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Comment by cstross | Hacker News Reader

OP is a useful overview of the relevant regulations.

And in case anyone disputes the need for regulations, it's worth remembering that any rocket that can put a payload into orbit — any size of payload — is de facto an ICBM: not a very good ICBM by modern military standards, but an adequate one. Expecting your government to pay no attention to your microsat launcher is like expecting them to ignore the unlicensed tank factory in their back yard.

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Regardless of the whole ICBM issue even the suborbital stuff needs a 'license' too.

When we went out to the desert to launcher the "bigger" stuff(class H to O) we had a waiver with the FFA each time with a launch ceiling of around ~10k AGL or so.

I would wager you coulld weaponize a micro/cubesat enough to cause much more than icbm levels of chaos by attacking other sats (GPS, Spy, Comms, etc.) Thinking in terms of 1940's missles is a bit outdated.

Miss-iles, that's a very appropriate typo. "But I'm not planning to do any damage intentionally, and I'm expecting nothing to go wrong!" Well - the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and things going wrong at orbital velocities tend to have unintended...impacts, if you will.

A person who thinks in such terms must inherently be an artifact of the past. How else could one imagine the future properly? Attacking satellites of any type, is an inherent dismissal of the idea that there could be a peaceful purpose of such a device. It is better if going forward we get a type of basis for understanding the threat models that the actions we perform necessitate. A common vocabulary is the basis of trust.

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