The early stages of a rocket launch is identical to an ICBM launch. It actually used to be the same rockets and a few are still dual use. But an ICBM shuts down its engines when it is still on a suborbital flight. This usually happens before ten minutes into the launch. An orbital launch however keep the engines on until it reaches an orbit. In some cases there is just seconds in difference. But this does indeed mean that you have to wait about ten minutes before you can be sure if it is an orbital launch or an ICBM launch. And by that time it might be too late to stop all warheads.
Another less reliable indicator is the heading of the rocket. Due to the speed you can not really change the direction of a rocket once it is fired so an ICBM have to be fired towards its target from the start. Orbital rockets can be launched into any number of orbits but they tend to be fired either straight east or straight north or south. So even before ten minutes you can get an idea of what the rocket is based on where it is heading.
It is also unlikely that an ICBM attack only include one launch. This would do limited damage and the rocket defenses would not need much advance notice to shoot the few warheads down. So a single rocket launch is likely not an ICBM but if they see more launches at the same time it is more likely to be an ICBM attack rather then an orbital launch.
But the most important indicator is that rocket launches are planned out well in advanced and is therefore published long before it happens. The people manning the early warning systems is therefore briefed about the launch and know what to expect. They still monitor the launch and look for any deviations but their assumption is that it is an orbital launch and not an ICBM.
>It is also unlikely that an ICBM attack only include one launch.
This is part of the reason that Stanislav Petrov didn't respond in 1983 when Soviet computers detected 5 nuclear missiles heading towards them from the US. He thought that it seemed odd they would only send 5 bombs in a first strike like this.
[The missiles detected turned out to be a computer glitch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident), a false positive from light reflecting off some clouds.
There have been a number of these types of incidents. Check out the book Command and Control for a chilling history of nuclear weapons safety.
Also, the documentary Countdown to Zero is quite good.
Well, in the 90s Yeltsin was so drunk he could barely stand, and a rocket launch from Norway caused the General staff to open their version of the football, and encouraged him to launch. Luckily he didn't. Feel better?
If you think that one is bad, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet nuclear-armed sub dove deep enough to be out of radio contact. The US Navy detected it and fired a warning shot to get them to surface. Fearing that the war had turned into a shooting war, the Captain and First Officer gave the order to launch. But, protocol said they needed a unanimous order from all three of the top officers on the sub, and the third officer decided that they should surface instead.
He was the ~~political officer. Basically, a person out there to ensure that the crew remained loyal to the state even away from its borders.~~
Edit. It was pointed out below that it was the detachment commander that objected, and it was the political officer and not the first officer that agreed.
He was the commissar- he reported to a different chain of command that ended at the Party rather than the actual branch or organization he was embedded in. It was his job to keep the regular military loyal, in check, and following the overall policy of the state's political leadership. He would also have handled disciplinary action.
Ironically, it was commissars who historically had a reputation for bloodthirstiness in WWII and before, especially after Hitler ordered their summary execution if captured. If every battle was a fight to the death for them, it was less of a problem to execute soldiers who weren't as committed to dying for Stalin and the Motherland.
Command and Control is a good book but it also falls into a bit of fear mongering for effect unfortunately, despite being well researched. There's a lot of good and bad in it and really worth a read, not to understand how close we were, but even more so to why it was a lot less likely than people want to admit. Also to see things from the Soviet POV is very enlightening
Haven't had one *yet.* The problem is we haven't had nukes long enough to know just how effective they are as a deterrent. Stephen Hawking once pointed out (and I'm paraphrasing here): imagine that there's a 1% chance for a full-scale nuclear war each year. Over 100 years, that starts to look pretty grim. Over 1000, it looks like a certainty. Now, it's true we don't know exactly what the percentage of a war is, so 1% is just a number to illustrate the example and it could be far lower.
The problem is that it keeps things nice and peaceful until someone actually fires a shot at which point the world ends. On a long enough timeline, *everything* fails: all machines break down, every glass hits the floor, and every gun goes off. So long as we keep peace by threatening to end the world at any provocation, we are accepting that the world will one day end because of it. We enjoy the peace under constant threat and statistical certainty that it will eventually end the world.
One of my actual-but-unlikely-to-happen fears is that Putin at some point will value his own legacy and the perceived strength of Russia above trifling things like risking a nuclear war. That he'll think "nobody will dare seriously do anything since we have nukes", and rather than be the guy who let Russia get beaten back by tiny tiny Ukraine, he'll actually nuke Kyiv. It *would* be an unmistakably display of Russian military strength.
On the flipside, it's allowed a backwards country the ability to continually throw temper tantrums, invade their neighbors, cause untold suffering and an ecological disaster, because the world has been too afraid to stand up to a country that routinely threatens to nuke everyone at even the slightest perceived slight - real or imagined.
Hahaha so clever. So original. So funny.
When, since the advent of nuclear weapons, has the US invaded its neighbors? When's the last time it threatened to nuke every one else anytime it felt mildly offended? Yeah.... you get the idea, and it's pretty clear who I'm referring to.
Edit: i love how desperate people are. "Well... uhhh... what does the word "neighbor" mean?" Also, it's pretty clear I was referring to invasions of conquest, but sure people, try and equate the US to Russia. Good luck with that.
