Satellite in space destroyed....

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
These are satellites on fixed orbits, and they certainly don't have manuevering capability. That is specially true of the higher orbit GPS satellites.

WRONG. Play again.

[KrazyHorse]

It's not obvious to me that the US has the capacity to launch at a much higher rate than it does currently. You're talking about dozens (hundreds?) of launches in a matter of a couple of days.

Building the sat is only part of the puzzle. Launching is another.

[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.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
It's not obvious to me that the US has the capacity to launch at a much higher rate than it does currently. You're talking about dozens (hundreds?) of launches in a matter of a couple of days.

Building the sat is only part of the puzzle. Launching is another.

What happens currently and what happens during a national emergency are not equivalent.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
It's not obvious to me that the US has the capacity to launch at a much higher rate than it does currently. You're talking about dozens (hundreds?) of launches in a matter of a couple of days.

True. The keynote speaker at the aforementioned conference was a former general IIRC and he was talking about the feasibility of some buzzword or another, which basically meant "if an asset is shot down we can have a replacement up within a month." His conclusion was that it was not currently part of the puzzle.

Building the sat is only part of the puzzle. Launching is another.

Agreed, but a huge part of the cost of a satellite is a fixed investment in the design. If we were launching many more satellites they would be a lot cheaper, and we could develop the infrastructure.

[Kuciwalker]

http://www.agi.com/

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
http://www.agi.com/

Hey, Krazy, have a look at junior's linked site.

It shows mainland Canada, and then all the northern islands as somehow neutral.

Maybe the NDP and Tories can agree that it is time to spend some money in the Arctic.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by notyoueither
What happens currently and what happens during a national emergency are not equivalent.

KH is right in that we just don't have the infrastructure currently to support that number of launches.

[notyoueither]

And they have the infrastructure to launch how many killer sats? And how long does that infrastructure survive B1's and B2's if it came to a hot war?

[Kuciwalker]

Again, a reason why this isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be.

[Kuciwalker]

And a reason it might be a good idea to invest a bit more in our space capabilities.

[notyoueither]

I don't think it would take much to launch sats and decoys. Nowhere near as much as to launch killersats.

And I'd be pretty sure this has been considered by people paid to consider these things.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither


What happens currently and what happens during a national emergency are not equivalent.

Errr...yeah, but launch capacity doesn't go through the roof as soon as you want it to. There's a lag between paying for the capacity and getting it.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I don't think it would take much to launch sats and decoys. Nowhere near as much as to launch killersats

The opposite is true.

ASATs are generally in ballistic trajectories and (this might be wrong) are smaller than their targets.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Errr...yeah, but launch capacity doesn't go through the roof as soon as you want it to. There's a lag between paying for the capacity and getting it.

There are patches of barren tundra that people want to launch sats off of with polar bears as an audience.

How hard can it be to get a blob of metal into orbit? Every tom, dick, and ivan mobile launcher proposed to be able to float an ICBM.