They should have seen this coming. The big Indian IT consultancies have existed since the 1980s and they have been swimming in billions since the early 2000s. They should have invested into actual product development at least a decade ago.
1. This weapons test was also against a low orbit satellite.
2. There is no reason to believe that X-37 cannot be a space-based weapons platform.
3. Why does it matter if the weapon was fired at a satellite from the ground, or at a satellite from space? The risk factor (Kessler effect) to peaceful space exploitation is exactly the same in both scenarios, because it comes from a satellite being blown up, not from a missile being launched.
You're making distinctions without a difference. The problem is ASWs existing, not splitting hairs over where ASWs are launched from.
> Well, it matters because everyone said they wouldn't do this. The weaponization of space is something we said we wouldn't do.
Why does it matter? What are the first-principles reasons for why firing a missile from a satellite into a satellite is a problem, but firing a missile from an aircraft carrier into a satellite is not? It should also be noted that putting conventional weapons in orbit is not currently banned by any international treaty.
Does it make any difference, but semantics? Kessler syndrome will happen in response to either one.
>Don't get me wrong, Russia aren't some good guy, but when you actively do a thing for tens of years and then the other guy does that thing, you have no moral high ground left to complain.
Russia tested a satellite-to-satellite weapon which is completely unprecedented militarization of space.
The US has tested ground-based anti-satellite weapons on satellites in decaying Low-Eart Orbits. The debris quickly burned up in the atmosphere.
China is the only country to have blown up a satellite beyond LEO. The debris from that will be in orbit for decades. That was an unprecedented militarization of space and not comparable with anything the US has done in the space.
You are pushing a narrative that the US is the warmonger in space and that Russia is only responding in kind. The truth is that Russia and China are far ahead of the US in weaponizing space. The US is playing catch-up.
No, but that seems a little bit disingenuous. Aircraft carriers are neither missiles nor weapons either. We can recognize things as military assets that are neither missiles nor weapons.
The X-37B is a DOD asset, operated by the military, capable of deploying weapons systems. In that way, it is part of the military capability of the US.
Actually back in the day the Soviets were genuinely afraid of the Space Shuttle, as they though that due to it's capability for sudden orbit changes via aerodynamic surfaces. They thought it might start on an otherwise routine mission only to do a sudden orbit change that makes it fly over Moscow & nuke it with hardly any warning at all.
It is said that was also the reason they started the Buran and Energia project - while their engineers though the Space Shuttle was too complicated, expensive and dangerous (and they were right...) they also though there must be something special about it, otherwise the Americans would not build something that bad.
I am pretty sure that engineers of a country that has sent first man to orbit, built first space station, got first pictures from lunar and venus surfaces, those engineers knew very well that “sudden orbit changes via aerodynamic surfaces” can’t be done in a vacuum.
They have seen some dangers like sattelite theft and others, so they have built a vehicle with similar capacity just because you have to match the opponent, even if the idea doesn’t really work and there are more efficient ways of achieving same results.
It appears that the study was considering the shuttle's ability to glide while re-entering. They were afraid a shuttle could launch from Vandenberg and do a maneuver similar to the shuttle's once-around abort and approach the USSR from the south (most of their early-warning systems were facing north) and possibly even return home afterwards.
It's a cute theory but you should be skeptical of the claim that this study was the motivation for the Soviet shuttle program.
The main thing necessary to understand Buran is... why the big heavy delta wings? It is clear why the US shuttle has them: Reference Mission 3A/3B, which the USAF added to the design requirements in exchange for political cover in Congress (see T.A. Heppenheimer, _The Space Shuttle Decision_). If you launch due south from Vandenberg and you need to return back to your landing site (either because of the Reference Mission or because of a Abort-Once-Around) you have to be able to move roughly 1/16 of the Earth's diameter in the atmosphere (otherwise you end up in the Pacific Ocean), and that forces you to the big heavy delta wings that sacrifices a lot of payload.
But why did the Soviets need that much cross-range? First of all their spy satellites were not generally put into polar orbits (they used shorter lived satellites that didn't need sun synchronous orbits) and second of all, one polar orbit around from Baikonur runs right over Russian land rather than the Pacific Ocean, so they had no need for all of that cross range.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that a design goal for Buran was "copy the STS, but don't do quite as many silly things" because I simply can't find a use case for that much cross range for them.
I would be willing to bet there are political considerations at play also.
