The Moonbase is a directive from the current Administration. How long that remains a priority for NASA depends upon the the support or lack thereof from the next Presidential Administration. I suspect it’ll continue apace, at least for a few years, but as with Reagan/Bush/Clinton and Space Station Alpha/Freedom Station/The International Space Station, it’ll be cut again and again until it’s little more than Apollo Redux.
NASA hasn’t really devleop any serious proposal for a Moonbase yet, nor should they. Since their entire scheme is based upon an already essentially specified system (the Ares I and Ares V rockets for personnel transport and heavy lift, respectively) then capabilities will be limited to those, and it’s unclear precisely what capabilty they’ll deliver. (In my experience, performance always underruns initial specification.) I see with a brief review that there is a proposed Ares IV which harkens back to the Saturn V with a couple of solid boosters strapped on (although technically two stages instead of three.) It’s totally unclear what “need” exists for a permanent base on the Moon, other than to beat the Chinese, and what final capability is required (i.e. how many permanent crew, what degree of self-sustainment, et cetera.)
Regarding the Chinese: they are making a very serious and concerted effort to be viewed as a major superpower. Their Navy is shaping up to be one of the premier navies in the world, especially their submarine force, and they have both serious commerical and military interest in orbital space and beyond. Some of their claims are clearly posturing, but I wouldn’t put it past them to attempt a Moonshot, and within the timeline established for NASA’s Project Constellation.
There is no current conceivable military purpose for occuping the Moon. Not saying that one couldn’t develop, but currently any justification on that basis is pure manufacture.
Well, I must confess I find that Chinese demonstration about as impressive as a Chinese chef demonstrating that he can cook Pekin Duck.
And if they want to do a Moon shot, well good for them.
The only real problem that I can see is that the PRC is a bit sniffy about Taiwan, which is understandable, although they recently started direct flights and have long been doing major business with each other.
I would be disturbed if for no observable reason, some unidentified object got up there and started nudging satellites off course.
Since that is such an obvious thing to do, I would be surprized if all nations that have put satellites in orbit, have not got a few sneaky satellite killers lurking in space.
No one saw it as a problem? I’ve always heard it in the context as a really big problem that would haunt us for decades back to them time that Clinton made the technology for money deal.
There’s more of a problem than that. Objects in orbit can’t just move around willy-nilly; they move specified velocities at specified times, and changing that orbit takes a substantial amount of energy and propellant. It would literally take less energy to hit a satellite in orbit from the ground than to reach it with a satellite in orbit but on the other side of the planet in any reasonable span of time. It would surprise me if any nations besides the United States, Russia, and perhaps France currently have this capability, much less are actually fielding satellites to do this. Now China is angling in, in an attempt to justify its position as a superpower (which it has always demanded, i.e. its permanent seat on the Security Council, but has never really exhibited anything like military or technological parity until starting a few years ago.)
It’s just a hunch, but I don’t think the Chinese are opening an arms race in space. I think they’re completing their defense system in the event of conventional war. For example, suppose Taiwan goes critical. As things stand at present, the US could bring forces to bear and direct them from halfway around the globe. Naturally, the Chinese would want to disrupt this by taking out satellites. To do that, they have to develop systems and do tests. Naturally, we would prefer that they not develop such a capability. They are not required to cooperate.
Given our ability to detect and track missile launches and NORAD’s satellite-tracking facility, there are very few satellites whose orbits remain mysteries to us for very long. The trick wouldn’t be hiding it – the trick would be putting it up there without anyone knowing. If you could get a group of security-cleared and highly motivated satellite designers to “play dumb” and join a university microsat fabrication class, you might be able to get a Trojan Horse kill satellite up each academic year with nobody the wiser.
But as Stranger notes, a killsat has limited utility. Ground-based lasers, high powered jammers, and other terrestrial or airborne means of getting a “soft kill” or a “mission kill” would be much more flexible. If it comes down to needing a hard kill, there’s not that much difference between the missile the Chinese tested and some of the missile defense interceptors we are testing for ballistic missile defense – with some non-trivial software changes, I bet our BMD interceptors could knock down a satellite, too.
