaking they have no high tech innovations what so ever. None. Everything I've ever heard of them having is something WE INVENTED ages ago... and the chinese are not catching up... they're merely not falling farther behind... that still leaves them at least 20 years behind us in most areas... the only places where they are nearly with us is in areas we don't protect... and they only keep up there by buying our latest products.

They are working on it now.
But i still think that Dr Evil would be a better supplier of 'Lazers' than most defence contractors.
Dr evil has financing problems... defense contractors are more professional.

[Devon]

It only needs to show cold on ONE side. You could simply have heat pipes pump heat from that side to heat sinks on the other side of the sat.Heat pipes... hummm... if it worked you will need more power to do that, power that would mean a larger sat, a larger sat that would be eaiser to spot.
Yes, you would only need to advoid dectetion when being shot at. But i dont think so. You would want it so you were unable to see where the sat is operating all the time. Otherwise, whats the point? The sort of sats we are talking about are surveillance or operational ones. Taking pictures and relaying information. They need to work all the time.

In a full blown "space war"
Its not going to come to that. The consirn is that any millitary action on the ground on or near China (or any other part of the world) would be hindered should sats on low earth orbit be desroyed.
Chinas test does not demonstrate a 'weaponisation' of outer space. Both the US and China, (among others) are party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and nothing they have done has breached this.
Having said that an article in October last year says that the US believes china to be using weaons against its craft; "We sensed the projection of beams against the spacecraft and could identify the streams of photons"
This after sudden reduced effectivness as US satellites pass over china.

[Karmashock]

Heat pipes... hummm... if it worked you will need more power to do that, power that would mean a larger sat, a larger sat that would be eaiser to spot.
Yes, you would only need to advoid dectetion when being shot at. But i dont think so. You would want it so you were unable to see where the sat is operating all the time. Otherwise, whats the point? The sort of sats we are talking about are surveillance or operational ones. Taking pictures and relaying information. They need to work all the time.
It depends on how often you assume they'll be shot at.

I assume and I think the military are assuming very very infrequently... unless in a major war.

If the chinese start shooting at our sats then we'll knock ALL of theirs out of the sky.

They know this... so the only time this would really happen is in the event of a war between us. Which would be brief... to say the least.


in any event the sat would only need to go dark for perhaps 20 minutes and then it could come back up again. What's more there is redundancy in the network such that if one or two go down others can take over.


Its not going to come to that. The consirn is that any millitary action on the ground on or near China (or any other part of the world) would be hindered should sats on low earth orbit be desroyed.
Nearly all the military sats are in high orbit.

And the chinese won't fire on our sats... if they do we'll knock theirs out of the sky.

Chinas test does not demonstrate a 'weaponisation' of outer space. Both the US and China, (among others) are party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and nothing they have done has breached this.
That was the reason china gave for making this test.

So... how do you explain that?

Having said that an article in October last year says that the US believes china to be using weaons against its craft; "We sensed the projection of beams against the spacecraft and could identify the streams of photons"
This after sudden reduced effectivness as US satellites pass over china.
We've already figured out how to make the lasers pointless... that is if all they're doing is trying to blind our sats... we have not yet bothered to work out a way to prevent them from getting burned out of the sky... though I imagine an insulated mirror would probably be pretty effective against that.


Think of it like a chess game... are you going to move your queen into a place where it's going to get killed immediately? Any hostile action against our sats would be responded to in hte same way as if they shot at our boats, bases, or other military assets. We would RETURN fire.

They know that... ergo they won't fire.


The only thing the US has to do to keep that effective is make sure that the chinese would be horrified by our response. Thus far I believe we retain a credibly horrifying response to any chinese aggression.