The U.S. informed its NATO and Asian allies that Russia could deploy a nuclear weapon into space this year after details of American intelligence assessments of its ambitions circulated last week, …

The U.S. informed its NATO and Asian allies that Russia could deploy a nuclear weapon into space this year after details of American intelligence assessments of its ambitions circulated last week, according to The New York Times.

U.S. intelligence agencies also told allies Moscow could also send a harmless “dummy” warhead into space that would likely leave questions about Russia’s capabilities, the Times reported Wednesday.

American officials are reportedly divided in their predictions about Russia’s space ambitions. Officials pointed to Russia’s series of satellite launches in early 2022 and how American intelligence officials found out Russia was developing a new space-based weapon.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the U.S.’s Chinese and Indian counterparts on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend that a nuclear detonation in space would knock out American satellites, along with those of Beijing and New Delhi, the Times reported Saturday.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    9 months ago

    You’re completely ignoring the rest of what nuclear weapons that we have designed, tested, and are far more powerful because thermonuclear weapons are just more directed energy than you can fathom.

    Thermonuclear weapons, which have existed since the late 1960’s to early 1970’s change the entire battlefield and you are currently ignoring anything larger than the fission bombs that we dropped on Hroshima and Nagisaki.

    Thermonuclear bombs… are directed energy weapons now? They’re vastly more energetic. I’ll grant that. But they still bombs. they still detonate in an explosion. lets just lump neutron bombs into here as well. Oh, and by the way, most H-bombs are initiated by a fission device that then triggers fusion of deuterium or tritium;

    Further, the Starfish Prime test which I’ve already linked above was a W49 Thermonuclear bomb. (Specifically modified from a Mk 28 Y1 warhead to fit onto a Thor ballistic missile.) So it’s patently ridiculous to say I’m ignoring h-bombs.

    it’s also patently ridiculous to say I’m ignoring your singular source (which is a science fiction YTer), while outright dimissing and ignoring my own sources provided. Granted, it’s mostly wikipedia. I like wikipedia as a high-level starting point. The pages are all very well sourced themselves, if you’re curious.

    You’re a goddamn idiot that refuses to look at sources. Congratulations you just proved to all of Lemmy that your takes are nothing more than lies, or propaganda

    says the guy whose sole source is a scifi YouTuber, and who doesn’t even recognize the distinction between a directed energy weapon (aka a laser, among a few other things) and thermonuclear warhead. Please, continue being insulting. It’s okay, I can ignore you.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      9 months ago

      I’m not stupid enough to link classified sources. You want real sources? Cool. Find civilian sources on how to make nuclear weapons. You won’t.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        Dude. We learned the basics in highschool physics. There’s been enough leaks that the public has enough knowledge to piece it together.

        It’s not the knowledge that’s hard, it’s the getting the materials without attracting attention.

        Even then, things like the effects of exoatmospheric nukes aren’t classified. It’s kind of hard to classify something that affected Honolulu from past its horizon (Starfish Prime was about 9 deg. Above Hawaii’s horizon; and posed a massive interference in the electrical and communications grid,)

        You can’t hide in space. And you really can’t hide a nuke detonating.