The Pentagon has quietly established an office to deal with the increasing number of threats to the United States’ space assets — a pretty big deal given the fact that space officials have been fretting about the overcrowding and militarization of space for years now.
Calling it DoD’s “ace in the hole” against military threats to U.S. satellites, National Reconnaisance Office director Bruce Carlson told reporters during a breakfast in Washington this morning that the Pentagon has stood up the Joint Space Protection Program (JSPP) to figure out how to defend against everything from attacks to accidents in space:
It’s becoming very congested [and] we recognize that it’s becoming very contested because other countries are launching a lot of stuff, sometimes more than we do and it’s becoming very competitive. There’s only so much space up there because there are really only about three, maybe four, (orbital) regimes that you can use and everybody knows what those are, they’re defined by natural laws, so we all have to operate in the same space. I don’t think it’s any secret that the Chinese are becoming more active in space and that concerns us because we’re not absolutely sure of their intent. So we have worked very, very closely with [Air Force] space command, first Gen. Bob Kehler and now Gen. William Shelton, and we have a Joint Space Protection Program. I have to tell you that the exact elements of that are very closely held because that’s going to be our ace in the hole should somebody try to do something. We also use the space protection program to work around the congestion problem; how do we make sure that we don’t run into something else up there by accident.
I’ve got to wonder what, if any, role the Air Force’s mysterious X-37B robot space planes (pictured above) play in the JSPP. Many believe they can be used to launch small spy satellites and even monitor other nation’s satellites up close. The first X-37B flight lasted 220 days and amateur spotters noticed the craft switched orbital patterns numerous times during this extremely long spaceflight.
Enter the China Question:
Carlson’s remarks about China echo those of current and former Pentagon officials who wonder what the PRC plans to do with all of the weapons — from MRAPs to stealth fighter jets, aircraft carriers and military satellites — that it is buying. In 2010, China overtook the U.S. in the number of satellites launched in one year.
While China and Russia are capable of launching a ton of satellites, they aren’t nearly as good at space operations as the U.S., according to Carlson. This means that countries like China will likely focus on how to take out the Pentagon’s space assets (mitigating the advantage they give the U.S.) rather than competing against them directly. This, according to Carlson, makes space protection — and therefore space situational awareness (SSA) — all the more important. While the Pentagon is getting better at knowing what objects could threaten its satellites, it Pentagon still has a long way to go with SSA, added the former Air Force general.
He went on to say that while China is an “incredibly modern” nation, it’s ancient military tradition includes deception as a key element of operations:
I’d be a lot happier if knew exactly what their intent was. They’re an incredibly modern society but their military philosophy goes all the way back to probably, 4,000 years ago. They believe in deception, that’s just one of their mantras so I remain concerned about their intent and exactly what it is, I do not know — but I’m concerned about it.
{ 61 comments… read them below or add one }
I really hope we do not weaponize space. By the way, fantastic resource for those who are interested in deterrence in space: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG916.html
It's a nice sentiment, but almost completely impossible. Humans take war with them wherever they go, even if it is by robotic proxy.
I really hope we do. Whoever militarizes it first has an incredible advantage. If done right, if could make it near impossible for another nation to establish weapons in orbit simply because you could pretty easily shoot down anything they try to send up. I don't know about you, but I'd really like to be the one doing the dominating.
I honestly think that we've pretty much done it already, though. If the X-37B isn't weapons capable yet, it soon will be.
WOW, your speaking as if militarizing space will change anything in a world war.
so long countries have Nuclear weapons so long nothing will get shot down in space or on earth for that matter.
mark my words
Haha, yeah I am, actually. Winning wars isn't all about destroying an enemy's fielded forces. That's long, costly and extremely inefficient. The quickest and most efficient way to win a war is by taking out leadership, organic essentials, infrastructure, and population (in that order) as per Colonel John Warden's 5 Strategic Rings.
Now If you have a whole bunch of conventional weapons platforms in space at any one time, you can pretty much hit a target anywhere on the surface, with little or no notice. This means you can bypass all enemy defenses and strike their leadership, supplies, infrastructure, etc instantly without having to fight your way into enemy territory. So in short: Yes, militarizing space would make wars much easier to win.
And I figure if anyone is dumb enough to start slinging nukes we're all done anyway. I don't see a Call of Duty scenario playing out, lol.
Dude… if you don't think it's already weaponized, you're wrong.
I could almost guarantee that we have Rods-from-God satellites, as they are a rather inexpensive weapon to have up there. And the X-37 looks to be specifically build to be able to carry out satellite interception ops.
It's always possible, considering the ambiguity of a large number of American satellites in orbit. We've always assumed they were NRO payloads, but…
Cool.
