I know that it would violated all sorts of treaties and what not but my question is, is it possible that either the US or Russia has nukes in space without the other knowing about it?
I highly doubt it. Space missions are well planned and documented.
Besides, count me as one who thinks it’s inevitible that space will become armed, regardless of treaties. We can sail nukes into international waters. Space is the new frontier and as soon as it is deemed necessary, we’ll have … “nukes…in … SPACE!”
I don’t see what the big deal is. If the space organizations want to use them for mining or for propulsion, I say let them. And really, does it matter if we have nukes on satellites? There’s already enough to take care of things if we wanted to.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
Haven’t there been several classified shuttle missions? I’d think it would be at least possible to have added a nuke of some sort to a military satellite. Don’t know if it’s actually been done…
I was involved with the Columbia Shuttle recovery back in 2003. In the training we received from NASA and DoD, we were told point blank that every shuttle mission was a military mission and every mission contained classified details.
During the actual recovery process when we had teams out searching for shuttle parts and remains, every so often something would be located and that search would stop. The searchers would be ordered away from what was found and a waiting game began. The wait was over when other NASA and DoD officials arrived, inspected what was found, determined what it was and then immediately removed it out of the area.
This wasn’t the normal approach as we found things, called for the NASA engineers (at least two who accompanied every search group), marked the GPS coordinates and then bagged/tagged the item that we took with us when we eventually returned to base at the end of shift.
Dropping nukes from space is both quicker and stealthier than launching them in conventional ways. If one side in a potential conflict has a real opportunity at an effective first strike, it increases the appeal and decreases the risk of making that strike, making the start of a nuclear conflict more likely.
Perhaps a related question then. How aware are different countries of satelites that are above that particular country at any time?
To illustrate. If the US had satelites capable of firing nukes, and then during a new cold war moved those satelites into positions from which they could strike at Russia, would Russia know? Does the US know what satelites are above it?
Yes, it does, because nuking from orbit is the only way to be sure.
[quote=“Wiltshire, post:8, topic:477525”]
Really?
Well, just because WE don’t know about them doesn’t mean that someone in the opposing governments (NORAD and their Russian counterparts) don’t, which is what the OP asked.
I’ve no doubt the superpowers would put “NUKES… IN… SPAAAAAACE” if it suited their interests, and yes, they could do it without anyone knowing.
The problem you’d face is maintenance. Nuclear weapons are infamously temperamental, prone to mechanical problems, and need constant maintenance attention, one of the reasons they’re outrageously expensive. The device is complicated to start with and continuously irradiates itself, causing parts to become brittle and broken. If it’s a fusion bomb, the tritium breaks down. The hideous expense of nuclear weapons is one of the main reasons some countries have abandoned them entirely (South Africa, Canada) or been quite happy to reduce their inventories as long as the other side did too (USA, USSR, etc.)
So you can’t just send a bunch of nukes up there… you’d have to regularly go back up and either replace them or fix them.
The cost, in other words, is going to be, well, astronomical. (Ha!) It’s just not gonna be worth it.
getting them up in secret is one thing, keeping it secret is another
All the big powers pretty much know about everything up there.
Now whats IN those orbiting things is much harder to deduce.
While you CAN manuever satellites around, it is very energy intensive if you want to do it fast, if at all.
But you really dont NEED to maneuver them much, as something in low orbit circles the earth every 90 minutes or so.
So, if you have a handful in low earth orbit, any one of them can reach most areas of interest on the earth in short order with a minimum of manuevering.
Technically, all ICBMs are “space” weapons, insofar as they travel through space in order to reach their targets.
But the OP is of course asking about orbital nuclear weapons.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 specifically prohibits orbital nuclear weapons. Of course, treaties don’t prevent anyone from violating them, but there is a prohibition subject to verification.
Whether the United States has ever violated it, no one knows, but I suspect it’s unlikely, if only because the diplomatic fallout (no pun intended) would be great.
That said, the dastardly Soviet Union broke treaties all the time, and the Outer Space Treaty was a particular favorite. While the treaty prevented the deployment of orbital nuclear weapons, it did not prevent the development of orbital delivery mechanisms-- a loophole that the Soviets exploited in developing the Fractional Orbit Bombardment System, or FOBS.
