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Comment by BMc2020 | Hacker News Reader

BMc2020

Whenever I see an X-37B post, I like to remind people its real purpose is to keep one or more nukes on-orbit at all times.

Do I have proof? No.

Why not a satellite? Satellites run out of fuel, eventually break and need to be de-orbited before they do.

It's against treaty to keep nukes in space. X-B37 has plausible deniability, and the nukes don't take up the whole cargo bay so you can still have room for experiments.

Why? It's a great first strike weapon without a detectable missile launch. If terrorists are building a nuke you can drop it on them and make it look like they blew themselves up. Last ditch asteroid defense.

Am I against it? Not really. But I do believe in an informed citizenry. YMMV.

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No, it almost definitely isn't. The cost-benefit analysis of doing that completely fails at almost every imaginable level.

Not only would it fail to increase American nuclear strike/retaliation capabilities by any meaningful margin, but if discovered it would set off a massive nuclear arms race in space which would be massively destabilizing and benefits no-one which is exactly why all the major players signed that "no nukes in space" treaty in the first place.

> It's a great first strike weapon without a detectable missile launch. If terrorists are building a nuke you can drop it on them and make it look like they blew themselves up. Last ditch asteroid defense.

No to all points. Nukes don't just unintentionally go off and hypothetically if the did people on the ground wouldn't normally expect the very noticeable trail of a reentry vehicle screaming in from space immediately beforehand. That kind of thing is very noticeable, go look at ICBM test footage. If you want to nuke someone without warning you use stealthy cruise missiles because those don't tend to get noticed until they detonate. Any nuke carried by the X-37 also lacks the delta V to ever get to any dangerous asteroid you might want to try to intercept.

Maybe for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment instead?

"Look Ma! No Nukez!"

With all the junk we have orbiting over our heads, it would probably be a lot cheaper to just reach and deorbit some of the larger debris in a controlled way, rather than bring all that weight up there, or even do that with some of the enemy satellites if they have them: two birds with one stone.

Most satellites are intended to break up on reentry, or would whether intended to or not because of how they'd end up hitting the atmosphere and their relatively large surface areas and shape (they're very far from aerodynamic). Kinetic weapons would need a different physical composition (denser material and different shape) and more deliberate manner of launching (or dropping?) than you'd be able to pull off from existing satellites.

So you think it would be useful to deploy one or two nuclear first strike weapon in space on the x37, versus let's say the Navy's 18 Ohio class submarines already actively deployed, each of which has the capacity to take out a small country? This makes no sense at all.

The United States military industrial complex would shrug and ask “why not both?” At this question.

Isn’t the main point of a deterrent to deter people? If no one knows about it, it wouldn’t really deter them.

Maybe Space Force knows that China is doing the same with their space station, and they can’t use the ISS for the same given the Russians onboard.

"It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday."

In this case, this changes the power dynamic, it’s something that other countries have no defense against. If it’s known, those countries will have no choice but to strike first.

> Do I have proof? No.

"Claims that are made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

-Hitchens' Razor

What advantages would this have over the submarines that are already in use today?

> If terrorists are building a nuke you can drop it on them and make it look like they blew themselves up.

Not even going to get into what a ridiculous fantasy scenario that is. And anyway, has the US demonstrated any reluctance in dropping conventional warheads on terrorists?

> Last ditch asteroid defense.

This comes across as an idea one would develop from watching tv shows and movies, as it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Why bother with nukes when the US very likely has rods of god up there. Technically they’re not a weapon, just a bunch of tungsten rods that dropped from space can obliterate pretty much anything.

> Do I have proof? No.

Do you offer even a single shred of evidence whatsoever? No.

I really don't think you can drop a nuke from space unnoticed.

> Whenever I see an X-37B post, I like to remind people its real purpose is to keep one or more nukes on-orbit at all times. > Do I have proof? No. ... I do believe in an informed citizenry. YMMV.

<satire> Every time I see someone mention that Biden won the US presidential election 2020, I like to remind people that the election was stolen. Do i have proof? No. I just believe in an informed citizenry.</satire>

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