Is it viable?
If your opponents use of the LEO space and satelites is more effective, more critical and beneficial to their operations than yours by a wide enough degree, then yes, scortched space is viable.
Comment on Chinese researchers suggest lasers and sabotage to counter Musk’s Starlink satellites
einkorn@feddit.org 3 weeks agoIs this scorched earth space tactic viable though?
Looking at the sort of tech militaries are heavily investing in at the moment, many require long range communication to work to their full potential. Sure, there is also the push to add object recognition and other smart systems to unmanned vehicles, but those are mainly intended to take care of the final approach where potential interferences are strongest.
Also surveillance satelites are irreplaceable in their capabilities.
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
einkorn@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Well, the advantage has to be colossal because not only are you denying your opponent the use of LEO but the whole world. This is guarantied to make some new friends.
Milk_Sheikh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Yes. For a non space-tier power. Their utility for space/LEO comms are valuable, but peripheral. Never going fully high tech, keeps the legacy systems in use and in current practice. Whereas a power like the US doesn’t do shit without a LINK net established and maintained, because we’ve forgotten/are unwilling to use the old methods.
It’s the Ukraine-Russo problem in the Black Sea, but applied to space. Denial is easier than presence, and even easier than dominance. If you can’t compete, why let them use it they way they want, or at all?
einkorn@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I am still not convinced because you are missing the political implications: Blocking LEO for your opponent means blocking it for everyone, friend or foe alike.
Unless we are talking about an all out two sided world war with no neutral parties blocking space is out of the question. It’s the same reason we don’t see nations using nuclear weapons: Their use would cause world wide condemnation and at best sanctions against you, at worst more enemy combatants.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
With the right mergers and acquisition this LEO Scorched Space can scale up enough to be a militarily viable. We just hit the snooze button on space for the next 500 years, that should give us the time to “address” the problem of the coninued existence of mass CO² emitters and their supply chains
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
But China IS a space-tier power…