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Comment by lmilcin | Hacker News Reader

You miss the point completely. The real issue is how much heads up you get before you get destroyed. This heads up time is what regulated cold war and kept both sides in check.

Effectively, each shuttle launch gives Russians a little heart attack and the culmination is basically each orbit that goes over Russia because SST is supposed to have capability to alter the course, dip in the atmosphere, drop the bomb and go back into orbit and they only get about 2 minutes of warning at best.

This warning time is crucial because that's all you got to decide whether you are under attack or not. For ballistic missiles launched from enemy territory you get half an hour and it means a bunch of people can gather data and figure out if it's real or fluke and make informed decision. You can't make informed decision in 2 minutes and it is extremely dangerous because it does not give you any capability to verify anything or ask anybody.

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> You miss the point completely. The real issue is how much heads up you get before you get destroyed.

rkagerer addressed exactly this point, so I think you've misunderstood him. He acknowledges that the heads-up time from launch is formally much shorter than other delivery methods, but argues that the effective heads up time is large in scenarios of interest ("imminent geopolitical threat") because you have to slowly roll out a shuttle launch. The only case where you can actually exploit the very quick launch speed is when you have premeditated a first strike months in advance, which is not the typical scenario that Cold Warriors worried about.

Space Shuttle is able to spend prolonged time in space and back when it was being developed and build russians had no idea how it is going to be used. So they had to prepare their response because in the worst case they could be left with a flying nuclear strike capable of delivering the payload at almost any time.

Remember, when you are dealing with foreign power that you fight tooth and nail the worst case is the only thing that matters and you have to be prepared for it. You don't say "let's see what those pesky Americans will do with their new shiny toy", you say "Sasha, we need to be prepared or we are screwed".

Also, do you remember there was couple of those built from the start and there was supposed to be many, many more. That's a serious threat if your enemy has history of using that kind of projects for DoD purposes, you know DoD is engaged and you have no idea what is the real intended purpose.

I wasn't making any general claims about Russian and American strategic plans, or the overall quality of rkagerer's comment. I was only rebutting your suggestion that rkagerer had ignored the issue of heads up-time. You can certainly argue whether he addressed it well, but you have to actually engage with his argument (which I encourage you do to as a reply to his comment, not mine), not just repeat the facts all three of us are familiar with.

» This warning time is crucial because that's all you got to decide whether you are under attack or not. For ballistic missiles launched from enemy territory you get half an hour and it means a bunch of people can gather data and figure out if it's real or fluke and make informed decision. You can't make informed decision in 2 minutes and it is extremely dangerous because it does not give you any capability to verify anything or ask anybody.

I apologise in advance for the naivety and the insensitivity but what kind of an idiot would give a go ahead for a strike like this knowing that an unprovoked strike on a major civilian population center in Russia will almost assuredly lead to a response from multiple Russian ICBM locations that we keep worrying about the North Koreans.

If there was a fleet of a dozen or more space shuttles either "permanently" in the air or ready to fly at a moment's notice, I can see how that would change the equation but one space shuttle can't just dip, deliver a payload, climb up to rinse and repeat on five or more cities, can it?

A modern ICBM is able to deliver payloads to multiple targets at the same time. The technology is called MIRV [1], and U.S. has had it since the early 70s.

Since a space shuttle has a much larger payload than an ICBM and is also much more maneuverable, the Soviets probably couldn't exclude the possibility that it can deliver enough payloads to wipe off several cities and/or military bases in a single pass. They were already having trouble developing effective countermeasures to MIRV; a shuttle would have been a nightmare.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...

I appreciate your completely logical question.

The short answer is: for the same reason somebody would want to shoot ICBMs at enemy population centers.

The longer answer as I understand it: after WWII both USA and USSR invested incredible amount of resources in bid to achieve supremacy or at least maintain parity with the other. During that race anything that achieved results was on the table and both sides did funky stuff to surprise enemy, all the time.

Space race was viewed as a cover up story for advanced rocket and surveillence research.

Given the amount of resources and the current situation I think it was natural for russians to think there is something else going on with Space Shuttle. We know the dimensions of Shuttle bay and its capabilities were dictated by military requirements so it definitely isn't out of question. It would certainly be completely stupid for Russians not not assume the worst because in that kind of race the one that is not prepared looses.

