Battlefield- Space

[welsh]

So.... how about that star wars, hunh?

Saw this in Popular Science-

Battlefield: Space
Military hardware has orbited Earth for decades, but no actual weapons have ever been deployed in space. That may change soon—and it may launch a major space race

By Dawn Stover | October 2005

So this is how the war in space might begin: not with a bang but a clank. On April 15, more than 450 miles above Earth, an experimental NASA spacecraft called DART (Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology) fired its thrusters and closed in on a deactivated U.S. military communications satellite—and then gently bumped into it.

This is how the world ends,
this is how the world ends,
not with a bang, but a bump?

That wasn't supposed to happen. The approaching craft had calculated its dwindling distance with lasers and was supposed to merely close in on the satellite and maneuver around it. This would demonstrate what are known as proximity operations, or "prox ops," a key component of future satellite servicing. Instead DART demonstrated another key component of future satellite warfare: bumping into things. The first sign of trouble came when DART mysteriously shut down. At first, NASA ground controllers guessed that it had run out of fuel while it was still a few hundred feet from the satellite. But five days later, an Air Force tracking system spotted the target satellite in a new, higher orbit, making obvious the fact that DART had collided with the satellite. As a test intended to pave the way for new technologies to service orbiting satellites, this was an abject failure. But as an inadvertent demonstration of a basic but potentially devastating space-combat tactic—disabling enemy satellites by ramming them into useless orbits—the mission was a surprising triumph.

Which actually makes me wonder about how many satellites accidently go bump in the night.

I think the real way to fight spy satellites is not with lazers or projectile weapons or with EMP, but with giant orbital bumper cars that go spinning around and bumping things out of the way. You could wrap them in rubber. Kind of like remote control demolition derby in space.

Will the Pentagon be carefully studying the DART data? Bet on it. The conquest of space has always served two essential purposes: scientific and technological advancement, and military advantage. It is a poorly held secret that NASA and the U.S. Air Force routinely transfer technologies back and forth between scientific and military programs. As DART demonstrated, virtually every system envisioned by the U.S. to extend our reach in the solar system also has a potential offensive use, from DART 's own autonomous rendezvous technology to communications and geographic survey systems that have been evolving for the past four decades. Even the spectacular Apollo lunar landing 36 years ago—executed by Air Force test pilots—was a thinly veiled effort to beat the Soviets to the moon and send a clear message of space superiority. Today, President George W. Bush is every bit as interested as John F. Kennedy was in gaining the upper hand in space. The White House will soon issue a new national security directive that will bring the nation a significant step closer to fielding weapons up there.

There is more in the article for those interested.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/cc71b07fd0837010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd/2.html

 

[Roshambo]

Pfft...they seriously need to get back some real engineers at NASA. These new kids aren't particularly bright, when they need to perform a multi-million dollar "oops!" to skunkwork what Ian Fleming inspired in the 60's (but Roald Dahl, no less, ran wild with the metaphors written in the book for the screenplay). And they should check their figures before planting yet another probe or satellite crater-deep into something else.

 

[Ashmo]

I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union could have come up with rubber coated spy sattelite hunter sattelites.

It seems like the most efficient way to get the job done anyway.

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

The NASAs engineers are bright as hell, but they lack the wisdom, so they have to screw more than few times, to get it right, they aren't Mcguivers you know.

 

[Ashmo]

Four words: zero gravity compatible pen. One word: pencil.

 

[Murdoch]

Four words: zero gravity compatible pen. One word: pencil.

pssh, the Soviets just weren't trying hard enough. Besides, that argument ignores the ancillary benefits that come from new technology.

 

[Big T]

Four words: zero gravity compatible pen. One word: pencil.

I believe that pen was developed by Fisher, the pen company, not by NASA or any US government body.

I may be wrong tho', so I'll have a quick Google around.

EDIT - After thinking about it, I looked on Snopes instead. Linky.

 

[Hotel California]

Whilst the americans were attempting during the coldwar to create a grand "star wars" esq. type of satallite laser program to blast Soviet satallites out of the sky - the reds had the worderful idea of simply throwing a bag of sand into orbit where ever the american satallites were - don't suppose it mattered to them that that would also screw them.
Fortunatly as the americans never developed/inplimented their system - the reds never did theirs. Still- just goes to show how damn simple space warfare can be if you don't have a trillion dollars to spend

Anyway - when half your department is working in feet and inches, and the other half is using metric - then you've got a totally stupid organisation.

