Satellite in space destroyed....

[KrazyHorse]

I'd like 100 billion toothpicks delivered to the Pentagon by next Sunday. It's a national emergency.

[notyoueither]

You seem to be under the impression that digging a pit and launching a rocket are some sort of difficult undertakings.

[notyoueither]

Christ, even mickey mouse corporations are building their own launch sites for a few million dollars.

Are you seriously going to sit here and tell us you think the US military can't come up with 100 sites within a very few days?

[notyoueither]

I can't hear you.

[KrazyHorse]

I'll respond when you bother to say something worthwhile, which you haven't managed to do in this entire "conversation".

Your commentary is about as worthwhile as GePap's.

There are approximately 100 launches per year in the world. Of them, perhaps 40 are by the US. How many launch vehicles are sitting around ready to go right now? How many could be ready to go in less than a week? If China develops a credible ASAT capability is the US going to increase its launch capabilities accordingly?

[TCO]

blablabla. It still doesn't matter, because even without a sattelite in the sky, we have the only blue ocean Navy in the world. The only Navy on anything near a WW2 footing.

[DanS]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Christ, even mickey mouse corporations are building their own launch sites for a few million dollars.

Are you seriously going to sit here and tell us you think the US military can't come up with 100 sites within a very few days?

While the US government has set up its orbital launch pads in an altogether too complicated and costly manner, and one private American company has spent only in the single digit millions to set up its orbital launch pad in the Marshall Islands, there are very few places that are suitable for orbital launches and very many places that are suitable for ASAT launches. ASATs are much smaller rockets versus orbital rockets because ASATs only have to do ballistic, suborbital trajectories, while orbital rockets need to achieve orbital velocity. Achieving orbital velocity for a given payload requires over 20 times the energy versus achieving suborbital, ballistic trajectories.

[pchang]

Hate to say this

but KH has a much greater grasp of the physics of th situation as well as the economics. (BTW, I have a graduate degree in Aeuronautics and Astronautics from MIT). However, there is something that is not general knowledge. The US (with a lag time of 1 - 2 years) could easily increase their launch rate for LEO spy satellites (the only ones currently demonstrated to be vulnerable to a Chinese attack) by more than an order of magnitude without really increasing the cost of their current program. This includes the ability to launch multiple satellites on relatively short notice (a few weeks). The only things preventing this are politics and lack of need.

LEO spy satellites are not considered very useful for strategic purposes (the situation we are in now). However, they become much more valuable for tactical purposes (like during a shooting war). Unless the political situation changes significantly, I do not see the politics or the need changing.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by notyoueither
So much propellant for so much weight from such and such a spot on the map to get it into orbit.

Satellite killers don't go into orbit.

Play again.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I'll respond when you bother to say something worthwhile, which you haven't managed to do in this entire "conversation".

Your commentary is about as worthwhile as GePap's.

There are approximately 100 launches per year in the world. Of them, perhaps 40 are by the US. How many launch vehicles are sitting around ready to go right now? How many could be ready to go in less than a week? If China develops a credible ASAT capability is the US going to increase its launch capabilities accordingly?

I think it was a bit more of a mild pissing contest than a conversation.

Oww, my head hurt this morning.

[KrazyHorse]

See, the problem is, I wasn't drunk....

[Fake Boris]

wtf pekka?

[notyoueither]

That can be a problem.

[TCO]

http://westhawk.blogspot.com/2007/01/china-reminds-us-to-think-twice.html

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I'm currently wearing a shirt I got at a conference thingy for a company that makes satellite planning software (like, project the orbits, plus determine what can see what and when your windows are to take photos of pieces of the ground, plus probably a ton of other stuff that I don't remember/didn't hear). One of the sessions were about all the numerical techniques they used to account (accurately) for the various forces on satellites in orbit, such as solar wind. Satellites do occasionally have to make course corrections. Particularly spy satellites.

I will admit to being wrong about satellites being able to manuever.

The problem there Wesley is that if you move them too much, they are no longer where you need them, specially if its a spy satellite. Plus, moving it with a "slight" course correction is not going to flumox the Chinese to the point they could not target their missile again.

China produces more engineers than we do nowadays. They don't lack the brainpower.