Did they solve the physics problem of guiding the "rods" to a specific target with very small CEP or did they switch to a different shape?
Well, stop hoping! We already have weaponized platforms in space, but they've got to maintain the illusion that things like the X-37B are the best we've got. We're actually about 60 years ahead of whatever's being reported in the news. By the time the news states that "such-and-such" is the "next big thing," the boys in the backroom are already testing proto-types (and counter-measures) that are three generations beyond whatever's being covered in the media. I'd venture to say that about 80% of our military is virtually obsolete. Most threats could be zapped from space, if needs be, but … research must be funded. So, we've got to keep the military-industrial complex running like the well oiled machine that it is, if for no other reason than to maintain the illusion.
We need to have weapons in space If we don't some else will. then all hell will break louse
when our satillites start falling from the sky.
"He went on to say that while China is an “incredibly modern” nation, it’s ancient military tradition includes deception as a key element of operations:"
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe
Best put down your war drum and pick up a book son!
Throughout history, where ever commerce has gone, so has the military means of protecting it. Space WILL be weaponized, there WILL be battles fought there. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can prepare properly.
Which is a guarantee, seeming as space has more resources than Earth can offer us. For Example, A modest sized (12 mile diameter) M-type asteroid can contain around oh, 200 trillion dollars in Nickel Iron and more precious metals, (Gold, cobalt, Platinum) If we wait until the last second to pull asteroid out for resources, I think it's a high probability Nukes will fly over close asteroids.
Where are these M type asteriods? Hopefully we don't have to truck out to the asteriod belt for them, but I imagine there may be lower density intermediate belts closer to home, or maybe even some asteriods in captured orbit around Earth?
M Type is a type of asteroid based on its composition no its location, they can be anywhere.
Some of the Asteroids in the belt come fairly close to Earth (1.6 AU from the Sun.) Some Near Earth Asteroids come closer to Earth than our communications satellites.
There are a few Asteroids in close orbits (some in "Horseshoe" orbits) to Earth but none have been captured yet as far as we know.
More fear mongering about China they lack weapons currently to destroy space assist the Russians have such weapons might want to worry more about Russia now then China.
I agree that fear mongering is wrong. Every military since the dawn of time has used deception, so I don't know what Carlson's big deal about that is.
However, the Chinese did successfully shoot down one of their old satellites in a test a few years ago. It made a big mess in orbit and everyone got very cross. So they do have at least a limited capability.
China is known to laser some of our satelites as well. It's a low powered laser to measure distance. Of course if you can hit sats with a low powered laser you can hit them with a high powered laser in war time.
Considering the problems we've had even deploying ABL to shoot at ICBMs in atmosphere, you're suggesting a large ground-mounted laser that will impair/damage/destroy satellites in orbit. At least the tracking problem isn't as bad as it would be with ICBMs.
No need for grammar Nazi's here.
Reading Sun Tzu and Confucious(sp), they teach a lot about deception as a solid element of military strategy.
Maybe send up a new "communication" satellite with a laser they are planning to put on ships and it can disable other satellites quietly and easily.
I would agree with seeking to prevent the militarization of space, maybe look at establishing an agreement similar to Antarctica, rather then Berlin 1945.
The only reason no one has killed each other over Antarctica is because it is so inhospitable as to make any mineral extraction or other economic activity almost impossible, and at least greatly uneconomical. When the cost of oil gets to the point that it is economical to recover it from under miles-thick glaciers, war, or at least military forces, will come to Antarctica too. Not a good thing, just a reality thing.
Several countries (like Argentina) have flexed their claims on Antarctica recently. While having a demilitarized space maybe nice but if some country aggressively tries to militarize space I hope we got the weapons to send them packing.
Unfortunately, you're both right. A treaty is only a piece of paper unless someone can enforce it…and I forget that space as a DMZ would create problems for ICBMs with MRVs.
Lance,
China has already attempted (not sure if it was successful) to disable our satellites by the use of ground-based lasers. China is a awaking giant with a major chip on it’ shoulder.
In general what concerns me most about China is not space based, but on the ground. China makes a great deal of the computer/IC chips for both defense and communication industries. They can have a “back door” in those chips that could be devastating to our military, and they could listen in to our communications.
If you were around durning the Desert Storm, the NSA had a virus put on a printer that was sold to Iraq just prior to the start of the war. That virus shut down computers used in at radar stations.
China has also did a successful ASAT missile test in 2007 using a DF-21 missile.
Jimmy Gee,
The printer virus thing was a april fools hoax. google "AF/91"
Produce, reinvent and sell green fuel to domestic and internationally market. Selling green will help it afloat . Funds is the mainstream problems of the economy and military self defense infrastructure. Creating to generate the funds could be the long term solution.