Russians are same people as Americans. They have proven many times they are unwilling to attack USA, thanks to the balance of power and multitude of people who prevailed in difficult situations.

That doesn't mean they will not use any dirty trick to get advantage but using dirty tricks in this game is a legitimate way to maintain parity which is the objective of the game.

# what kind of an idiot would give a go ahead for a strike like this

In theory there is the possibility of a decapitation strike - destroy the he command and control centers so that they can't retaliate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitation_strike

The Soviets knew that theory. They had mobile launchers all across the USSR and submarines on standby.

And the idea that only the president can launch nukes is false. There were contingency plans.

Just wait until you hear about Wing Attack Plan R and the strategic mine shaft gap.

As I understand it, the Soviets had mobile contingency plans, but they were also afraid of delegating launch capability to the field -- for the very pragmatic reason that a rival power center (e.g., a portion of the military) could rebel and exploit it. This put a lot of pressure on central leadership to respond to possible missile warnings rapidly, since a decapitation strike could actually succeed. Allegedly the answer was Perimeter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand), which allowed delegation with a bunch of technical safeguards added.

I can't recall the source during the moment, but I read that during the cold war it was decided that targeting major population centers was more ethical than targeting nuke-capable military installations. This is counter-intuitive until you consider that population centers are worthless targets if you're planning on launching a decapitating first strike, therefore targeting major population centers signals to the opponent that you are poised for a retaliation strike, not a first strike. This is more ethical because it makes a nuclear war less likely to occur.

I like you pointed it out.

Cold War has its own, counter-intuitive logic. It is governed by game theory.

If war is bad then why US invests so much in war machine? Well, probably because investing nothing is historically bad way of maintaining peace. You are just inviting a bully to come and take your toys.

Looking from this point of view isn't it strange that so many people treat Russia as villanous because it invests so much in their military (or it has been investing)? I really wonder why people think it is ok for US to militarize itself but for USSR or Russia to do that it is somehow bad. I, of course, intentionally omit what the country is doing with its power, it is one thing to have military and the other thing what are you using it for.

Now, if US sends its troops abroad to subject some country, is it so difficult to think that USSR may feel threathened? If the way to keep peace is to keep parity and one party is trying to upset the parity the other has no other choice than to respond.

This game has many paradoxes and I feel people have not enough willingness to look at some geo-political events through the lens of a longer game.

We may say we want to bring democracy to Venezuela but what Russia is seeing is their power slipping. Right now they have precious little friendly land close to mainland US and they have no prospects of gainging more. At the same time, US is expanding NATO with more and more countries close to Russia border. Why is it so difficult to figure out this makes them very uneasy? Wouldn't some kind of response be expected? Why would US be surprised by it?

Up until now the game was to keep parity and now the parity is slowly eroding away. This absolutely must cause a response from Russia because the theory says they have to fill the void some way. Electronic warfare? Hacking? Meddling in elections?

Each side wants, understandabl, to mobilize its population in this struggle and there is no better way than to paint the enemy as a villain. I just wish we keep healthy amount of population on all sides capable of seing through cheap propaganda.

> At the same time, US is expanding NATO with more and more countries close to Russia border. Why is it so difficult to figure out this makes them very uneasy? Wouldn't some kind of response be expected? Why would US be surprised by it?

One of the reasons could be that US and RF are very asymmetrical players in the game. The structure of control in RF is less reliable, to the point of having arguments (not in the Kremlin, of course) of passing nuclear arms to US (!) to avoid dangerous scenarios. The intents are also different, modern RF power is mostly interested in material gains rather than strategic development. Abilities are different - RF can't always adequately answer to some voids left.

The calculus becomes a bit different if you are one of the countries Russia considers its buffer. You might have some aspirations of your own, but of course Russia has its own plan for you. The opposing superpower follows the same playbook, but you don't care since they aren't invading you, and so you'll happily join their defense pact.

I don't know if I am addressing your questions, but FWIW I am impatient when I encounter this blindness in other citizens of USA, that our military is only over there trying to stop violent people who do bad things.

I am far more intelligent than such people, and so I am obliged to show them the logical fallscy of their bias. ^^ yeah, literally as I was writing the first sentence, I realized how it reinforces the very self-serving bias that you seem to be confronting.

