I am just honestly confused. There seem to be no logical reason for it, except that it would raise the stock value of rocket producers like SpaceX and Blue Origin.

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[–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (1 child)

Shooting down satellites isn't scifi anymore. Any medium sized country can do it if they want to.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    Why don't they already then? Russia could shoot down satellites providing communications to Ukrainian drones for instance, couldn't they? I think it is because doing so triggers a large shitstorm and real geopolitical consequences, if it becomes the norm then no one will get to benefit from any satellites, so a smaller and less influential country is not getting off easy if they do that, same kind of deal as nukes and access to them except probably a little less so. The similarity being that there is a cutoff point below which no one has access, and above which heavy coercion and other manipulation can be imposed as an effective deterrent.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/07/china-missile-test-where-when-timing-response-controversy

    https://united24media.com/latest-news/ukraine-quietly-tested-space-launch-capabilities-in-middle-of-war-twice-17852

    Mostly because it's expensive and some satellites are in way higher orbit than you want to fire randomly at, and hitting just a few satellites is more of a very very expensive annoyance unless you're doing it to time it with other strikes (and yes there's also escalation risk, but countries without their own satellites won't care much)

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