That’s a very common misconception. The United States probably has the best capabilities for tracking objects in space-- see more on the Space Surveillance Network– but even that system is not perfect.
okay
anything of decent size in a stable low earth orbit
[QUOTE=RickJay;10583040
The problem you’d face is maintenance. Nuclear weapons are infamously temperamental, prone to mechanical problems, and need constant maintenance attention, one of the reasons they’re outrageously expensive. The device is complicated to start with and continuously irradiates itself, causing parts to become brittle and broken. If it’s a fusion bomb, the tritium breaks down. . . . .
So you can’t just send a bunch of nukes up there… you’d have to regularly go back up and either replace them or fix them. [/QUOTE]
Hrm, theoretically I could think of a method to reduce this cost… But not by a whole lot. Any opposing superpower of ours would need only a few for the major first strike. One to hit D.C. where our decision making regarding the nukes is made. No warning. Bang.
Make regular, not thermonuclear bombs. Have them built so that they have a really really really good heat shield and perhaps braking rockets. Parachutes for final landing? I don’t know… I’m not a rocket scientist. 
This isn’t for the attack, this is for if their warranty expires before push the button time. They could gently put them down in a very very very rural area of their own nation and claim it was a run of the mill test if something somehow went wrong. Recycle all the good stuff from the old nuke and have a new one launched up before the old one reaches the expiration date. Again, they’d only need enough to get us by surprise in the right places. Disguise them as something else? Co-opt civilian communications through them?
Secondary targets for them to be hit by their regular ICBMS while we run around with our heads up our asses are all silos that would most definitely have the first strike at our theoretical adversary’s first strike arsenal. The adversary will have their own head of state already hidden in an undisclosed location, pretty much realizing that first strike or not, the U.S. will get one (or a few) nukes off on their capital. Acceptable losses would be to only have a few major cities gone while the U.S.'s metropolitan and industrial complex is wiped clean when they freeze up our first strike capability then bombard us with their regular nukes.
I’m no general or rocket scientist, but the reasons already given as to why it wouldn’t work got me thinking about ways around them. I may be wrong on whether or not any of this is at all feasible. Just an idea.
This wouldn’t work. If the Russians took out D.C., you can bet that the silos would be sending off missiles. There would not be much concern about who is strictly in charge; NORAD would just see the emergency situation and order a full retaliatory attack. Even if you got all the silos somehow, the submarines, would still effectively wipe Russia (or China or whatever) off the map.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
Meh, gave it a shot.
Could give them an advance of a couple minutes, though… Bang! LAUNCH IT ALL!
Still the adversary could probably get off enough shots, I guess, by your reasoning.
Tritium is used in fission bombs to boost the efficiency, so you get more bang per pound of expensive Pu239 in the pit. Tritium is used to boost the fission triggers of fusion bombs, but not as the main fusion component - lithium deuteride is much more practical and has an infinite shelf life.
The continuous maintenance is partly due to the rapid decay of tritium to helium, meaning that it needs to be replaced and the contaminating helium removed on a regular basis. Irradiation is confined to the fissile pits themselves since the Pu 239 is mainly an alpha-emitter - its radiation doesn’t go very far. Irradiation damage has been assessed as negligible for pits that are 30 or 40 years old. Minimum pit lifetimes are estimated at 45 years.
I think you can, if you use a design that doesn’t use tritium boosting. A better question is whether you can do it without anyone knowing. You can detect unshielded fissile uranium or plutonium at a short distance by the characteristic neutron and gamma ray emmissions, but at the distances we’re talking about it’s going to be hard. You’d probably need to have detectors on satellites, and to point them directly at suspect satellites for a fair amount of time. Then there’s the interference from cosmic rays to consider…
More info on detection than I could be bothered to read, here: http://www.devabhaktuni.us/research/disarm.pdf
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were entirely possible to have undetectable nukes on satellites, and I’m certain that with an appropriate design, maintenance is not an issue. Given that, I’d bet there’s already a few up there.