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What is the limiting constraint on space based kinetic weapons in the present and future? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 hours ago by j4k3@lemmy.world to c/askscience@lemmy.world

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Nuclear is taboo, but a mass moving at high velocity in space and then impacting the Earth is just as powerful, if not more so. Seeing it launch, and knowing it is coming but unstoppable except through leveraged diplomacy is more strategic. The timeline is long, but the potential for a redistribution of geopolitical power structures is large.

I think it is likely a distant future type of problem. Refueling of a large craft in space is likely a major factor, but we are nearly at that point now. I am curious if such a technology comes before large scale space colonies or after. Does it make more sense to weaponize some low earth orbit asteroid for the mass, like covering the surface with an expanding ablative resin before redirecting it to a target.

If all major wars last for years, when (if ever) does it make sense to have a launch platform around a Jovian moon for the largest gravitational assist.

Not that I want any such thing. I am thinking about hard science fiction and the overall timeline.

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[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 1 points 5 hours ago

This is an issue, but there is also a lot more space up there than people intuitively understand. There are less than 20,000 satellites in space. If they were all at surface level at the equator, that's 300 m apart. In reality there is a 3D space so they're not all constrained to a single line (but that's where most of the complications come in too). Low earth orbit is about 200 km to 2000 km so that's a lot of layers to spread satellites out vertically. Its going to get a lot more busy and its important to have a better mechanism for deciding how we share that area, but there is a lot of it there to share around too