>And there were those that believed the Common Task was to resurrect the dead in computer simulations, reconstructed from the histories; others who believed spacetime was a crystal in four dimensions and, with the right instruments, the past could be accessed as readily as we look through a telescope; others whose cosmology was an engineered samsara, where, at the end of time, the end becomes the beginning, and the eternal return becomes our farcical resurrection. Others pushed the responsibility for the Common Task onto the gods: in their unknowable lives, they said, the gods were plotting the construction of heaven and the redemption of all men.
>He wrote of famines and things that were to her as distant in her past as the Mongol invasions had been to him.
>The book opened with the essays of Fedorov, trailed by commentaries written centuries later, called the Letters. In the second part the book moved abruptly, far into the future, to the accounts of the life of Herati of Merv. And by this time two of the promises of Fedorov had been fullfilled: immortality and the settlement of space by the immortals.
>The ancients subdued disease and age, they and their children settled the cosmos, they remade their bodies and their souls by hand. But even the gods could not turn back time, or rescue a mind from ashes. And the irreversibility of death was the central anxiety of civilization, and the central sorrow. In Ctesiphon, where quadrillions lived, death was almost unheard of. The surgeons had conquered suicidality. But the numbers of the dead increase only monotonically.
I'm not sure when this was written, but any new developments in non-equilibrium thermodynamics and/or spacetime theories since then don't change the result. Minds can't be rescued from the past or from "ashes"/decay products.
In this book, old people on earth can volunteer for military service in space. Those that volunteer end up getting their consciousness transferred to a new body, and effectively start a new life.
I think that pansychism and determinism are interesting theories, but it is not clear to me what I will learn about them by reading ChatGPT potentially hallucinate about them?
The key missing information here seems to be how many of these satellites would be required to have constant coverage of likely trajectories. This depends on the distance at which the laser remains effective. There would be no atmospheric scattering, but beam collimation is never perfect. It also depends on how fast the satellite can fire a new shot, as any warhead will be surrounded by decoys and other penetration aids. If this requires a large number of satellites, I am very sceptical. While Starlink has shown the possibility of creating large constellations, these sats would surely be much larger and more expensive. Really, Starlink makes me think something like BRILLIANT PEBBLES (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles) would be a more reasonable alternative.
Also, could an adversary surround the warhead with absorbent chaff as a countermeasure? Or simply an ablative shield, the warhead needs one anyway to get through the atmosphere.
Still, a very interesting read from a very interesting CEO.
Yeah, me too. Bruno, although ex-LM and ULA, is one of those "born-dirt-poor-but-obsessed-with-rockets" kind of CEOs that seem to be hard to find these days. That's one of the great differentiators between now and the days of the S1C; you'd have a hard time finding finance executives doing technical steering in 1967. Which, I mean, fair point, as far as I'm concerned, but I might be a wee bit biased.
From a layman's perspective, it seems like maybe DEWs should be looking at disrupting the extraordinarily delicate aerodynamics/hydrodynamics/plasmadynamics(?) of maneuvering Mach 5+ targets in atmosphere. Why do I say that? Well, if these things get consistent asymmetry in any part of their forward shock they'll spin themselves into bits, that's one. You can't shield the air with ablatives, that's second. Also, third, the sheath might be part of the communication/guidance system, so disrupting that it is good. Finally - somewhat related to second - tuning DEWs to interact with a plasma has TONS of possibilities, which helps to mitigate DEW's many many weaknesses over longer ranges. For the most part, I think DEWs will be short range wunderwaffen - particularly on the defensive end - but there's going to be niche cases.
Referenced: cost of firing a laser is $1 of gasoline run through a generator. That's roughly a liter.
Let's say raw energy content is 32MJ/L, and we have gasoline=>electricity losses of 50% and laser efficiency of 30%, so we expect a little more than 5MJ per shot.
If you can hit a 2m target moving at 5Km/s through 1000Km of space and atmosphere with 5MJ, how much energy can you put on a 1m target moving at 7m/s at a range of 500Km?
The difficulty in killing people from space will be targeting, and the limited availability of fuel and oxidator in space.
Even more so, limited availability of cooling. Overheated laser melts rather than firing, so it will likely need active cooling droplet heatsink for fast refire in case it does miss or enemy fires more than one missile, and that's a limited resource.
> limited availability of fuel and oxidator in space
And don’t forget—-you have to fly up Tory Bruno each time to fire it.
But as a platform for assassination, it doesn’t seem so far fetched. The two main things I can think of that would make it difficult would be the much higher attenuation and scattering from the atmosphere, and the need for a different (telescope based?) target acquisition method.
Maybe, maybe not; self focusing [1] is an active area of research. Optics is one area where secret projects have been shown to be way ahead of what is publicly available [2] so I wouldn't be surprised if they've figured out some scifi way of making orbital lasers more effective.
