It possibly makes sense if you're preparing for war, harder to hit, harder to physically break into, beyond the range of nuclear EMP, and accessible from anywhere on earth.

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vulcan01 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> harder to hit

press x to doubt

> on 21 February 2008, the US Navy destroyed USA-193 in Operation Burnt Frost, using a ship-fired RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 about 247 km (153 mi) above the Pacific Ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

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Mountain_Skies 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Any country capable of producing nuclear warheads will also be able to toss up enough BBs and other small objects into LEO to wipe out most of Starlink and anything else in LEO. At least on Earth data centers in theory can be hidden and physically hardened. In orbit, even a crude rocket able to reach that plane can become a weapon of mass satellite destruction. Even if those orbits clear out in four or five years, by then whatever ugliness is going on down on the surface of Earth will likely have resolved one way or the other. Starlink is a great military asset for a superpower pushing around smaller states in ways that aren't an existential threat to them. In a real conflict, it's a fragile target beyond the strike capacities of much of the developing world but easily destroyed by any moderate level industrial nation.

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philipkglass 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Any country capable of producing nuclear warheads will also be able to toss up enough BBs and other small objects into LEO to wipe out most of Starlink and anything else in LEO.

South Africa built nuclear weapons in the 1980s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma...

But it never had an orbital launch capability.

Pakistan doesn't have a domestic orbital launch capability but it does have nuclear weapons.

Surprisingly, the United Kingdom doesn't have a domestic orbital launch capability at present though it has had ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons for many decades.

At present, I would say that building a basic implosion-assembled atomic bomb is easier than building a rocket system that reach low Earth orbit. It's a lot easier to build a bomb now than it was in the 1940s. The main thing that prevents wider nuclear weapon proliferation is treaties and inspections, not inherent technical difficulties.

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blibble 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

presumably the UK could figure out how to remove the top of a trident missile and replace it with a load of ball bearings

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mr_toad 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Tridents can reach mach 19. Orbital velocity is more like mach 100.

Not that the UK manufactures trident missiles anyway.

	▲	kuschku 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You don't need orbital velocity to blow satellites away. Just do a well-timed suborbital launch against the satellite's orbit, and the satellite will provide most of the kinetic energy.
	▲	eeL3bo1mohn7pee 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		27720km/h orbital velocity is Mach 22.4 at a sea level speed of sound
	▲	adastra22 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Orbital velocity is nowhere near mach 100.
	▲	blibble 12 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		if only you could put some sort of explosive charge on the top

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zajio1am 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You do not need orbital capability to hit an orbital target. Just suborbital missile that reaches target's orbital altitude.

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proggy 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Satellites. Are. Fragile. People really don’t seem to intuitively understand this. Earth based assets are orders of magnitude more difficult to attack simply by virtue of being able to be placed inside of fortified structures anchored to, or inside of, the ground. The cost to deploy hardened buildings at scale is peanuts compared to orbiting constellations.

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reactordev 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They also fail to realize how devastating an attack a BB canister grenade would be in LEO. Nothing would stay in orbit. Eventually everything would collide and come down.

	▲	IcyWindows 12 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		LEO is big, really big. Even at the smaller radius of ground level, large volcanos, forest fires, etc. Don't affect the whole earth.
	▲	bethekidyouwant 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		No?

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nvader 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Isn't the eventual plan to park these data centers out by the Lagrange points?

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general1465 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You don't need EMP for that. Few ASAT missiles will start the avalanche and turn orbits around Earth into shooting range. Good luck talking to your satellites with shredded antennas and solar panels.