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Comment by smhinsey | Hacker News Reader

As much as I would prefer otherwise, it seems pretty clear that space has already been weaponized. Between the Shuttle the X-37, and whatever else exists, for all we know there are already satellites in orbit armed with kinetic kill vehicles.

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All satellites in orbit are already kinetic kill vehicles, just with varying degrees of sophistication. Everything in space is a kinetic kill vehicle. The idea that space can somehow not be weaponized is sheer physics ignorance. In some ways this is the largest challenge to space exploitation, which is rapidly becoming relevant as commercial spaceflight recently passed a milestone. A corporation that can retrieve an asteroid for mining purposes is a corporation that can drop that asteroid on your capital. There aren't very many realistic treatments of this scenario in "the literature". ("The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", at least the base scenario if not the details of the superintelligent computer, is one of the few.)

Maybe I shouldn't have used that term. I am aware of the basic physics of the situation, but that's not what I was talking about. I think it's likely there are already devices in orbit with the capability of launching "dumb" (i.e., non-explosive ) munitions to either take out other satellites or small targets on earth.

When people discuss the weaponization of space in terms of the treaties, implying ignorance because it isn't about basic physics doesn't provide any constructive input, and is frankly just needlessly hostile. These treaties are about weapons in a military sense, with the ultimate issue being the presence of nuclear weapons in orbit. I don't think it would be news to anyone that the whole business is inherently dangerous and that anything in orbit can come down anywhere on earth with little warning.

But that's the point. Anything nontrivial in space already is a military weapon. (Though most satellites are trivial by this measure, I'm really talking about the mid-term future.) It doesn't even have to be nuclear. It is not possible to really seriously use space without it being intrinsically weaponized. There's no such thing as non-weaponized space.

And no, I seriously doubt our political leadership really understands this at a gut level. You might even find some people in such positions that could pay lip service to the idea, but still don't really get it. You don't even need "nukes", which, frankly, are redundant pretty quickly and would only add a psychological scare factor.

I am absolutely with you in thinking that politicians don't get this at all. My main point is that there is a context in which those terms are used that doesn't immediately mean that anyone who uses them doesn't realize that mass in space == potential big boom somewhere.

>...for all we know there are already satellites in orbit armed with kinetic kill vehicles.

That seems more like pure conjecture than anything clear.

I do remember a PopSci article talking about doing it, but no one would dare admit it if they did.

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