Killsats are a sexy idea, but once you study a little orbital mechanics, resign yourself to the idea that low earth orbit is way too big to “cover” with satellites, and learn about the costs of a satellite development and launch, you’ll shrug them off pretty quickly.
Maybe you’ve already read it, but here’s an interesting Wired story about amateur satellite trackers which implies the US government does indeed like to at least try and keep some of it’s satellites hidden.
It depends on how high the satellite is; our BMD (ballistic missile defense) interceptors are designed to take out, well, ballistic missiles, which don’t typically achieve altitudes beyond the lower range of Low Earth Orbit. None of the BMD systems current in development (or “deployed” in various stages of pseudo-functionality) could make a hit on a geostationary or highly elliptical target. There are other essentially off-the-shelf systems that could demonstrate that capability (a Minotaur IV or any of the Delta IV Medium boosters) but they couldn’t be deployed on the spur of the moment. The critical bit, though, isn’t getting your interceptor in general position, but being able to guide it in for a kill. You’re talking about a pitcher being able not to just put the ball in a box but actually send it directly into the catcher’s glove at just the right speed and angle. It’s not just a “professional” level of effort; it takes a Nolan Ryan to do this. And it’s one thing for China to hit one of their own satellites in a well-tracked orbit; it’s quite another to do it against a U.S. survelliance bird (of which I know no specific details but would lay good odds on having automatic evasive and protective systems capable of spooking any simple intercept).
But you’re right in that the level of capability with regard to guidance and control is roughly the same as that with ballistic missle interception; it’s just a matter of getting it up there and in position.
ASM-135 test launchFrom January 1984 to September 1986, an F-15A was used as a launch platform for five ASM-135 ASAT missiles. The F-15A went into a supersonic climb and released the ASAT missile at an altitude of 11.6 km (38,000 ft). The F-15A computer was updated to control the zoom-climb and missile release. The third test flight involved a retired communications satellite in a 555 km orbit, which was successfully destroyed by sheer kinetic energy. The pilot, USAF Major Wilbert D. “Doug” Pearson, became the first pilot ever to destroy an orbiting satellite.[6]
The ASAT missile was designed to be a standoff anti-satellite weapon, with the F-15A acting as a first stage.*
Did you miss the bit about “perform limited testing on ASAT weapons”? Yes, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed and tested anti-satellite weapons. Both tacitly agreed–even if not ratified–that they would withhold from further testing. I have no doubt that both maintained a stockpile of ASAT weapons and engaged in at least conceptual advances in such devices.
Whether any other nation could field such weapons is questionable at best. However, it’s clear that China is fairly advanced in development; it would not suprise me if India (among other nations) soon followed suite.
Well, my view is that sticking a satellite in orbit is a lot more impressive than knocking one out.
And we know that the Chinese put them up, and they’ll do it on a commercial basis for other people.
What interests me is why they took that one down, it might be sabre rattling and it might be something mundane. Regardless, I regard it as a yawn, about as impressive as a demonstration that the Chinese can build a PC ( they bought the PC arm of IBM a few years ago ).
As for the Taiwanese, they are busily learning the equivalent of Welsh, which must make for interesting conversations, and are probably really conducting some sort of mating ritual with the PRC which will probably culminate in some sort of announcement that they renounce any claims on mainland China - which is what the beef is about.
Not really. Putting a satellite in orbit is tricky business of course–we’ve been doing it for nigh on fifty years, and we still lose them 4-10% of the time, depending on the booster system–but in a satellite launch you have time to recover from mistakes, especially if you can get it into some kind of orbit. You can use onboard maneuvering fuel to move back into an acceptible orbit, or modify the operation program to make use of whatever orbit it is in. With satellite intercept, however, you basically have one pass, and if you miss, you fly off at tens or hundreds of meters per second, never to return.
To make an analogy, getting a satellite into orbit is like shooting a moving target. Killing a satellite in orbit is like intercepting the bullet that is shooting a moving target; it could concievably be done, given the right equipment, exceptional skill, and no small amount of luck, but you have one chance and a vary narror margin of error. It is at least a couple orders of magnitude (in terms of accuracy) more difficult.