America's Hunting Eyes in the Sky (A Version of the Future)

Thursday, April 7, 2044

Watch out world, because the sky above you just got a lot more watchful.  On April 5th, a US Air Force spokesperson officially confirmed that the MIL-Cast satellite network is more than a communications and observation platform, but is also a space-based weapons platform, as suggested in our 2039 Article "Secrets of MIL-Cast"

"Good morning everyone, I am here to announce that as of 0200 this morning the robotic geoengineering platform Jotunn has ceased operation after illegally entering the waters of South Georgia Island.  At the request of the UN Climate council and with permission from the British government US forces deployed 3 Falcon Earth Observation Drones to perform a kinetic observation of the Jotunn...."

When asked why the Air Force was finally acknowledging the offensive capabilities of the MIL-Cast General O'Neill was rather blunt.  "We're running out of the darn things, every other week we need to 'kinetically observe' some bad guys and hiding the launches was too much of a hassle"......

From our research, we believe there are between 20 and 30 thousand Falcon satellites in the MIL-Cast network.  With a mass of about 50 kgs, they share many characteristics with other atmosphere skimming communication/observation satellites used by civilian firms.  Most experts who were willing to go on the record believe the biggest differentiator for the spacecraft comes in the way they are designed to re-enter the atmosphere.  Civilian satellites are designed to safely break apart when they enter the atmosphere. The Falcon appears to be able to precisely control entry depending on the mission when the craft reaches its end of life it will disintegrate like a shooting star, as many Americans saw in the 2040 Seatle Summer Olympics opening ceremony.  The secondary re-entry method allows 10-20 kg of the vehicle to strike a target with over 100 megajoules of kinetic energy.  

Would you like to know more?

This article is a continuation of my post "Looking at the Future of Low Earth Orbit".  Basically, the idea is that a future government might use really low orbiting satellites as more than just communications/observation platforms.  As satellites get cheaper and cheaper to launch it isn't crazy to imagine that a large nation-state like the US would look for additional ways to weaponize space.  The idea of dropping heavy objects from space as a weapon has been around since the 1950s.  The proposed Falcon above would be a much smaller vehicle than what the Air Force has investigated previously.  

The 100 Megajoules was based on the Wikipedia entry on how much kinetic energy orbiting objects have.  To put things in perspective 100 MJ of energy is the equivalent of about 23kg (52.5 ish lbs) of TNT.  Depending on where the Falcon hits the explosive energy would be enough to either really mess up your day or to just really really surprise you.

For those of us concerned about peace one thing to find comfort in this suggested weapon is that at this time I have no good idea on how you would actually make a satellite that goes magically from safely breaking up to something that will stay together at speeds high enough to do real damage.

I hope this was interesting, questions, comments, and general feedback are welcome