The popularity of the Space Program in America has fluctuated over the years with a corresponding amount of support and funding from the government. That being said, the Space Shuttle was seen at the time as a major iteration in space technology. Moreover, it closely resembled an actual "space ship" from science fiction lore! For the first time space technology was recognizable and relatable to the American taxpayer.
They probably could have accomplished more with a less iconic design, but they would have had trouble selling it to Congress and taxpayers. For a society that's used to seeing billion-dollar metal tubes used up every several minutes before exploding into the ocean; the reusable "Space Shuttle" was a comfort investment for Americans that boosted confidence and enthusiasm for the Space Program.
Delta wings aren't necessary for that. The Soviet's wingless first/early iteration of a Shuttle copy was designed to soft land with its 20 ton return payload by parachute, aided by retrorockets firing at the last moment.
I mean, the Soviet version of the B29 had extra rivet holes because one of the B29s they reverse engineered had a manufacturing mistake. Would they trust their engineers to make a close copy that wasn't exactly the same aerodynamically? I know that's in a different era of the USSR, but still.
When you encounter things you don't understand in complex engineering it's not unwise to copy them because you are either copying a harmless mistake, irrelevant appendix type feature or it's a key feature you don't yet understand.
Plus the cost overhead for a few more rivets isn't crazy; even if they're superfluous and you know it, better to spend brainpower on more complex and critical engineering.
The idea was to just dip your perigee a bit into the atmosphere, use the aero surface to change inclination, but not loose enough speed to put you apogee into the atmosphere as well.
Voila, you are now in completely different orbit, one that a conventional spacecraft can't achieve due to the delta-v requirements an inclination change would require.
Also once you have don this, you can put your perigee above the atmosphere by a short OMS burn.
It would be silly to use the X-37 as an anti-sat weapon: it's too expensive. Think of how cheaply SpaceX is putting up Starlink! A single Falcon 9 could probably put up a bunch (20? 30?) of antisat weapons that only ever raise or lower their orbits and fire .22s at their targets. The idea is to disable targets with as little debris as possible.
With larger anti-sat sats you could actually latch on to the target and de-orbit it for zero orbital debris destruction. This requires many more, much larger such devices because while it takes relatively little delta-v to raise or lower an orbit, it takes a lot more to match an arbitrary target's orbit (to which more fuel has to be added for de-orbiting).
> antisat weapons that only ever raise or lower their orbits and fire .22s at their targets.
raising your orbit is the hard and expensive part, it takes a lot of propellant, which generally rules out smaller vehicles, right?
And if you want to destroy a satellite, you need a lot of kinetic energy, which for a tiny projectile means lots of speed relative to the target... But since your absolute speed determines the height of your orbit, the only way to get more than ~1000 ft/s is to have your gun-sat in an opposite-direction orbit to the target, right? And isn't it the case that our satellites are all orbiting in more or less the same direction, since they launch from canaveral and have to head east to be over water?
You don't really need a lot of kinetic energy, it's not like satellites are armored. I'd think a pretty small kinetic energy, like a rifle bullet, would do it (depending on where it hit, obviously.) The trick is delivering that small kinetic energy...
The only issue is that using kinetic weapons greatly increases the risk of Kessler Syndrome; in other words premature mutually assured destruction. Kinetic space weapons are so easy to get wrong with outsized repercussions.
Otherwise raising orbit is expensive(ish) depending on whether you want a circular orbit. Matching an orbit can be expensive. If the target has auto avoidance like Starlink does then matching orbit becomes war of attrition; even getting the target to burn off its fuel is a win as it will drastically shorten its life span.
Deorbiting is relatively easy at LEO, just increasing frontal area is a cheap way to achieve it. Above LEO would normally require fuel of some amount.
Changing the altitude is fine, with all the electric propulsion that is available nowadays. You just need enough power and that means big deployables. The main issue is orbital plane changes, meaning that in the future, satellite-to-satellite weapons will not rendez-vous with the target but just do a quick approach while being on a different orbit and send/drop a low speed projectile to collide with the target. All this is already possible on a 100kg-class satellite.
Can you identify a time when cost was obviously a signifcant factor in a military choice? To me it seems that cost is low in the grand scheme of things.