Brilliant Pebbles seems way more practical today than 1987. Lots of exotic 80s autonomous systems are now commercial and mundane, and launch costs are plummeting.
Sending up a space laser seems particilarly absurd when one could send up 100(?) drone interceptors for the same cost with less R&D, especially when a drone constellation is far more resilient against anti satellite weapons.
Not to mention that this simply moves the initial conflict to space, where adversaries can deploy DE satellites to destroy ours... and THEN launch missiles.
It's incredible that 40 years after Reagan and the "Star Wars" defense plan, we finally have entities doing what seemed obvious even to high-schoolers at the time: just make the missiles zig-zag.
Zig-zagging burns energy. Staying in the atmosphere burns energy. Even without burning up energy on maneuvering missiles are mostly fuel--and the tyranny of the rocket equation applies. (Note that this is not a problem for terminal maneuvering--the missile can trade it's velocity for maneuvering at that point while only incurring the penalty of bringing along the control surfaces.)
Kind of by definition if something is -sonic then it's in the atmosphere. There would be less scattering but there would definitely be some on the target end.
Reentry does kind of by definition enter the hypersonic regime, but it's somewhat unintuitive to the layperson since Mach 5 is much slower at those very low pressures, and it's an entirely different beast than flying at Mach 5 in-atmosphere proper
> could an adversary surround the warhead with absorbent chaff as a countermeasure
That would require a constant stream of chaff (it would get left behind pretty quickly without any thrust), and would need to be shot out in the opposite direction of travel (lowering the missile speed the entire time), and require the chaff and its launch mechanism to be part of the payload (increasing weight).
No! This is as much a conceptual mistake as "interceptor costs 10X as much as the missile it is designed to destroy, so antimissile defense is foolhardy" without taking into account the value of what the missile can destroy.
Maybe the boat will get through; maybe it won't. The ship might be intercepted before it reaches the target. Or security personnel with geiger counters can find it on the dock. And so on. From North Korea's perspective (or the USSR's during the Cold War, or Russia or China now), the uncertainty of the success of such an attack makes it very, very risky to actually deploy, except maybe in a situation where you're already losing the war (and in that scenario, the odds of a successful detection by the target are obviously that much higher).
A ballistic missile, by contrast, cannot be stopped except with great, great difficulty. That's why North Korea has built missiles for its nukes, and not a fleet of cargo ships and fishing boats.
Ships are not currently inspected at sea, and it's impractical to do so. The cargo is in giant stacks, and you need a dock to unload it for inspection.
Finding it at the dock is completely useless. You can set the nuke off while still at sea and still destroy half a city.
There is no mechanism for interception of such an attack at the moment.
You need a neutron detector, rather than a Geiger counter, for nuclear material detection by the way.
That might work as a first strike capability - although sailing a cargo ship from North Korea to Tokyo without garnering any interest from intelligence agencies might be more difficult than you give it credit for.
But the main thing you want nuke for is as a deterrent. Get in a fight with us and we press the button. It's hard to imagine the sneaky boat trick working when North Korea is under blockade by the entire US and Japanese navies. And even if they run the blockade they're going to have trouble getting close to Tokyo.
An interesting "cheap, dirty & dangerous" mode of attack is loitering munitions from commodity FPV drones. Their capabilities have been demonstrated in current Russian invasion of Ukraine, and if any infiltrator can get in a few miles of the target, a "suicide drone" with a few pounds of explosives and shrapnel can be very difficult to defend against.
Yeah but they can't do it now and not for quite a while. And even then, what is the replacement speed. And how does it compare to how fast the US can take out China space based internet.
I always assumed he would end up deploying a weapons system to space. Of course he would have to pretend to be doing something else while he builds up the capability to prevent others from becoming nervous. Something silly like colonizing Mars would work, especially if he really leans in to the eccentric billionaire trope.
The building of the infrastructure needs a red herring, the actual deployment need not be secret because by then it’s a done deed. Once deployed you’d want people to know, to avoid a Dr Strangelove situation. A veritable sword of Damocles.
If the launch capabilities are unbalanced (as they are!) then no, anti-satellite missiles aren't an option - at the moment noone can afford to launch an anti-satellite missile for every satellite that SpaceX can sustainably launch. Like, it was no problem to launch 1500+ satellites in 2022, but at the moment I don't see a credible capability for China or Russia to launch 1500+ anti-satellite missiles per year.
That kind of brinkmanship would still be attractive to a waning hegemon. I was thinking more like 250 tones worth of mini nukes which would be pretty hard to shoot down.
