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Comment by _djo_ | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, this move is coming after fairly strong evidence that Russia and China have been breaking the treaty by deploying weapons into space for years. Which the US has highlighted many times in the past.

At some point you have to acknowledge that the treaty is no longer being respected, and match capabilities to avoid being left at a disadvantage.

That said, I'm sure there were tons of people in the US military establishment who had been pushing for this for decades and were ecstatic at being allowed to do it at a broad scale.

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Neither Russia nor China's known weapons deployment is likely to breach the very narrow restrictions of the Outer Space Treaty, and the latest capability the US has vaguely claimed probably doesn't either.

In practice, the US has had practical counter space and electronic warfare capabilities in space for decades (even a regular satellite with enough delta V is a viable weapon, but superpowers have more targeted capabilities than that), and the observable difference is that the current administration's approach leans more towards bragging.

Your comment on Russia and China is false.

The Chinese have been bragging about taking out one of their own satellites in a test of their capabilities for 8 years now. Russia would but they don't have the money to even try.

This place is no better than X...seriously...it is just too small for the propaganda operations to target and yet it is still just as bad. I don't even think it is HN's fault, just the skew of the population HN attracts.

yawns

Not even sure who I'm supposed to be propagandising for here, but as the person that actually works on European dual use satellite tech I can assure you it's well established fact that all superpowers have taken out their own satellites with ASAT weaponry (Russia more recently than China fwiw, though China's in-space capabilities are likely a lot better). None of those are a violation of the very narrow anti-WMD proscriptions in the Outer Space Treaty, and whatever counterspace capability the US is vaguely announcing here (or indeed the capability they and their adversaries have had for years) is unlikely to be either.

Russia was at least planning to launch a space-to-space laser back in 1987, but the prototype (essentially just a mass simulator, no lasers inside) failed on launch quite spectacularly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)

Russia also seems to have tested the release of a sub-satellite from another satellite, perhaps a precursor to a kinetic space-launched weapon.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/secretive-russian...

>after fairly strong evidence that Russia and China have been breaking the treaty by deploying weapons into space for years.

The US invasion of Iraq was also based on "strong evidence" of WMDs.

>fairly strong evidence

Got some?

Sure.

https://www.ifri.org/en/studies/current-and-future-trends-ch...

https://www.swfound.org/publications-and-reports/2026-global...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2024.2...

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4431/1

https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Annual_Report/Chapt...

I see a lot of fear-mongering reports from sources claiming authority.

I don't see any evidence.

What kind of evidence are you expecting? Detailed photographs of the satellites on orbit?

These are credible institutions, with their statements regarding unusual orbital movements backed up by observations made by several independent groups.

I'd like to see evidence which supports the claims and not have to rely on a call to authority fallacy[1] in order to agree with this collective-derived reality.

I have no doubt that there are weapons in space - Russian, Chinese, American - why wouldn't there be? - but I still want to see actual evidence.

None of the sources you give are impartial - all of them serve to profit from perpetuating fear of Chinese space activities.

Too often, xenophobic movements rely on authority figures to perpetuate their myths. Don't you agree?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

What evidence would satisfy you that there are weapons in space? You either have to check yourself somehow, or trust a third party. Is there a third party you trust to provide evidence?

The article from The Space Review comes pretty close to providing some actual evidence.

There are no trustworthy third parties when it comes to xenophobic agitprop.

What extra would you want from the space review article that would constitute actual evidence for you?

Space Review website has malware-download ads all over the page. That spooks me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP-82

I personally don't trust elements provided by U.S. agencies and foundations since the Irak war and the "proof" they delivered to justify it.

Proxy at work is stopping me from reading most of grandparent links, so it'll have to wait for home.

The Chinese themselves blew up one of their own satellites as a test of their own capabilities. The missile was launched from the ground but targeted from orbit. They themselves say this and have since they did it 8 years ago. Your ignorance isn't an argument.

It’s like they’ll believe any rumors about the US doing things but then need concrete evidence irrefutable evidence when it comes to its adversaries.

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