The government can't create funds, only appropriate them from the private sector, or borrow them at a cost to future growth. If there had been a rainy day fund set aside during the good years, this type of idea might be plausible. But there wasn't, and so it isn't.
And what does that have to do with the NRO and space threats?
The trouble with fighting a war in space is that it is akin to dueling with flamethrowers in a fireworks factory – no matter who "wins", the battlefield is rendered uninhabitable for the foreseeable future
???
Space is one of the most uninhabitable areas humans have been too. Traveling there requires spacecraft that could be dropped in to a active nuclear reactor and survive. Ripping the place up with nukes wouldn't do much (its been done in fact)
Space combat is more like two snipers dueling on top of loaded semi trucks driving on ice; Maneuvering is a pain, shots are long range, and one hit kills.
He means the debris resulting from the engagements will render the orbits unusable for future satellites.
That's it? Just slow the debris down, its alt will drop and burn up. Water, sand, other debris in its orbital path would work.
Easy to do as well, just shoot it up there with a really big gun (like the WWI Paris Gun).
"…just shoot it up there with a really big gun…"
That's your idea of "easy"?
And the water, sand or whatever will slow down EVERYTHING, not just the debris.
If you wanted to do something about space debris, something like a laser (ground based or in orbit) would do it. Heat up the debris, and the thrust from surface ablation would de-orbit it. Not easy, not cheap, not fast, but could be made to work.
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
if it was that easy, we would have done it already. China's ASAT demonstration trashed an entire orbit and caused several international problems via the ISS (whish crosses through its orbit).
( http://www.popsci.com.au/2010/07/debris-from-chin… )
If we could just blast peices out of orbit or "slow it down", then we wouldn't be needing to track each individual peice of space junk out there.
That said, warfare in space is not going to be like you all seem to think- it will most likely be more akin to a cyber war
Someone doesn't read enough sci-fi and science stuff.
Space based war won't be what you see in the movies.
It'll be robotic satellites intercepting one another, laser beams to disable and cripple existing satellites, drags attached to sats to being them down out of orbit, etc… and sats, firing weapons at earth from orbit. There won't be that much debris.
It' won't be like a conventional war, or like star wars.
If there are attack satellites in space, then there will be a strong incentive to field transatmospheric ASAT systems, both kinetic and directed energy. It's a pretty safe bet that these would make an awful lot of debris when employed.
Space orbital environment will be the first victim of every kind of open conflict with china, in the recent years, since 2000 i think that the most important of cinese goal is an effective space denial. USAF knows this, and is working in order to mantain satellites capability in case of multiple ASAT attack, there are many way to achieve this difficult capability, and i think it is a new terrific arms race, but economic fundamentals are very different from the past, today time is not on USAF side, as it was in cold war era.
ddddd,"I really hope we do not weaponize space". I hate to break the news to you brother but your a little late by about 30 or so years.
Platforms like this but weaponized are the future. It's only a matter of time until we have a "Navy" in space, although orbiting "shipyards" with human controlled construction robots would be needed to build the larger ships. Those are in their infancy though: http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/default.asp
Why does everyone simply assume that a future space based military force will simply be a carbon copy of an aquatic navy? Space is NOT an Ocean people! If anything, in US service, any space force will most likely branch off of the Air Force.
Considering the Astronaut Corps is all air force guys…
So when are we going to reopen the ASAT missle program…..You know the missle fired by an F-15…..Instead of using old 1960's tech like China….
That program has evolved to the NCADE missile system, which is a variation of the AIM-120 AMRAAM that has a 2-stage hybrid solid/liquid fuel rocket motor, with the liquid motor giving it exo-atmospheric capabilities. While development was centered around the missile defense dynamic of shooting down an ICBM in its boost phase one wonders how much tweaking would be required to make a valid low altitude ASAT out of it.
The X-37 has demonstrated that the technology works and is something the US should invest in building a small of fleet, including a variant capable of carrying 1-2 passengers for if nothing else to take 1-2 crewmen to the ISS.
I guess will fight the Chicom hord on the land, at sea, in the air, in cyber space, and now space. Space Wars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: World War Three!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Soon to be a major motion picture.
I'd put that at WWIV or V depending on how you count.
No grammar Nazi's
No http://rideriantieconomicwarfaretrisiii.blogspot….
Rider I
Their intent is the complete and utter control of this world no matter what it takes.
“All In Good Time my pretty one”
Know your enemy first (physical), second (emotional) and third (mental).
Study their past history, culture and their beliefs.
They will always take the good lessons from history and then use them against you.