That would certainly destroy the US position internationally as it would be impossible to defend surreptitiously launching '250 tons worth of mini nukes' into orbit. Especially if space was not weaponized beforehand.
In fact it would very likely lead to literally every other country ganging up on the perceived villain, or at least staying on the sidelines.
So I don't see why any launch provider in the US would participate in the intentional destruction of the US?
Nah, people will get over it quite quickly. Before it happens people imagine that others will be all upset and do something, after it happens realpolitik kicks in and the world quickly adjusts to the new balance of power. Much of the world has a vested interest in the US staying the dominant hegemon and militarisation of space won't change that.
No I’m not. I actually consider it a preferable outcome to the alternative which is a great powers conflict (WWIII) that would generate untold, potentially nuclear, destruction. If I found out the US did this I would breathe a sigh of relief and I’m sure I’m not the only one. So long as China thinks they have a realistic chance of dethroning the US they’ll take that chance. If the US fails to secure a Russian defeat in Ukraine that’ll only embolden China further. Ideally I’d prefer for the US to fix its own problems and retake its seat as the undisputed economic and moral arbiter of the world but I don’t think that is likely. My biggest worry is that the US believes its own missile shield hype and picks a nuclear fight that the US then loses (hint; everyone loses).
Not sure if I understand your statement. A deployment of a new unstoppable super weapon would be an entrenchment of power not a dethronement.
Norms are violated all the time to very little consequence, sure, this would be on a whole other level but what could you do… what could anyone do… and that’s the point. I think people are over optimistic about the potential for collective action. I’m not the person who needs convincing that it’s a bad idea, that decision maker, if they even exist, is in the US government somewhere.
Certainly not, but one wouldn't need to catch every satellite launch for space weapon- one or two would be enough evidence to go public and warrant further scrutiny. There are a number of extremely savvy amateur astronomers across the world that track suspected military launches and publish their findings:
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com
That was my experience, but I am glad that I tried again. Player of Games is much more explicit in the world building (almost too much), and then a good balance is found in Use of Weapons. So I always recommend reading those two first before circling back to really understand the value of Consider Phlebas as an outside view on the Culture (and really, The West).
Tories are absolutely itching to cancel HS2 at the point just after all the money has been spent and disruption incurred, but before the benefits can be realized. It's like the cancellation of the UK's space programme at the exact moment they were about to do their first (and in the end only) launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow
Not really the ‘tories’ just some of them. The northern Tory MPs certainly want it. It is funded by long dated bonds. Not immediate taxation as it’s a nationally significant capital project. So cancelling bits of it looks good on paper only but makes zero immediate impact.
As a Return on investment, every pound spent in the south east on infrastructure returns 5 times or more in the local economy compared to the rest of the Uk, which is how these projects are prioritised.
One would think that there would be diminishing returns to more infrastructure in London, that some investment in the Power House North would do wonders.
A high speed rail linking up Liverpool to Hull sounds like a good idea, there are the Penniness to drill though, but it would hardly be the Gotthard base tunnel would it.
Pennine base tunnel anyone?
[update: this turns out to be a study for a road tunnel]
Those gains are part of the reason HS2 should go all the way to Scotland and why the Northern Powerhouse route from Hull to Liverpool should be built too
Its pretty terrible, that line would have had a major capacity impact on all the other Eastern lines. It goes a long way destroying the major benefits of HS2.
> One would think that there would be diminishing returns to more infrastructure in London, that some investment in the Power House North would do wonders.
Why would one think that? Everything we see suggests returns are compounding rather than diminishing.
Russia would be insane (more than they already are) to attack that. It has nothing to do with Ukraine and would likely be considered an attack on a NATO ally.
It can make sense if you think about it in the game theory manner. Sometimes, deliberately limiting your options improves your overall outcome.
One theory is that by blowing up the pipeline, Putin is limiting Russia's options. With the pipeline in place, ending the war would immediately cause the flow of gas, and dollars into Russia to resume.
Without the pipeline, ending the war would not cause the flow of gas and dollars.
This might improve his ability to politically maneuver within the country (As other political agents, who care more about money than the war are less incentivized to push for an end to the war.)
It's a similar idea to why the US stations troops around the Korean DMZ. Their job isn't to repel a North Korean invasion, their job is to die in the first few minutes of it, and thus force the US to intervene in any resumed Korean conflict. This very clearly communicates to North Korea how serious the US is about maintaining the status quo. By restricting its freedom of action (Forcing itself to go to war if hostilities resume), the US accomplishes a political objective (preventing hostilities from resuming).
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Of course, this is all speculation. For all we know[1], the pipeline was blown up by Poland/Ukraine/Germany/the US/the Mossad/Morocco/Aliens.
[1] It's difficult to trust any information about this, as its impossible to impartially verify it, and everyone involved has their own agenda they want to push.
