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Comments     Threshold


RE: We come in peace
By inperfectdarkness on 12/31/2011 8:30:20 PM , Rating: 2
i think anyone who has looked into the sheer economics of attempting to wage war from space realizes the ridiculously gargantuan amount of money it would take to do it--and for relatively little benefit. 1-lbs costs $20,000 to put in space. it's expensive enough to put satellites up there; hauling missiles and other weapons up there is prohibitively expensive. worse, it would add to the ever-expanding debris-field we have up there.

and even worse than that, all of the potential uses for "space-weapons" can (at least as of now) be accomplished with other, lower-terrestrial means (ASAT, etc).

i for one, actually believe them when they say they don't want to wage war FROM space. of course, that doesn't preclude the possibility of war IN space...

RE: We come in peace
By charleski on 1/1/2012 8:53:15 PM , Rating: 2
Indeed, no-one's suggesting the Chinese want to fire missiles from space, and any attempt to frame space weaponisation in that manner is bogus. Space has a huge impact on the military effectiveness of all the major powers without there being a single weapon in use.

Knocking out GPS alone would be a significant blow to US forces. If you want to harm the intel capabilities of an enemy, then knocking out their satellites would be a very effective way of doing it. While there was talk of 'killer-sats' back in the Star Wars era, the most effective way of bringing down a sat is with a ground-launched missile.

