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- Hacker News
- This is true for everything. They gutted the whole country. There is nothing left. Sold for parts. Collapse soon. That is why they are gearing up for total fascism, they know people are going to be pissed when the quality of life dies off for all of the US and there are no jobs.
Already at 25% functional unemployment
by honkycat - I mean, if we have a war with Russia that involves destroying satellites, it seems like there is a pretty big chance that means it's going nuclear and we'll have bigger fish to fry.by neaden
- A lot of deterrence credibility depends on at least pretending you think you can get into a fight without it inevitably going nuclear.
After all, if America’s military thinkers all believe if America fought China it would inevitably result in mutually assured destruction - then American security guarantees for Taiwan lose all credibility.
by michaelt - I think the point is that there are scenarios where large powers would disable/destroy each other's satellites without using nuclear weapons and we would be poorly prepared to replace them.by omgwtfbyobbq
- It's becoming increasingly likely that satellites will be targeted in even low intensity conflicts. Bear in mind that lasers are getting more powerful so you don't need to vaporize the satellite, just perform a mission kill by torching the FPA behind the lens.by fedpost
- I think there would be a Kessler Syndrome within a few weeks of an anti-satellite campaign at which point trying to launch replacements wouldn't make any sense.by jordanb
- No, there wouldn’t be. Space is huge. There aren’t that many satellites, and even the largest are relatively small.by eagerpace
- Wouldn't that depend a lot on what and how much were targeted?
Seems a sufficient number of satellites in a particular orbital altitude and inclination would be required to create a self-sustaining cascade.
Even then, the Delta-V of tens to hundreds of m/sec to for violent intercepts seems unlikely to eject debris into different orbital regimes; e.g., it takes nearly 4km/sec Delta-V to move from LEO to Geosynchronous orbit. So, totally Kessler-Syndrome-destroying the LEO orbital range would still leave GEO orbital range available...?
by toss1 - Hope for the US it won't reach the FOGBANK level of disaster.
- what kind of war are the authors expecting, where war against Russia/China destroys sattelites, but still leaves millions of graduates alive?
population would be the first thing dropping off in the nuclear exchange
by NooneAtAll3 - They are likely expecting the same kind of war we are already in with Russia; in which Russia tries to keep its attacks just below the threshold of open war and its rhetoric and "negotiations" about "seeking peace".
Russia have already attacked subsea cables, openly assassinated targets in many countries, shot down civilian airliners, made multiple drone attacks in Europe, and more. They go for plausible deniability and/or exploit western politicians' desire to avoid conflict and "not escalate" on their watch (and nevermind western politicians already craven to them from the current US President to other parties including AfD, French National Party, etc.).
It is entirely plausible this will escalate to Russia taking out a few satellites, with either kinetic or directed-energy weapons, and the need to replace them. Indeed Russia has been observed testing such systems in the recent years.
There is no need to assume nuke use at all for something to get to the stage of taking out satellites. Taking out satellites with kinetic or energy weapons would definitely leave millions of graduates alive.
by toss1 - We "lack workers to rebuild" many things that could be lost in a war with peer thermonuclear-armed powers. The only winning move is not to play
- Unfortunately, you don't always get that choice. Just look at what Putin did to Ukraine. There was absolutely no reason for him to play that, but he did.
Yes, you should work for peace, but beware that it's not always possible. Or maybe I should say not always acceptable. It certainly would have been possible for Ukraine to give in, but I don't blame them for not accepting that option.
by bluGill - Somehow I doubt that after a war with China, satellites would be high on the priority list of things that need rebuilding.
You'd probably start with rebuilding more basic manufacturing and refinery industry destroyed during the war.
by chmod775 - >> Somehow I doubt that after a war with China, satellites would be high on the priority list of things that need rebuilding.
If GPS goes down, most of our communications will go down. A lot of other stuff falls from there. I suspect we'd be OK after a brief adjustment, but it would be very disruptive.
by phkahler - Most of the planning for possible conflict between the USA and China is for a more limited conflict, such as an invasion of Taiwan.by nickff
- I don't know if this relates to the news that China has developed a 20GW microwave weapon to knock out starlink satellites and similar? https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3342443/chin...by tim333
- All the stated problems are just problems in peacetime; Pay and bureaucratic red tape.by paleotrope
- We no longer have the culture, the expertise, or the infrastructure to do these things. They moved it all overseas and to Mexico to save a quick buck. America is dead.by honkycat
- You could say the same thing about any military hardware during a peace-time economy. It’s not a matter if it exists, it’s a matter if the relevant knowledge exists in domestic/friendly industrial base. The U.S. is making more satellites than the rest of the world combined right now.by eagerpace
- It's also whether it matters if you have people available to replace the things. Any conflict that gets to the point of taking out satellites will almost certainly trigger Kessler syndrome, at which point whether you can launch any more satellites becomes moot.
- It is also a question of spin up time. If the demand suddenly existed to rebuild satellites en masse, the lead time on labor resources is part of the total time to rebuild. It becomes concerning if and only if either a) for strategic reasons the time is inadequate, or b) the lead time requires generational training efforts, e.g. college programs, national initiatives, etc. which can't behave predictably in response to an emergency.by iterance
- To paraphrase patio11, a disagreement between you and the market is not a shortage.
I'm surprised that anyone still believes the perennial "labor shortage" complaints. It has always been about employers refusing to improve wages and working conditions.
by noahbp - Shortages can't be defined out of existence this way. Markets don't magically train workers or provide security clearances. People have to do that.by skybrian
- How I view "labor shortage" complaints by default:
"What's with this shortage of new cars for $5,000!? As a hard-working consumer, I simply can't find enough of what I want at the limited price I am willing to offer, and I demand to know how the government is going to solve this pressing national crisis of enormous importance!"
Go out and look, and you'll see it's definitely a shortage... yet somehow it seems wrong to dignify it with a lot of concern, right? The conditions and causes of the "shortage" are quite important.
by Terr_