Putin wants to continue the war. He takes away his possibility of selling gas to Western Europe so that he is not tempted to make peace and sell gas. And his fellows can not be tempted as well.
Alternative: some group in the FSB or the Russian navy thought it would be impossible to blame it on Russia (for obvious reasons), then went ahead and blew it up to be able to blame it on someone else (UK, US or NATO in general maybe?)
Somewhere along the line something went wrong (for them).
(Not saying they did it, only that think it is the least crazy of the options I have considered.)
I never understood the Northstream strategy on all sides before the war and I don't understand the reasoning for blowing it up either.
For Russia to blow up its own pipeline takes away their ability to offer gas in exchange for money and political influence regarding the Ukraine conflict. Why should they want to give up this bargaining chip they worked hard for the last 20 years?
The only reason I can think of is that they believe there is no way for European to buy any gas anyway. Yet, this is in contrast to the European narrative to become independent of Russian energy over the next years but still continue to buy this energy now even if blood is sticking to it.
Thus Russia was either thinking that they don't need the money/foreign reserves anyway or that there goal of destabilizing Europe with high energy prices can't be achieved unless they turn off gas supplies entirely.
But even her the mere existence of the pipeline might have benefitted Russia because it did allow appeasers in Europe to argue for 'negotiations' with Russia. Since the pipelines were blown up, these appeasers have gotten really quite (at least in Germany) because it is clear that there is no way back with Russia.
Internally inside Russia it might be useful to portray Russia under Western attack but seems to me also projecting weakness.
In summary I don't consider it very plausible that Russia would blow up such a strategic asset.
Looking from the European perspective it also makes very little sense. Yes, everyone except the Germans hated that pipeline but the basic idea to have a pipeline directly to Russia as a carrot & stick worth 20 bn EUR of money transfer per month seems as plausible as ever.
And would any European country risk being found out to execute a bombing of infrastructure that is part of the German sphere of influence? For instance Poland? Kind of inconceivable. The US? Hard to fathom.
Which leaves only two possibilities: It was an operation by Ukraine to simplify European politics or Putin got so mad about the continuous failure that he acted irrationally once again.
Both sides are holding it as a bargaining chip while simultaneously having it held over them as a bargaining chip. Neither side now wants to transact on the pipeline as it will ultimately be a sign of weakness. Either Europe blinks because it is desperate for gas or Russia blinks because it is desperate for money - and neither side is going to blink.
All the while Europe hasnt found it that hard to find other sources of gas and Russia hasnt found it too hard to find buyers willing to get a discount.
Why would it have been Russia? Obviously we don't know who did, but my thoughts were that Russia would want that pipeline to be available as a bargaining chip to get the rest of Europe to pressure Ukraine to concede. How does blowing it up benefit them?
Destroy the european economy by starving and freezing people to death, make everyone in europe turn against ukrainian supporting politicians and cut off any support for the ukraine government.
But they could have done that without blowing it up right? they control the source of the pipeline. So couldn't they have achieved this goal without taking the bargaining chip off the table and limiting their own flexibility?
It allows/invites a challenge from a weaker leader who suggests selling some gas to get some money. If there is no option and no flexibility there is no alternative, no challenger.
And that goes for every player. Want to be Germany and not have someone outflank you and say 'lets take the cheap gas from russia' - take the gas off the table. Want to be India and still get half off your energy? Want to be the US and get to sell a ton of gas to europe?
> Why would it have been Russia? Obviously we don't know who did,
Agree. As mentioned above I keep multiple options open.
> but my thoughts were that Russia would want that pipeline to be available as a bargaining chip to get the rest of Europe to pressure Ukraine to concede. How does blowing it up benefit them?
Exactly as I outlined above: if they did it, it is (relatively) cheap power signaling: “think if this happened to one of the cables that are in use. We are actually dumb & crazy enough & technically capable to pull it off”.
I'm not talking about sitting tankers off the coast, I'm talking about the UK's ability to continually attract new LNG tankers thanks to major existing infrastructure, and being able to afford it. The UK is setup to be able to keep a just-in-time LNG delivery system in place; Germany is not.
At what rate? 1% per day/week? If it takes N weeks to criss cross the Atlantic to refill from the US, maybe it is worthwhile to lose X% off the top to sell when possible.
I have no doubt the energy companies have teams of analysts crunching the numbers on a daily basis.
This is because companies buy long term contracts, which are still priced higher than the spot price on the, IMO reasonable, assumption that gas prices will rise again next year as the war continues (and Russia has more options to escalate e.g. cutting TurkStream).
Why would they cut (I assume you mean turn off, not blow up) Turkstream? Did you see the recent dealings between Russia and Turkey to expand those gas transit routes via that direction?
