I think LEO nuclear missiles haven’t been done because they aren’t militarily useful, not because of what diplomats write in treaties. If we wanted to actually destroy an enemy with nuclear missiles, submarine-based nuclear missiles, which we already have, are better—the submarine can get close to the target, resulting in very short flight times, and can often attack from many directions, all without being detectable until the moment the missile leaves the water. Anyone with a decent telescope can look up and figure out which satellites are monitoring the weather or transmitting messages versus which ones might be missiles. LEO missiles also wouldn’t fulfill the primary function of an ICBM, which is to absorb hostile nukes. An adversary who wanted to launch nukes at us would have to take out 400 silos in the middle of nowhere with their nukes before even thinking about hitting American cities. A satellite can be taken out with conventional weapons, it would not force the enemy to deplete their nuclear arsenal. As a matter of military strategy, putting nuclear missiles on satellites just isn’t a very good idea. The treaties only happened because the generals didn’t want it anyway.
I’m less familiar with the blinding lasers thing, but I’m also having trouble seeing the point. Armies can still just shoot people, which is both easier to do and more effective.
The objections River made apply to the thing you linked, too: namely to stay in a low-earth trajectory for any significant fraction of one orbit requires a speed of 28,000 km/h and more importantly all of that speed must be tangential (“horizontal”). It is expensive in energy to get rid of that tangential component of momentum, and most of it must be gotten rid of in order for the warhead to intersect the Earth’s surface with any accuracy.
(Yes, ICBM’s reach that speed, too, or close to it, but only when the direction of travel is close to straight down. I.e., the tangential component of velocity never gets above a few 1000 km/h.)
Yes, it gets a lot cheaper to get rid of speed when the vehicle is designed to interact with the atmosphere like the Space Shuttle was, as opposed to just shooting through it like a bullet or an ICBM warhead is, but that does not support your point (Tsvi) because such vehicles are the subject of intense study by all the advanced militaries (under the name “hypersonic glide vehicle”) and I have seen no signs that any nation is willing to forswear investment in or deployment of this new class of weapons.
In the decades during which hypersonic glide vehicles were infeasible, River is probably correct in asserting that there was no military advantage to be got from either nukes on satellites or fractional orbital bombardment systems.
Oh, I misread that then. I think my thesis is still the same—it doesn’t look like it provides much actual strategic benefit. If the goal is to actually hit the enemies cities, submarine-based missiles seem at least as good. If the goal is to draw enemy missiles away from our own cities, an ICBM is just as good. The lack of a use case explains not building them. The treaties aren’t doing any extra work there.
I think LEO nuclear missiles haven’t been done because they aren’t militarily useful, not because of what diplomats write in treaties. If we wanted to actually destroy an enemy with nuclear missiles, submarine-based nuclear missiles, which we already have, are better—the submarine can get close to the target, resulting in very short flight times, and can often attack from many directions, all without being detectable until the moment the missile leaves the water. Anyone with a decent telescope can look up and figure out which satellites are monitoring the weather or transmitting messages versus which ones might be missiles. LEO missiles also wouldn’t fulfill the primary function of an ICBM, which is to absorb hostile nukes. An adversary who wanted to launch nukes at us would have to take out 400 silos in the middle of nowhere with their nukes before even thinking about hitting American cities. A satellite can be taken out with conventional weapons, it would not force the enemy to deplete their nuclear arsenal. As a matter of military strategy, putting nuclear missiles on satellites just isn’t a very good idea. The treaties only happened because the generals didn’t want it anyway.
I’m less familiar with the blinding lasers thing, but I’m also having trouble seeing the point. Armies can still just shoot people, which is both easier to do and more effective.
I’m confused… it sounds like you’re talking about missiles on satellites? The thing I linked is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System
It’s a kind of missile that flies lower than ICBMs IIUC.
The objections River made apply to the thing you linked, too: namely to stay in a low-earth trajectory for any significant fraction of one orbit requires a speed of 28,000 km/h and more importantly all of that speed must be tangential (“horizontal”). It is expensive in energy to get rid of that tangential component of momentum, and most of it must be gotten rid of in order for the warhead to intersect the Earth’s surface with any accuracy.
(Yes, ICBM’s reach that speed, too, or close to it, but only when the direction of travel is close to straight down. I.e., the tangential component of velocity never gets above a few 1000 km/h.)
Yes, it gets a lot cheaper to get rid of speed when the vehicle is designed to interact with the atmosphere like the Space Shuttle was, as opposed to just shooting through it like a bullet or an ICBM warhead is, but that does not support your point (Tsvi) because such vehicles are the subject of intense study by all the advanced militaries (under the name “hypersonic glide vehicle”) and I have seen no signs that any nation is willing to forswear investment in or deployment of this new class of weapons.
In the decades during which hypersonic glide vehicles were infeasible, River is probably correct in asserting that there was no military advantage to be got from either nukes on satellites or fractional orbital bombardment systems.
Oh, I misread that then. I think my thesis is still the same—it doesn’t look like it provides much actual strategic benefit. If the goal is to actually hit the enemies cities, submarine-based missiles seem at least as good. If the goal is to draw enemy missiles away from our own cities, an ICBM is just as good. The lack of a use case explains not building them. The treaties aren’t doing any extra work there.