Despite gross miscalculation on the part of USA intelligence and military strategists, Soviet leaders did not issue a decapitation strike in late summer of 1983. I am sure they thought our President and military leaders to be crazy to wish for such a thing.

High-school and college students, we felt every bit as confused by all this. Madness. Every teenager must beleive at some point that their elders are completely insane...

A couple of years later, I had two classmates from the USSR, the only two such students in the United States at the time.

Anyway. The bias: "We are the Good Guys!" -- yeah that seems to have gotten worse, if anything. President W Bush asking Sec of State Colin Powell to systematically lie to the UN in order to drag them to war with Iraq, I was in Germany that week, and most people would ask me WTF your country so crazy and I would say actually yes i try to make noise to protest this myself, don't give up on us, it will get better...

And here we are. My kids think this is all normal.

Occupying parts of other countries (Georgia, Ukraine) with acts of ethnic genocides and making 200 000 refugees (Georgia), helping dictatorship regimes (Syria, Venezuela), interfering with other countries election processes, threatening other countries to make from them nuclear dust from government TV is not just cheap propaganda. It is a reality in which many people including me live (I am from Georgia). Russian government does not defends the interests of their people, it is a corrupted and aggressive government that only thinks about the well being of a bunch of its elite at the expense of its self population and other countries.

> I apologise in advance for the naivety and the insensitivity but what kind of an idiot would give a go ahead for a strike like this knowing that an unprovoked strike on a major civilian population center in Russia will almost assuredly lead to a response from multiple Russian ICBM locations that we keep worrying about the North Koreans.

One of the early applications of game theory was to develop your point into a strategic doctrine[1]: If there are two adversaries with the capacity to annihilate each other and with mutual knowledge of each other's capacities, then not initiating conflict is a stable equilibrium.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

> If there was a fleet of a dozen or more space shuttles either "permanently" in the air or ready to fly at a moment's notice

While this was never achieved in practise, not even close, regular and possibly short notice flights were part of the reusable shuttle's design intentions.

> but one space shuttle can't just dip, deliver a payload, climb up to rinse and repeat on five or more cities, can it?

I doubt it, but all that is needed for the enemy to be intimidated is that they think it might be possible.

The shuttle couldn't dip in and out of atmosphere even once, there wasn't the fuel on-board to allow aborting re-entry and landing. It could have dropped once though and hit (or at least aimed for) at least one target. Finding a safe landing zone ("safe" both in in terms of the ability of the craft to survive and the ability to receive the craft and its crew) would be difficult after that) could be quite a challenge, but that doesn't rule out s desperation attack or even a suicide attack.

I wonder if this threat was part of the impetus behind the creation of the Dead Hand system[1], which would put a retaliatory strike in motion automatically after a decapitation?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

And, welcome to the UK! We only had about three or four minutes warning time available, so when the sirens went off, that was all the time the population had to prepare/shelter, and obviously the authorities also only had that amount of time to decide on a response... This includes getting all your bomber aeroplanes started up, launched and in the air sufficiently far from the airfield to escape the blast radius of the weapons (probably Megaton range) used to destroy it!

I actually wonder why these missiles were not left in orbit. Surely a missile launch directly from space would require much smaller missiles and even less lead time.

I cannot say for sure but here are four things that cones to mind:

- Considering how much of a problem normal space debris is I'm happy we don't have a number of old nukes in orbit.

- I also guess nuclear weapons need some maintenance.

- Leaving nuclear weapons in orbit would make it possible for another country to try to intercept/study/disarm them.

- Regulations/treaties about weapons in space

Missiles left in orbit are only effective as first-strike weapons, because you just wait until they are over the enemy then launch your strike. As response or retaliation weapons they are useless. If the enemy launches an attack while your missile is in orbit over the Indian Ocean, or it's current cycle wont put it over the enemy for another 10 orbits, then you might as well not have it. This is why space based nukes were completely banned very early on.

You can setup an orbit to always cross over any single point on earth. Molniya orbit‘s are often used by communication satellite’s over Russia, but the US would not care about dwell time so would pick the opposite aiming to be close to the atmosphere over the old USSR.

Likely going for something closer to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS

Of course, I didn't say all such weapons would have to wait multiple orbits. The point still stand though that if you had a string of weapons in such an orbit, only a very small minority of them would be over the target area and ready to strike at any given time and they have terrible cross-range characteristics. Also Molniya orbits have quite long orbital periods, exacerbating the problem. The vast majority would have much longer strike times than surface based missiles. It only really makes sense to use orbital missiles if you deploy them as a swarm for a first strike.

