Russia’s plans to launch a new space station to house cosmonauts, and even space tourists from around the world, may constitute a deus ex machina deterrent to its Strategic Rocket Force that detonates a nuclear warhead in orbit, space defense experts in Washington and London say. .
Ever since U. S. intelligence agencies exposed a top-secret Kremlin mission to expand nuclear warheads capable of encircling the planet and tracking Western spacecraft, U. S. defense leaders have engaged in a war game over how to counter Moscow’s new weapons entering an atomic arms race in space. .
President Vladimir V. Putin and his security circle have introduced an avalanche of threats to deploy nuclear missiles against any NATO best friend that helps democratic Ukraine protect itself against the Russian invasion, and the new space weapon could be incorporated into a broader nuclear offensive, Russia said. say Army experts.
But sending Moscow’s new laboratory and habitat into low-Earth orbit would reduce the chances of a nuclear bomb exploding in the same orbital plane.
“I still don’t think Russia will use a nuclear ASAT in orbit unless there is a direct war with the United States and NATO,” for fear of destroying its own spacecraft, as well as those of its allies, said Elena Grossfeld, a military and military expert in Moscow. Civil area programs at King’s College London.
After Moscow launches its Russian orbital station, “the probability that Moscow will attack objects in orbit, with traditional ASAT or nuclear weapons,” will decrease, estimates Spenser Warren, an expert on Russia’s preference to modernize its nuclear arsenal. at the University of California Institute. on global conflicts and cooperation.
“Nuclear detonations are occurring indiscriminately in space, and Russian leaders are well aware of this, which would make the use of a nuclear device in low-Earth orbit unlikely,” Warren told me in an interview.
After conducting a series of simulated nuclear explosions in orbit with a variety of high-yield warheads, researchers from the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency reported that the explosion of a 5,000-kiloton warhead near the International Space Station would result in the immediate death of the ISS crew.
The explosion, they said, would cause “radiation illnesses in astronauts in about an hour and a 90% chance of death in 2 to 3 hours. “
A nuclear physicist of his says that igniting a powerful warhead on Earth could destroy a spacecraft only in the line of sight of the explosion, but also on the other side of the globe.
Yury Borisov, head of the Russian agency, recently approved plans to deploy the first module of the Russian orbital station in 2027, and cosmonauts will be sent to operate the outpost six months later.
Borissov, a former deputy defense minister and the Kremlin’s director of intercontinental ballistic missiles, may simply be aware of the high risks a thermonuclear explosion would pose to a nearby space station.
At a summer meeting, the leader also gave the green light to the development of a “next-generation manned spacecraft” that will complement the displayed Soyuz pills that now carry Russian astronauts to the International Space Station.
Russia’s space leader has ordered successors to the Soviet-designed Soyuz rocket and capsule, which are now carrying cosmonauts to the International Space Station. (Photo via CNES/AFP) (Photo via -/CNES/AFP Getty Images)
Roscosmos is expected to withdraw from the ISS partnership in 2028, and the new orbital outpost could allow it to compete with other primary area powers and prepare for missions to the Moon under a pact it has entered into with China to co-build. a foreign base. lunar system. Research station.
The deputy director of Russia’s colossal Energia Rocket and Space Corp, Vladimir Soloviev, told the official TASS news agency that the orbital station would feature “a module for four space tourists” who could connect with family and friends on Earth. and with the global cyberarea, through WiFi.
Soloviev, who is also “chief designer of Russia-piloted area systems,” predicted that the Russian orbital station, by continually adding new modules and ejecting older ones, could have a structural life until the 2070s.
He added that “piloted systems in near-Earth orbit will be developed to serve as elements of a long-term interplanetary station. “
Aspiring neo-tsar Putin has named the assignment of a new station, which will cost more than a trillion rubles, as Russia prepares to finalize its latest collaboration with democratic powers on the ISS.
“Putin has obviously pushed Roscosmos director Yuri Borissov to come up with a plan for the next-generation Russian station,” said James Clay Moltz, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and one of the United States’ leading experts on advances in weapons and weapons. diplomacy around the world.
“But that doesn’t guarantee that it will finance it,” he told me in an interview. “Much of this discussion revolves around maintaining the appearance of a physically powerful civilian area program, rather than investing in and implementing such a program. »
“Given Roscosmos’ dwindling budget, it is highly unlikely that this station will be built in time, or even in a day,” predicts Professor Moltz, referring to a series of fascinating books on festivals and conflicts involving the region’s primary powers, and adds The Politics of Space. Security.
“The decrease in Roscosmos’ budget for the civil sector is due to several factors,” he adds: “the high prices of the war in Ukraine, the reorientation of spending by the Russian sector on military programs and the sharp drop in advertising revenues in Russia due to its isolation from the civilian area of the West. “
Roscosmos helped build the International Space Station, but will abandon the multinational coalitionArray. . [+] ISS and launch its Russian orbital station. (Photo via NASA/Getty Images)
But Spenser Warren, a researcher at the University of California, predicts that Roscosmos “could at some point release a new space station if Russian leaders are favorable to it for strategic, status, economic or political reasons. “
“Maybe it’s a stepping stone to a militarized program, or Russia needs a greater presence in the area to compete with the increases in the United States, China and India. “
Still, he adds that diverting the government budget into Putin’s all-consuming search in Ukraine, as well as “the continued loss of highly professional manpower, whether because they are fighting and threatening to die in Ukraine or because they are fleeing the country,” may simply all delay the liftoff of the Russian orbital station.
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