"Destabilising" Russian Space Threat

Some might say making a literal omnipresent skynet in the heavens is a bad idea.

I am 99.8 percent sure that if ruskies feel this threatened that they would do something so drastic it means we are doing stuff that is insanely threatening as well. What if Russia and China had total narrative control and were doing threatening things to us here in America like creating the starlink/starshield matrix in space? You know damn well we would freak out and put stuff into place to negate any kind of domination.

Why is it then the Russians are crazy? Why is it the Chinese are bellicose? Why not us? Why is nobody here asking what WE are putting up into space? Are WE secretly breaking space treaties ourselves or finding subversive ways to bypass them like Russians did with their cruise missile equipped iskander k system? Why are we defaulting to our elites being on the up and up?

It is because we live here in the west. Because we assume we are the good guys and they are evil undemocratic bad guys. We do not question that our elites have openly stated that they want dominate the east including toppling the regimes of Russia and China. Why should we Americans want that? Or is it some of our elites protecting their "rules based world order"? Is that American? Maybe, kinda I guess as it could benefit us on the short term. But is it right?

Edit: not trying to cause strife needlessly but do you guys see how there are more sides to this than just our side? I do know some have similar views as mine but right now it is unpopular. I dont usually post anything when people talk about contentious stuff but sometimes it has got to be brought up. Not everyone agrees with Nuland tier foreign policy or thinks that the western democratic world supersedes the needs and protections of fellow Americans.
 
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The K2 said:
Nor China. Before this happens we might reach the Kessler syndrome.
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The PRC is currently equivalent to the U.S. and using a nuclear weapon would destroy about as many PRC satellites as U.S. That is going change in the next year, but never the less Chinese satellites would suffer as well and they have a big stake in orbit.
 
Josh_TN said:
The PRC is currently equivalent to the U.S. and using a nuclear weapon would destroy about as many PRC satellites as U.S. That is going change in the next year, but never the less Chinese satellites would suffer as well and they have a big stake in orbit.
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Which is why Russia popping a nuke off in Orbit might manage to get China and the US pissed off enough to both do something about it at the same time. Now China owns most of Siberia and the rest of Russia is under new management.
 
Josh_TN said:
The PRC is currently equivalent to the U.S. and using a nuclear weapon would destroy about as many PRC satellites as U.S. That is going change in the next year, but never the less Chinese satellites would suffer as well and they have a big stake in orbit.
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True. But that is if cool heads and rational thinking prevail. I just don’t trust Russia or China.
 
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The K2 said:
True. But that is if cool heads and rational thinking prevail. I just don’t trust Russia or China.
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I am sure they feel the same. China is about to be overwhelmed by 300-400 US military satellites in just the next year. Russia has no hope of catching up; it makes sense that they might adopt a scorched orbit policy.
 
Josh_TN said:
I am sure they feel the same. China is about to be overwhelmed by 300-400 US military satellites in just the next year. Russia has no hope of catching up; it makes sense that they might adopt a scorched orbit policy.
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Unless they manage to take down a lot of Chinese etc satellites as collateral damage and get China, India, the US, EU, and anyone else with downed satellites pissed off at them all at the same time.

China has long been looking at taking over most of Siberia.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Unless they manage to take down a lot of Chinese etc satellites as collateral damage and get China, India, the US, EU, and anyone else with downed satellites pissed off at them all at the same time.

China has long been looking at taking over most of Siberia.
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Russia would only use such a weapon as a nuclear escalation rung, in which case what other countries think is largely irrelevant. Russia is already feeling the gap between its space capabilities and the United States, and the U.S. is about to orbit a massive constellation that even China will struggle to keep up with.
As for Siberia, China doesn’t need to invade a nuclear power…it can buy whatever it wants.
 
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Talking of China taking Siberia. Calling posters tovarich. Wtf is going on.
 
Josh_TN said:
Russia would only use such a weapon as a nuclear escalation rung, in which case what other countries think is largely irrelevant. Russia is already feeling the gap between its space capabilities and the United States, and the U.S. is about to orbit a massive constellation that even China will struggle to keep up with.
As for Siberia, China doesn’t need to invade a nuclear power…it can buy whatever it wants.
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What China wants is their traditional chunk of Outer Mongolia that Russia snagged 100something years ago and further up into the Siberian oil fields.

Not easy to buy either one.
 
Turner's district includes the USAF intelligence center in Dayton OH, so he has the right access, and he is an old school Republican who takes Russia seriously. But he should know better than to ask for all the intel to be declassified. Can't risk sources to prove a point that Russia will just deny.
 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/05/opinion/nuclear-weapons-space.html

New information - it carries a dummy warhead.

That’s why Moscow claims Cosmos 2553 is there — to test out “newly developed onboard instruments and systems” against radiation. But what it’s really doing, U.S. officials say, is testing components for a Russian weapon under development that could obliterate hundreds, if not thousands, of critical satellites. Cosmos 2553 isn’t armed, but it does carry a dummy warhead, one of several details being reported here for the first time. So while the orbiting satellite poses no imminent danger, the officials caution it does serve as a forerunner to an unprecedented weapon.
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This is a video about Starfish Prime and Operation Fishbowl: a thermonuclear explosion in space and its effects on communication satellites and communities on the ground.

The Nuclear Test That Shocked the Planet

Dec 6, 2024
The Reason Why We Stopped Sending Nukes Into Space. Starfish Prime and Operation Fishbowl.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPq5fGZdUJo
 
Russian satellite linked to space weapon programme appears to malfunction in orbit [Apr 25]

The secretive Russian satellite in space that U.S. officials believe is connected to a nuclear anti-satellite weapon program has appeared to be spinning uncontrollably, suggesting it may no longer be functioning in what could be a setback for Moscow's space weapon efforts, according to U.S. analysts.

