anything that reks musk is a win in my book
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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I suppose most space-tier countries make research on the theme of muting/blinding the satellites. It is just common sense.
I thought it was denial of capacity. Satellites loaded with small ball bearings wrapped around high explosives to not only destroy satellites in a short term low orbit version of kessler syndrome, but to keep LEO full of satellite destroying shit for a while to deny relaunching new satellites.
A 500km orbit like Starlink means unassisted objects can stay up for almost 10 years. Long enough for war, short enough to not permanently damage space.
Is this scorched ~~earth~~ space tactic viable though?
Looking at the sort of tech militaries are heavily investing in at the moment, many require long range communication to work to their full potential. Sure, there is also the push to add object recognition and other smart systems to unmanned vehicles, but those are mainly intended to take care of the final approach where potential interferences are strongest.
Also surveillance satelites are irreplaceable in their capabilities.
Yes. For a non space-tier power. Their utility for space/LEO comms are valuable, but peripheral. Never going fully high tech, keeps the legacy systems in use and in current practice. Whereas a power like the US doesn’t do shit without a LINK net established and maintained, because we’ve forgotten/are unwilling to use the old methods.
It’s the Ukraine-Russo problem in the Black Sea, but applied to space. Denial is easier than presence, and even easier than dominance. If you can’t compete, why let them use it they way they want, or at all?
I am still not convinced because you are missing the political implications: Blocking LEO for your opponent means blocking it for everyone, friend or foe alike.
Unless we are talking about an all out two sided world war with no neutral parties blocking space is out of the question. It's the same reason we don't see nations using nuclear weapons: Their use would cause world wide condemnation and at best sanctions against you, at worst more enemy combatants.
With the right mergers and acquisition this LEO Scorched Space can scale up enough to be a militarily viable. We just hit the snooze button on space for the next 500 years, that should give us the time to "address" the problem of the coninued existence of mass CO² emitters and their supply chains
But China IS a space-tier power...
Is it viable?
If your opponent's use of the LEO space and satelites is more effective, more critical and beneficial to their operations than yours by a wide enough degree, then yes, scortched space is viable.
Well, the advantage has to be colossal because not only are you denying your opponent the use of LEO but the whole world. This is guarantied to make some new friends.
All's fair in love and war.
That's a little naive.
More than a little naive, the Geneva Conventions, and nuclear M.A.D. Have been proving it wrong for decades.
Maybe space will remain unscorched just like we remaining atomically unvaporized
Each new technology immediately raises two questions: how do we destroy it and how do we use it for destruction.
Three questions actually.
Can we use it for porn?
I'm sure Satlink has been extensively trialled for that use too.
i bet theres an xkcd for this
That's always the 4th question
Seconded.
"Can I fuck it?"
If you’re brave enough, anything is a dildo.
This leads to the question of where I can find rule 34 of this.
Everywhere but the EU
Watch these satellites get DESTROYED by an invader!
All you need to do is hit the right spot on a satellite with an ablative laser to make it de-orbit.
Yeah and that is not how that works, that is not how physics works and that is not how anything works.
A laser heating one side of anything enough to ablate material in space will alter it's trajectory, it's entirely possible that objects in low earth orbit would be forced to return to earth. That's been proposed as a possible way to deal with all the random crap in space.
But im sure musk went all out giving these satellites the best money can get./s