 

[4too]

"Just Say Know"

"Just Say Know"



HC:

... Anyway - when half your department is working in feet and inches, and the other half is using metric - then you've got a totally stupid organization.

The standard "science" class use to have units conversion as part of
the regime. Had one in Junior High that had us doing chemistry with abstract units.
Stainless steel beads.

But. that was the late 1960's, early 1970's.

In the early '80's one could read editorials about why the public schools couldn't teach. Ignore urban demographics for now. Public schools and their sympathetic school boards developed administrative stratifications so they could justify salaries of 80 to 100 k. This is one of those Ponsey schemes where the rising bureaucratic stars' right of passage is to go to graduate school in education, piling it higher and deeper, PHD. Big degrees, indoctrinated in Ivory Towered Trendy helped inflate salaries. These 'administrative costs' add to the budget, and the sorry part is 'expertise' has showed little apparent improvement of the product.

Product? Ignore the kids, unless your state is trying to justify a LOTTERY. In 10 years or so your legislature will funnel the ""kids' money"" right into the general fund.

I am personally aware of how some remaining American unions are enclaves of entrenched entitlement, over paid '''welfare "Queens"". Teachers' Unions may or may not be so broadly brushed, ignore them for now.

Public schools are seen as 'liberal' enclaves so their failure is O.K.
Expect the 'rescue' to be conditional. More public money for private schools and the institutionalized insertion of religious Double Speak.

I lub Big Bubba!



So, yah,
American satellite success to Mars, using a standard American statistic, AMERICAN BASEBALL, is NASA batting less than 300? (Less than 33%).

And let's ignore for now the political pressures. Handlers wanted Reagan to point to the Challenger in orbit while he graced us with his State Of The Union Speech.
No metric conversion there. The ignored engineers clearly stated O ring failure at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe the generals, politicians, and defense industry millionaires were not 'clear' on what "" O ring failure"" meant.

Boom.

Guest school teacher (and shuttle crew) martyred on the alter of military industrial - political hubris. Never been a separation of church and State when it has come to love of money. Drink the wine, eat the wafer, retire to West Palm Beach. It's all good.

Ignore the ""batting average"" for Space Shuttles too.




4too

 

[Careless]

Nasa has the highest success rate with its mars missions, over 50%. Viking 1, 2, pathfinder, spirit, opportunity all landed safely. the polar lander failed. that's 5 of 6.
The world outsided the US, on the other hand, has an o-fer, which drops the global % down to 33%.
If you're talking about all missions to mars, NASA is 9-15.

 

[Hotel California]

That is true - but would you really travel on a comercial aircraft company which had a slightly over 50% chance of success?
Personally i wouldn't ... but thats just personal preference.

Ok, that thing about conversion, i didn't actually see what half of your post had to do with NASA per say, but i realise that it may just have been a rant at the school system.
Anyway, my point was that it would be all well and good if the two halves actually used conversions, but when they forget to inform the other that they were using different measurements then your space craft just adjusted in orbit by 0.2" and careens into the atmosphere, burns up and creates a billion-dollar firework.

NASA generally have out a lot of stuff into space sucessfully, but when a disaster happens its remembered a lot more than a mundaneish success. The point we're digressing from is - so much for lasers and fighter dogfights above your orbital BOMB001; as zero G is all about tiny movements escalating to giant forces. The ion drives only produce 15g of thrust a second compared to stupid numbers on the space shuttle.

"Space is like a giant game of pinball."

 

[Roshambo]

Nasa has the highest success rate with its mars missions, over 50%. Viking 1, 2, pathfinder, spirit, opportunity all landed safely. the polar lander failed. that's 5 of 6.
The world outsided the US, on the other hand, has an o-fer, which drops the global % down to 33%.
If you're talking about all missions to mars, NASA is 9-15.

True, but the difference is that the rest of the world hasn't been able to attempt it or doesn't see the current need, while NASA's current and expensive failures (though not as expensive as Bush's overall failures) are usually stemmed from a boneheaded "OOPS!" that originates from nobody really checking over the gear to make sure it is complete before it is put into service. Since they didn't plug in the mission computer into a simulator before the mission launch, then that is their fault for a few MIL taxpayer dollars they just planted into the Mars landscape through their stupidity. Then they have the balls to whine that they aren't getting enough money. Of course not, kids, when you waste it without making sure the equipment is mission ready before you launch, you don't get as much to waste.

Yeah, you also have to wonder why the space program and the enthusiasm for pilots to become astronauts takes a backseat to the fact that the chimps currently at NASA would probably kill them through misprogramming the shuttle before launch, and then just carelessly shrug about it.