The Cosmos 2553 satellite, launched by Russia weeks before invading Ukraine in 2022, has had various bouts of what appears to be errant spinning over the past year, according to Doppler radar data from space-tracking firm LeoLabs and optical data from Slingshot Aerospace shared with Reuters.
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CSIS: Space Threat Assessment 2025 [Apr 25]

While reports claim this satellite carries a “dummy warhead,” U.S. officials stress that, should a nuclear weapon be detonated at a 2,000 km altitude, the effects would be “indiscriminate” and render LEO unusable “for some period of time,” perhaps a year. The only other satellites in orbits near Cosmos-2553 are one nonoperational Russian satellite and 10 nonoperational U.S. satellites.

According to one expert, if the satellite is testing new technologies, it may have been placed in such a remote orbit because there would be less risk of affecting other satellites and it would be difficult to monitor. Based upon persistent radar monitoring by LeoLabs of Cosmos-2553, there is high confidence it has been tumbling since mid-November 2024. This observation strongly suggests the satellite is no longer operational.
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And, now, peppering LEO with pellets to interdict Starlink:

Intelligence findings seen by The Associated Press say the so-called “zone-effect” weapon would seek to flood Starlink orbits with hundreds of thousands of high-density pellets, potentially disabling multiple satellites at once but also risking catastrophic collateral damage to other orbiting systems.
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https://apnews.com/article/russia-s...china-canada-c69c1fda5ffc93828712ab723e606a2c
Starlink orbit is at 550km altitude:

Screen-Shot-2021-06-24-at-10.03.00-AM-3225133573.jpg
 
TomcatViP said:
And, now, peppering LEO with pellets to interdict Starlink:



https://apnews.com/article/russia-s...china-canada-c69c1fda5ffc93828712ab723e606a2c
Starlink orbit is at 550km altitude:

View attachment 795999
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This avoids the problem of nuclear first use by Russia but still has the issue of almost certainly slaughtering large numbers of Chinese satellites as well, if not immediately then over the long term as debris extends above and below the initial target orbit.

Quite honestly it makes perfect sense for Russia to be developing these weapons though. It is at this point a second or third tier space power, depending on whether you think the U.S. and PRC occupy the same tier. In any kind of conflict with the U.S. there would be overwhelming space superiority on the opposing site, to the point land mobile strategic missiles likely are no longer a safe deterrent by end of decade. In a non nuclear war, the U.S. likely can soon duplicate the relatively prolific and pervasive ISR of the Ukrainian war’s forward areas globally via satellite. Under those conditions, radically destructive, uncontrolled orbit denial type attacks are likely the only way Russia will be able to level the playing field in either a conventional or nuclear conflict with the U.S.
 
I think that if you erase the nascent space economy that US and others have been so akin, with so much dedication, people's money and efforts, you just launched a total war with most of the world. Nuclear or Not.
 
TomcatViP said:
I think that if you erase the nascent space economy that US and others have been so akin, with so much dedication, people's money and efforts, you just launched a total war with most of the world. Nuclear or Not.
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Indeed, you'd have an entire army of assassins out to nail you. It would be like going into a bar full of ninjas drunk and throwing down.
 
TomcatViP said:
I think that if you erase the nascent space economy that US and others have been so akin, with so much dedication, people's money and efforts, you just launched a total war with most of the world. Nuclear or Not.
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There would be blowback from a lot of parties, but I would argue most of those are already antagonistic outside perhaps India. But as the other major space power and Russia’s closest ally, China’s orbital assets would be of special concern to Russia.
 
TomcatViP said:
hundreds of thousands of high-density pellets
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Sigh. When those "experts" would learn how to calculate, I wonder? The math is basically elementary. "Hundreds of thousands of pellets", unless each individually aimed, would have less than 0,01% of a chance of destroying a Starlink satellite. Space is HUGE. Even low orbits represent a tremendous volume of space, with average distances between Starlink satellites is of hundreds kilometers.
 
Didn't we just have a thread start on the Russian equivalent of Starlink ? I'm pretty sure there are agencies in the US. and NATO. looking at similar 'peppering LEO with pellets to interdict Starlink' ... it all sounds like more 'everyone else is a bad guy' clickbait bs. to me :/
 
TsrJoe said:
Didn't we just have a thread start on the Russian equivalent of Starlink ? I'm pretty sure there are agencies in the US. and NATO. looking at similar 'peppering LEO with pellets to interdict Starlink' ... it all sounds like more 'everyone else is a bad guy' clickbait bs. to me :/
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Kinetic destruction of satellites gets you into Kessler Cascade threats, especially when we're talking about constellations the size of Starlink and the defensive equivalents.
 
TsrJoe said:
Didn't we just have a thread start on the Russian equivalent of Starlink ? I'm pretty sure there are agencies in the US. and NATO. looking at similar 'peppering LEO with pellets to interdict Starlink' ... it all sounds like more 'everyone else is a bad guy' clickbait bs. to me :/
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Russia’s equivalent of Starlink is probably unrealistic, and if it ever exists it will operate at a much higher altitude.

I cannot imagine the U.S. is interested in this method of attack since it owns the majority of the satellites in orbit.

I have no idea if the use of shrapnel would be effective…certainly it would not be a prompt kill mechanism. But on the other hand, you could throw a lot of ball bearings with a Saramat.
 

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