Listen to what they say and then reverse it for there will you find the hidden truth.
Or learn how to play chess backwards.
The belief in “Mother China” is greater than all else in their world.
For they eat, sleep, work and believe in one thing only “Mother China”.
They will combine mobility, discipline, adaptability, strategy, strength, and endurance in direct battle with skills in intelligence gathering, psychological warfare, siege warfare, and superb communications.
For they will trust no one.
Born in1944 fought in Vietnam and a Service Connected Disability Agent Orange..funny how we can explore the World of Space…but can not find a cure for Cancer or Man Made Chemicals …
Retired
GE Aircraft Inspector/Mechanic
The Germans built a gun capable of launching sub orbital payloads and hitting a city in the 1910's and designing the thing using chalk boards and slide rules then building it with only the simplest of machines. 110 years later it should be a lot easier.
If you fire a deorbiting payload at a object, its a simple matter and a cheaper one to fire it at a suborbital velocity so it doesn't hit anything else.
Gun, water, slide-rule; about all we need.
The Paris gun fired a projectile to an apogee of 40km, with a muzzle velocity of ~1.6k mps.
The Karman line, the internationally recognised boundary with space, is at 100km.
The only gun to fire a sub-orbital projectile, the US HARP system, fired a projectile with an apogee of 180km, with a muzzle velocity of ~3.6k mps.
Low earth orbit is generally accepted to be anywhere between 160 – 2000 km above the earth's surface; however, atmospheric drag means that orbits below 200km decay rapidly in the absence of a propulsive system.
There appears to be a 1820km gap in your proposal.
Just because it easy doesn't mean its going to be done. Its quite easy to build an atomic rocket that could fly to Saturn in a month (DARPA had plans for one in the 1960's) but it was never build, its easy to build an electric car (lot of the first cars were electric) but few companies have bothered to make them.
Cyber war is a very stealthy war involving subterfuge, and false flags. Its very much the son of espionage. Space on the other hand is the most un-stealthy medium in existence (for reference the RCS thrusters of the space shuttle can be detected from the orbit of Mars, its main engines from the orbit of Pluto). You simply can't put something up that can't be tracked. Remember the X-37B's first flight? Amateurs with binoculars (my self included) were able to spot and track it in orbit. People with telescopes tracked the Apollo missions from their backyards (even noted the O2 venting on #13). Its really hard to find a perfect analogy for space combat since its so very different but I liken it to battles in the Napoleonic Wars, each sides troops enter battle easily noticed by the other, both sides exchange their fire, one or both sides take their hits until they leave the weapons range of each other (a few seconds of battle in reality).
You can however put something up that looks like a piece of junk (defunct satellite, discarded transtage etc). Couple that with a magnetic propulsion system, and you have the potential to surprise a lot of people.
Of course, this goes back to your comments about espionage.
Like a FOBS? Space Command has been looking in to those since the Evil Empire days. That is WHY we track all that junk in case someone tries to sneak a payload up there in it. But the moment you turn those Ion Drives: PING! Contact.
I just did the calculations for a 5 ton object (something a bit smaller than say the Apollo spacecraft) with an Ion Drive burning 1/2 a G of acceleration (a little high I think for an electric drive but the kind of power needed for basic space combat) for 120 seconds; the maximum detection range is 224,339.72 Kilometers That's 2/3ds of the way to the Moon.
I was thinking of an electrodynamic tether propulsion system rather than an ion drive. It requires a bigger satellite (well, effectively 2, actually) and only provides a small acceleration, but that would actually help avoid notice.
Ok Three problems.
1 Needs power so it must have an internal power source or must use solar cells.
if it has a generator that power source needs to get rid of its waste heat with thermal panels (like the ones in the payload bay doors of the Shuttle). If it uses solar cells those are reflective and are big which brings me too…
2 Having two satellites could pose a problem, its bigger. Bigger means it's more likely to occlude a star and give away its position. Also solar panels can be reflective also giving away its position.
3 The acceleration is so small requiring attacks to be conducted months if not years in advance. Against a maneuvering enemy it would be almost imposable.
This discussion is in danger of running strait in to Nicoll's Law…
I agree, it's not a practical propulsion technique for terminal phase attack, however it is potentially a good system for early approaches.
As for power generation/heat dissipation, that will always be the chief obstacle to stealth satellite design. The best approach has to be nuclear/radiothermal generation, coupled with shielded radiators.
Payload becomes a major problem. You need like 6 inches of lead to shield a reactor or 12 feet of water. That is a massive bird we are talking about here that runs the risk of being spotted visually or on ground/space based radar. It also still leaves the problem of heat generated by the electronics that has to be gotten rid of.