If they could have 1,000 asat sats, they'd want to have 1,000. Can you imagine them saying "sure, let's just have an X-37B, one, just one, it will do"? If you need these in a shooting war, 1 ain't gonna be enough. You need lots of them. You can't have lots of them if: they're big and heavy (launches are too infrequent and too expensive) or if they're too expensive (you want 1,000 but can only afford 10).
Unless you have a security clearance and are using the information from classified sources, you cannot claim this, and people should not believe this statement at all.
The X-37B is a classified US military project. There is no confirmation, either way, whether it is or isn't a weapons system, or whether it has already been used as a weapon system.
In fact, you can ask the US military point blank, is the X-37B a weapon, and you will get "no comment"
Sadly I think more and more, that we are in the point of no repair (return). Regardless being US, UK, China, Russia we are in world govern by mafia like diplomacy/politics, and with recent development in nuclear, space and Antarctica militarization ... things does not look great... unfortunately there is no planet B nor there is a good enough bunker :/ ...
My whole life I thought that things could be solved with science and reason, but it seems we need a miracle...
You seem bummed out by the idea of where the world is going.
Look back at "The Future" as thought of by people in the 1950's and see how accurate they were. So don't think you will be accurate.
And if it is that bad, or worse, well you can only do so much.
Even though I am devoutly NOT religious there is a nice set of words:
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference"
I think it’s naive to think the X-37 doesn’t have the capability to be used a weapon. A spacecraft able to stay in orbit for years with the ability to hide its payload from observers we must assume is carrying something onboard that can be considered a weapon.
It's overkill as an anti-sat sat. It'd be much cheaper to put up tons of anti-sat sats meant only for that purpose -- no need to reenter and land, no need for reusability, etc.
The X-37 is obviously a military device, since they're the ones using it, and it may well be meant for servicing U.S. military sats, spying on others' sats, jamming them perhaps, or outright stealing them, and, yes, maybe destroying them, but again: there's no point using the X-37 for anti-sat purposes as it's too expensive for that.
Why do we have all of this historical evidence about military purchasing and yet continued belief that current projects are all sensibly intended and operated?
At the end of the day, US has 3-4x more space infrastructure than CN/RU, and relatively more dependence. This gap has to be closed through whatever means even if it doesn't accommodate for best practice. Sometimes asymmetry in capabilities rationalizes pissing in the commons.
The first satellite caused huge concern in US, because it can be easily turned into a ICBM. To state X-37B is not a missile or weapon, is simply inconceivable for anyone who is not owning the thing.
This is precisely how most major superpowers justify their behaviors. Just because of their size and power, a lot of things can hurt other nations. It's not a matter of what one things, one has to consider their impact, and their target's tolerance.
I have been wondering why Facebook has become the only platform that tolerates right-wing speech. The other platforms took the convenient route and kicked out right-wing voices.
Why exactly is Facebook risking both bad press and a revolt from its overwhelmingly progressive employees?
Facebook can afford to do so because they have higher margins allowing for more experimentation/risk-taking. Businesses in more competitive spaces are unable to take tough stands.
The New York Times cannot be the New York Times of New York Times v Sullivan anymore, because their ad monopoly has been decimated. But Facebook can be the NYT of NYT v Sullivan, because they have 40% margins on their ad business.
One thing I have been wondering is: why is Google so lacking in conviction?
Twitter has a more left leaning audience than many social media platforms, hence its creep away from tolerating anything right wing or centrist.
Facebook's audience is predominantly more balanced in that regard, with a larger percentage of conservatives using it in some way (especially those in older generations).
If they tried to go the same way as Twitter or Reddit, a large percentage of Facebook users would be absolutely pissed, and they'd likely lose a lot of traffic.
I think you're confusing conservative views with hateful ones. Zuckerberg makes the same mistake and it's discussed in the article:
>“He [Zuckerberg] uses ‘diverse perspective’ as essentially a cover for right-wing thinking when the real problem is dangerous ideologies,” Brandi Collins-Dexter, a senior campaign director at Color of Change, told BuzzFeed News after reading excerpts of Zuckerberg’s comments. “If you are conflating conservatives with white nationalists, that seems like a far deeper problem because that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about hate groups and really specific dangerous ideologies and behavior.”
Other platforms has plenty of voices from all parts of the spectrum. The difference is that they might actually be making a more sincere attempt at moderating.
Is it in the geopolitical interest of the West and India to use the same Internet platforms? Take a look at what reddit and YouTube users have to say about India. That kind of uncensored hatred and racism will push India right into the arms of Russia and China.
