So we hit 85 targets in Syria and Iraq. Not sure Iran really cares as that’s the point of having a proxy. We heard about Iran launching satellites recently. Why not take those out ? Seems a good way to hit back and not strike Iran directly.
They used a proxy. We didn’t. Your choice would seem to be attacking their proxy or employing a proxy to attack them. A direct attack doesn’t make sense, satellites or not. Just guessing.
Blowing up satellites is a terrible idea. It creates fields of debris that orbit the earth practically forever that makes it harder to put more satellites up or space travel. Many years ago China had the bright idea to blow up one of their satellites up there as a test and it created a giant mess. All of those pieces of debris to the extent they are big enough to be tracked have to be tracked. China's Anti-Satellite Test: Worrisome Debris Cloud Circles Earth
Fair and could be true. I’m certainly not promoting lunatic L graham to bomb Tehran. Just something that sends a message to the true originator.
At any rate, physical destruction of satellites is a terrible idea. When you destroy an enemy aircraft, it falls to the ground. When you destroy an enemy ship, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. When you destroy an enemy satellite, its debris goes in all kinds of unpredictable directions and stays up there forever, constantly threatening the existing constellation. No one ever considers that. In the event of a great power conflict where we go after each other’s satellites, the effects are going to last decades as we figure out how to clean up earth’s orbit and start over.
Once again, here's where Spaceballs takes its rightful place as one of the greatest movies of all time. I give you: Vac-u-suck spacebALLS VACU-SUCK - Google Search
Excellent idea, m’lord. Please allow me to be present when the engineers brief you on how well a giant vacuum cleaner would work in the, er, vacuum of outer space.
Oh my God. Freakin' science again. How am I supposed to address THFSG when you keep bringing up facts?
If correct, this is what I was alluding to. A way to strike at Iran directly without kinetic ops on the surface. As I mentioned doubt they care about us hitting proxies as that is part of the point with a proxy
Another minor point, you would need to make sure you know what you are destroying. Many satellites, even those in low earth orbit, have long used radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Radiation based batteries clad in iridium housing. Volumes of the radioactive material obviously would not create a major nuclear event if the satellite was destroyed. However, in the event of the destruction of the satellite in an uncontrolled manor, those RTG's are designed to withstand re-entry (melting point of iridium is ~ 2450 C, and for example re-entry temperature experienced by the shuttle is ~ 1500 C) and even withstand impact of an accident on lift-off. My first internship I spent time learning to process iridium in mega high temperature systems as we constructed the cladding for the Cassini satellite mission radioactive fuel cells. In the event of an uncontrolled destruction of a satellite, you could accidentally end up with plutonium, strontium, cesium, polonium landing in an area with people or a water supply and make people sick. Remote, but possible, so why screw around with it?
I suppose the answer to that would be if the alternative was worse. If China or Russia started physically destroying our satellites, we would have to do the same. Also, I suppose if it came down to the remote possibility you describe or the certainty of losing a carrier strike group, including thousands of service personnel, then that would be no choice at all.
OK, so you were "alluding" to something that you don't know whether it works or not as the solution? Of course you were.
I would rather wrap a cable around the prop on that ship sending targeting data to the Houthi or hit it with some sort of EMP to fry it's electronics or otherwise disable it without explosives or obvious guilt. seems like we should have a sub with means to disable a ship without destroying it or revealing your presence
I was ‘alluding’ to possibilities of striking satellites directly and how that would work. No I don’t know all our capabilities for different kinetic ops in space and pros and cons for each. Not sure that is a shocker as I opened the thread to discuss options of striking at Iran that were different from striking a fuel depot or oil field in Iran. Ive also spent a ton of time flying in and out of Eglin for over 20 years. Heard stories of different airborne weapons testing and countermeasure testing. Am I allowed to ask opened ended questions about that without direct knowledge of the actual capabilities ?
seems pretty reasonable. My point was opening a discussion to direct operations toward Iran vs their proxies without hitting their territory directly.
We’ve been experimenting with lasers to burn out satellite sensors or “blind” them rendering them useless. Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine had the info as far back as the 1990s maybe farther. I have no idea where it is now, if at all.