You can synchronize each device’s orbit so every weapon is over every target at the same time. Worst case you need to wait for a full orbit to hit anything, best case you can hit everything within ~2-3 minutes.

Molniya orbits‘s are just an example. GLONASS uses a related orbit, but never comes that close to the atmosphere.

PS: You could do the same thing over the US including Hawaii and Alaska. You end up with different tradeoffs to keep things synchronized, but it’s not that hard of a problem.

If you launch a first strike, I don’t see why it would matter whether retaliation comes in half an hour or a day.

What would matter is whether that first strike or a later follow-up could take out the shuttle(s) before it could retaliate.

Did the USSR have capability to take out a space shuttle in orbit? I wouldn’t know. It wasn’t that high up (a V-2 could almost reach it), but accuracy of ICBMs wasn’t even good on stationary targets, and, I guess, you would need more of it in space, where ‘only’ radiation and heat would cause damage.

In case of retaliation you want it to be delivered soon, ideally before you and the retaliation infrastructure is destroyed. If the retaliatory strike is already in flight before the first strike can even reach the enemy territory (or sattellites, etc.) then it is much more difficult to prevent.

That's why the response time is so crucial. To ensure retaliatory strike strikes fear in your enemy (pun intended) you need to convince the enemy you are capable and willing to put your ICBMs before their ICBMs can even reach you. If you have only 2 minutes you need to convince the enemy you are willing and capable to do it within 2 minutes of detecting the strike.

You also want retaliatory strike to be delivered all at the same time as the best strategy seems to be in numbers. It is relatively easy to stop a single ICBM. It is completely different problem to stop hundreds of them each possibly containing multiple warheads. In this case the strategy is to deluge the enemy with warheads or, more precisely, hope they will not try to destroy you because they can never be sure to stop all out retaliatory strike.

The primary job of a first strike is to take out as much of the target's retaliation capability as possible. Objects in stable orbits are much easier to track, target and destroy that just-launched missiles (or shuttles) because you can take your time to identify them and line up your anti-satellite systems.

I mean, the US had programs for that too. See the X-20 Dyna-Soar.

The genius of using the shuttle as a bomber is stealth. Not regular steath, but hiding in plain sight.

The USSR were worried the airforce could launch a shuttle with a nuclear bomb into an orbit near Moscow (or other targets), but claim it was just a regular launch with a regular payload with totally legitimate reasons for that orbit. Actually, with the shuttle's cross range ablities the orbit could be several hundred kilometers off the target.

And it would look like a regular flight as it climed into orbit and spend 20-30min floating towards Russia. Soviet command wouldn't be able to identify it as a threat until 3.5min before impact.

Ironically, now that the shuttle is gone, the X-37B is closer to this vision. It hangs up there for over a year at a time doing who knows what. And it has a ridiculous amount of delta-v to change its orbit.

There are plenty of things out there with lots of delta-v floating around doing who knows what. The X-37B is just the big public one.

Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty prohibits nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space. It's pretty hard to hide the fact that a satellite is full of nuclear material given that they stick around, but the shuttle would just be up for a little bit so it would be easier to hide things in it.

The Soviets did like to put anthrax warheads on their ICBMs targeted at cities and I suppose those won't have any distinctive emissions signature. But then again keeping anthrax spores alive in space with the thermal cycling and radiation can't be easy.

EDIT: But then again anthrax is a strictly counter-value rather can counter-force weapons. You would hypothetically put warheads in space for a quick counter-force strike so that plan wouldn't make sense.

AIUI, orbital mechanics makes leaving weapons in orbit not very useful. One missile on the ground can launch a strike at any location within its range at any instant the operator chooses, and deliver it within ~30m or so. One weapon in orbit can only strike locations along its current orbit, and at very constrained times. To deorbit something, you generally need a retrograde burn while it's on the opposite side of the planet as the place you want it to deorbit at. So even if you happen to be in exactly the right place to strike a particular target at the time you make the decision to, you still have to wait half an orbit, or ~45min for LEO. The time just gets longer for the location not being perfect or for higher orbits.

This heads up time is what gets destroyed by hypersonic missiles today.

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