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I know I had a friend who tripped a radiation detector because of a thyroid treatment at the Canadian border. How easy it would be to detect in orbit I can’t say. But it would be non zero. The danger of putting such a payload in a nations military architecture is that those are exactly the satellites that receive the most attention - at a minimum they are thoroughly examined by ground telescopes and radars from Colorado to Hawaii to Diego to Ascension, even if we assume no on orbit LEO assets. Anything that seemed the wrong shape, mass, or electronic or orbital behavior would probably get a lot of attention. It likely wouldn’t work as a long term basing strategy at a minimum, particularly after a country went through the testing necessary to validate the design. The US was aware of the existence of the R-36 FOBS based on its testing regime.It’s not physically impossible that a country could base a small number of weapons in space, but the option has to be weighed against the disadvantages of such a position, particularly for country that would have issues maintaining 24/7 contact with the satellite. Shoot downs, recovery, and preemptive strikes would all be risks.If USN SSBNs truly were vulnerable then that would be a far larger problem, but given the amount of water they have to operate in and paucity of Russian platforms and Chinese ASW experience, it’s hard to picture that being an issue. Barring a technological breakthrough from out of the blue, it seem doubtful the PLAN could do more than provide local ASW to a task force outside the first island chain, and that’s being a little generous.
I know I had a friend who tripped a radiation detector because of a thyroid treatment at the Canadian border. How easy it would be to detect in orbit I can’t say. But it would be non zero. The danger of putting such a payload in a nations military architecture is that those are exactly the satellites that receive the most attention - at a minimum they are thoroughly examined by ground telescopes and radars from Colorado to Hawaii to Diego to Ascension, even if we assume no on orbit LEO assets. Anything that seemed the wrong shape, mass, or electronic or orbital behavior would probably get a lot of attention. It likely wouldn’t work as a long term basing strategy at a minimum, particularly after a country went through the testing necessary to validate the design. The US was aware of the existence of the R-36 FOBS based on its testing regime.
It’s not physically impossible that a country could base a small number of weapons in space, but the option has to be weighed against the disadvantages of such a position, particularly for country that would have issues maintaining 24/7 contact with the satellite. Shoot downs, recovery, and preemptive strikes would all be risks.
If USN SSBNs truly were vulnerable then that would be a far larger problem, but given the amount of water they have to operate in and paucity of Russian platforms and Chinese ASW experience, it’s hard to picture that being an issue. Barring a technological breakthrough from out of the blue, it seem doubtful the PLAN could do more than provide local ASW to a task force outside the first island chain, and that’s being a little generous.
