Thread

1. gorgoiler · 1790191708 · focus · HN ↗

   Presumably when World War 3 kicks off the very first thing each adversary will do is knock out their opponents satellites? These are like flying lightbulbs that shine down usefulness from above, so step one is to cut the lights.

   Presumably-squared there is some kind of military backup to survive once the lights (GPS) go dark? Whatever that technology is, why hasn’t it proliferated into civilian life so that we all benefit from a resilient, non-GPS backup?

   Perhaps the answer is that every tank has a 10lb inertial navigation gyro or some other thingy in it as a backup, and the platoon around it uses the tank as a moving trig point? In that case I can see it being infeasible to deploy that for civilians.

   Perhaps-squared it’s just economics — GPS is cool and cheap now, so why burn profit margin on developing an alternative?

   1. mschuster91 · 1790195961 · focus · HN ↗

      GPS has relatively few satellites... but if in doubt, I think Starlink with its absurdly large fleet of satellites can be used as an alternative. Maybe not at a precision level good enough for precision farming, but good enough to roughly guide troops to where they need to go.

      Modern cruise missiles and stuff like Storm Shadow, Taurus etc. already rely on sensor fusion - GPS, inertial navigation, radar, optics and probably a ton more to always keep track of the position.

      Assuming Starlink is a no-show for whatever reason, airliners and ships will have to revert back to stationary navigation aids aka your good old light towers and radio beacons.

      1. andylynch · 1790198076 · focus · HN ↗

         I works assume if/when something really kicks off the starlink and starshield networks would be high priority targets.

         (I’m mildly curious what their ground stations in Central Europe look like from this perspective).

         1. mschuster91 · 1790203184 · focus · HN ↗

            That's the thing, to take down any of the megaconstellations you need thousands of antisat weapons and that's just one constellation. Not sure about the competitors but at least for Starlink their laser links should provide ample fallback for ground stations going out of service.

            1. sm0rad · 1790221839 · focus · HN ↗

               Just a few destroyed satellites would likely produce enough debris to take out everything else in orbit: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_mi...

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