 

[Careless]

That is true - but would you really travel on a comercial aircraft company which had a slightly over 50% chance of success?
Personally i wouldn't ... but thats just personal preference.

No, I wouldn't. no idea why you asked that.

True, but the difference is that the rest of the world hasn't been able to attempt it or doesn't see the current need, while NASA's current and expensive failures (though not as expensive as Bush's overall failures) are usually stemmed from a boneheaded "OOPS!" that originates from nobody really checking over the gear to make sure it is complete before it is put into service. Since they didn't plug in the mission computer into a simulator before the mission launch, then that is their fault for a few MIL taxpayer dollars they just planted into the Mars landscape through their stupidity. Then they have the balls to whine that they aren't getting enough money. Of course not, kids, when you waste it without making sure the equipment is mission ready before you launch, you don't get as much to waste.

And yet, the russians are 5 for 19 just getting working probes in mars orbit. I know the europeans have had a failure or three. NASA's record blows the rest of the world away. Unfortunately, the bureaucrats/politicians kept the shuttle program going decades past when they should have killed it and wound up killing people instead.[/quote]

 

[Hotel California]

ok, in space exploration people make mistakes.
Lots.
Given that yes, us europeans have had a few mistakes, most of us have stopped trying to send men into space altogether. Yet, even in the wake of the Challenger Disaster, the US is continuing to create even better plans of send men on a trip even further away from help than before. Couple that with dodgy 70 technology and what is essentially a two huge fireworks and you've got a horrifyingly daunting prospect. If the Nasa missions only have a 5/6 chance of sucess, would you fly in the 6th mission (i know this is not how the law of chance works but shush) ?

We all know NASA's and Bush's master plan is to have a man on Mars to boost their profile - but whats the point, except for silly beaurocratic and machoistic look what we can do. Robots, whilst not often as able to carry out some repairs which require out of the box thinking, are both not required to return home and you're not required to keep them feed, watered and alive, which were you to have an American [massive earthquake in Pakistan - no americans killed ?!?] astronought die would just bring down the whole nations esteem.

 

[Roshambo]

And yet, the russians are 5 for 19 just getting working probes in mars orbit. I know the europeans have had a failure or three.

I didn't say they were any more competent, or for that matter, experienced, funded, educated, supported, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. as NASA. Really, when the "best of the best" make a stupid mistake, then they aren't the best. They are just slightly less incompetent than the others. Oh, wait, that implies that the others are on the same playing field, which they are not. So given the amount of background support and high-end equipment, they are even more spectacularly incompetent because simple, stupid mistakes ruin all of that.

NASA's record blows the rest of the world away.

I still don't care, when it is littered with moronic mistakes. A lesser percentage of failure than others is a POOR excuse for failure itself.

 

[Retlaw83]

Whilst the americans were attempting during the coldwar to create a grand "star wars" esq. type of satallite laser program to blast Soviet satallites out of the sky - the reds had the worderful idea of simply throwing a bag of sand into orbit where ever the american satallites were - don't suppose it mattered to them that that would also screw them.
Fortunatly as the americans never developed/inplimented their system - the reds never did theirs. Still- just goes to show how damn simple space warfare can be if you don't have a trillion dollars to spend

Anyway - when half your department is working in feet and inches, and the other half is using metric - then you've got a totally stupid organisation.

The laser systems were meant to shoot ICBMs in low-Earth orbit, not enemy sattelites.

And it was Reagan's plan to develop this technology with Russia, and encourage them to build similar countermeasures - this would insure no one would launch because there was no benefit from initiating a nuclear strike.

 

[Hotel California]

The laser systems were meant to shoot ICBMs in low-Earth orbit, not enemy sattelites.

Granted, Thats is far more likely. My specific facts there were wrong, but the point i was making is that in space its not always the amount of money you can throw at something - its the ability to see past the need for a complex solution because a better and cheaper one is often there in your face.

Oh doesn't it all strike you as ironic though:

"Lets build a great army to conquoror our enemies."
"Lets build a Nuclear arsenal to stop anyone else attacking us whilst we're doing it."
"Oh dear, now our enemies have Nuclear weapons lets build protection against them to stop them using them."
"Now neither of us can fire Nuclear missiles so lets build another great army ..." usw

As most of the battles now fought are on too specific scales to warrant a nuclear strike and the loss of human life would be appalling its become the case that battles are still being fought with regular infantrymen - just this time with better weapons.