It would be better for US-India relations if Indian Internet users also have local alternatives to choose from. Local alternatives where they don't have to hear what Cletus from Texas has to say about their country and religion.
Geopolitics isn't determined by comments on Internet forums. It's determined by mutual interest between governments and how their administrative officials think. YouTube and Reddit comments don't mean anything given that a vast majority don't understand nuances of geopolitics.
>Geopolitics isn't determined by comments on Internet forums
Politics is increasingly being influenced by Internet movements and culture. Millions of Indians being repeatedly exposed to what reddit and YouTube has to say about them will change their opinion about the West for the worse. The Indians who browse reddit and YouTube are more likely to be young and politically savvy.
I'm not calling for censorship. One possible solution is that American Internet platforms create India-focused silos of their platforms. Indian Internet users (who wish to do so) should still be able to go out of their way to find out what Cletus from Texas has to say.
> Politics is increasingly being influenced by Internet movements and culture.
They are not. Internet users affect public opinion, but only to an extent that it may influence domestic policy. International affairs are run levels above and they rarely take cues from the Internet because, as I said before, the general public lack the nuance in discussing geopolitics. Case in point, America's relationship with the Saudis. People in the US have been complaining "Saudi Arabia bad" for a long time, yet the alliance is as strong as ever because public opinion simply does not matter in geopolitics.
Platforms need better ways to filter out "unwanted" voices. The amount of Hindi videos on youtube with English titles is pretty infuriating. As well as increasing Indian/China/Pakistan drama on relevant topics. "Unwanted" not specific to these groups, just general need for personalized content control as the internet is only getting more and more dramatic with new geopolitical tensions.
For reddit, I recommend "Reddit Pro Tools", it's a customization mass tagger. Setup a few filters for new accounts, users who posts in kid subreddits (likely kids), politics, and you have a good sense of who you're dealing with at any time. Internet needs more first impressions. I'm not interested in the opinion of a user who posts in r/teenager or r/XYZnationalistsubreddit etc.
One roadblock is that many in the embedded software industry uses proprietary IDEs and tools like Keil, Atmel Studio, CCStudio and STM32CubeIDE. These propietary IDEs and tools are often based on Eclipse or Visual Studio Isolated Shell.
How good is the Rust support in Eclipse and Visual Studio?
Visual Studio should not be confused with Visual Studio Code. The latter has great Rust support.
I wouldn't say that they embrace them. I'd say they accept them. Often because this is what they are used to.
It is mostly newcomers to the embedded programming scene that go on about tooling because they're used to better tooling from non-embedded development.
I think one should pay attention to the newcomers and try to learn from them.
There has been a lot of discussion about light pollution from the 1500+ planned Starlink satellites. However much of the discussion is based on the assumption that the world will collectively let Starlink operate as monopoly.
How much will light pollution increase when the next competitor launches 1500+ satellites?
How much will light pollution increase when a Chinese competitor launches yet another 1500+ satellites?
"Light pollution" for naked eye viewing of the sky is not a big concern for Starlink anymore. SpaceX has designed a sunshade which should make the satellites completely invisible to the naked eye in their service orbits. The sunshade has been designed in collaboration with astronomers to ensure that even the most sensitive telescopes will not have problems with it either.
Will the Chinese do the same? We'll see. But it's definitely possible to mitigate these concerns. There's not much to discuss until a credible competitor to Starlink emerges.
I'm more concerned about the space junk aspect of it. My understanding is that as satellites collide they produce millions of tiny deadly particles. If we have enough of those in orbit then it will effectively trap us on earth.
I'm all for faster internet, but not at the cost of making space travel impossible.
SpaceX moved the satellites to lower orbits, so any broken satellites or debris will fall out of the sky within a few years due to atmospheric drag. And they are specifically designed to burn up completely in reentry. The real concern is in higher orbits where debris would persist for millennia. This is not a concern for Starlink.
Not really. The only way a collision could truly raise an orbit is if a resulting piece of debris had far higher velocity than either incoming satellite which, while maybe not theoretically impossible, seems exceedingly unlikely. Furthermore, the way orbital mechanics works, all orbits resulting from a collision go through the point of the collision, so the collision of two objects in circular orbits can never result in an orbit with higher perigee. The orbit of debris may turn from circular to elliptical with a higher apogee, but those orbits will almost certainly have lower perigees and decay faster.
