Space Jam: UK debuts space squadron to protect satellites Britain’s Royal Air Force has gained some space cadets, in the form of No. III Space Effects Squadron, tasked with protecting critical satellites that the UK relies on for communications and navigation. Air Chief Marshal Sir Harvey Smyth announced the new unit at an inaugural UK Space Power Conference in London, saying it will …
It is all explained in the documentary Stoke me a clipper.
(but I think you may need to look at Dimension jump first; although, to understand why *that* is good you'll need to look at, well, all 22 preceding episodes, really).
What a guy.
(Icon: finally, an alien!)
No relation to Algy's mechanic, flight sergeant Smyth ?
Biggles in Spain Space — assisted by Algy and Ginger.
I don't think W E Johns ever managed to get Biggles that far aloft even though he did also write juvenile space faring scifi.
Once two players up there commence being extremely rude to each other and (the rather apt metaphor) the shit hits the fan LEO will be a hell of a mess.
Who's going to tell him there's no air up there?
You just bring your own with you. Problem solved. Bish! Bash! Bosh!
I'm a bit disgusted that the world's Air Forces have got in on the space act first, and persuaded the politicians to give them the budget. Sci-Fi demands that we have Space Navies dammit!
> tasked with protecting critical satellites that the UK relies on for communications and navigation.
They'd better make sure the protection they offer is 100% effective.
In the time of (space) war, those nations with launch capabilities will have their schedules filled with replacing their own destroyed satellites. There will be no capacity for replacing those of other country's. Even if the UK did happen to have replacement satellites on a shelf somewhere, ready to go.
They'd better make sure the protection they offer is 100% effective.
I'd like to see how they manage to protect against a couple of nukes going off in LEO...
Of course, you *could* build satellites that had some EMP-proofing but they'd be much, much bigger than the ordinary ones (hence, more expensive and harder to launch)
If they were to take this seriously I can see many possibilities, it really depends on how well the adversaries birds are hardened. Ideally they would be vulnerable to a directed energy weapon fired from a very high altitude plane which would kill enough electronics to render it useless but not cause any debris, but I doubt if it would be that easy. (Tracking things in space from a moving aircraft is a solved problem, look at the SOFIA telescope.)
Kessler syndrome is still an issue. if sats are non-destructively killed, it's very likely that eventually there will be a collision because dead sats cannot make avoidance manoeuvres.
The RAF recruitment advert makes me roll my eyes: launching a fighter somehow avoids a space collision? As does getting lunch prepared on time, evidently. Yes, the 'sharp teeth' relies on every part of the support structure to fulfil its role; it's just that the advert seems to correlate these directly with satellite-saving & it seems daft.
Based upon their long track record, I have to assume that MoD will plan and fund the RAF's space capabilities with the same careless disregard for having any capability as they apply to all of the arms of our military. So this "squadron" will be about six blokes in a room, sharing a single Tempested Windows 97 computer that's got a 14.4k baud internet connection. there will; be no over-arching plan other than "protecting Britain's space interests", no recognition that we are entirely dependant upon the US, and that there's no plan, nor government desire to change that.