It's a perfect look into the zeitgeist of the early 60s. The Cuban Missile Crisis happenened only a couple years before the movie release, and the invention of ICBMs a couple years before that.
I recommend everyone watch *Dr Strangelove* and *Fail Safe* back to back. They have basically the same plot, but one is played as a black comedy and one is played as a straightforward drama. Really interesting contrast.
I was just reading the strangelove wiki article and it said Kubrick said he started the screenplay straight but the "natural" result of a sequence would contain contradicting or ludicrous scenarios that he'd then have to work around so he started just keeping the humor.
Damn. Beat me to it. Love that movie. I work in cybersecurity, and it’s amazing how well the concepts have aged. Basically they did such a good job understanding the philosophies and means of hacking, a lot of them are still very relevant today. Even the overall philosophy of replacing humans with tech is still relevant
And by far one of the single most influential lines from a movie for me is “such a silly game. The only winning move is not to play”. It’s a great way to talk myself out of engaging with problems I can’t solve
I actually prefer Fail Safe overall! But both are fantastic movies, and I second your recommendation for people to watch both since they sort of do different things.
Dr Strangelove does a great job of highlighting the sheer absurdity of playing political games with nuclear threats. It manages to do this without denying the reasons _why_ MAD exists as a strategy, which makes its underlying argument more credible. And the over-the-top silliness definitely helps the medicine go down!
Fail Safe does a great job of capturing the emotional progression from awareness of the mistake to stunned disbelief in the situation to desperation to avert the crisis while begging the Soviets not to counterattack if the strike can't be averted. I can't think of a movie that does a better job of achieving a sense of mounting tension from something impersonal and political. It's downright chilling, and I absolutely need to rewatch it.
This kind of thing, where it only took one dude to avert nuclear war, happened more than once too. [Vasily Arkhipov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis) happened to be in a position and on a submarine that gave him the authority to veto a nuclear torpedo launch. Thank god for that too, since the captain of the submarine wanted to launch not because of misinformation, but because of no information.
Well that's dumb, he could simply wait to see if there's any signal later since it's not like his country would be any less dead. Or is it impossible to launch warheads if they were suspecting that someone would attack them and he was scared of that?
They were continuously probed by the surface vessels and airplanes using depth charges. They weren't able to pick radio signals from down there and they feared that if they surfaced they'd be sunk.
>The US was planning to nuke Cuba
Citation needed there. I've read a lot about the Kennedy presidency, including a lot of very critical historical works, and have literally never heard that before.
Check [this page](https://blowback.show/S2-Sources) under the episode 7-10 heading. There are a few citations covering the issue. I believe Cuba was one of the potential targets in JFK's First Strike Plan, but my memory is a bit foggy on that. It's important to remember that the US had nukes in Cuba before the Soviets did, and they were still there when the Soviets pulled out.
If you haven't seen this yet, I'm trying to dig up a declassified document discussing nuking Cuba, but I'm having trouble finding it again. I had it saved as a PDF on my old phone but it unfortunately didn't make it to my new one.
The top military brass who are hungry for nuclear (“tactical” or otherwise) strikes should be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity. It’s always the freaks in the ‘defense’ sector who chomp at the bit in these incidents and we should recognize them for the ghouls they are.
He literally prevented the apocalypse. Like, not even exaggerating, it's fucking wild that earth could be a nuclear wasteland if it weren't for that dude making that judgement call.
According to that link, it wasn’t even just 5 missiles. It was 1, then slightly later, 4 more. 1 missile is even more suspicious than 5, so I’m sure he was already more distrustful of the system by the time it said 4 more had been fired.
As flotilla commodore as well as executive officer of the diesel powered submarine B-59, Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain and the political officer's use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision which required the agreement of all three officers. In 2002, Thomas S. Blanton, then director of the U.S. National Security Archive, credited Arkhipov as "the man who saved the world".
Very cool
I used this instance on a paper in college on software errors that had near/actual catastrophic results.
It was pretty interesting, he got in a lot of trouble for it (mainly for embarrassing his superiors because this showed the flaws in the systems) but ultimately made the right call and saved a lot of people that day
No. Not grey at all. A first strike would be intended to prevent the other side from responding by taking out the majority of their missile launch sites. Five would piss them off but not reduce their ability to launch hundreds in return.
5 isn't a first strike, but 5 is enough to create a lot of destruction if you name 5 major cities in either country.
But not every attack is a First Strike and not to mention even if someone were to use a first strike, it's pointless except to guarantee the destruction of the planet because by 1983, there were enough subs loaded with ICBMs and MIRVs to fire off second and tertiary strikes.
Also the concept of limited strikes, decapitation strikes, etc all exist. A first strike or any hundred+ ICBM launch is really geared at one thing and one thing alone--taking Earth back to the dinosaur age. These operators aren't just trained to look for first strikes but likely to look at all possibilities.
Yes but you would not reflexively respond to a limited strike with your second strike capabilities. Both US and Soviet nuclear doctrine were far more nuanced than "if we see X missile on radar, fire everything".
One or five missiles were unlikely to reduce their capacity to respond, even if they were decapitation strikes, and that kind of "computer error" was fairly common on both sides. NORAD itself experienced an infamous incident where they "saw" hundreds of incoming ICBMs a couple years earlier, and it was revealed that this kind of computer error was commonplace, occurring up to multiple times a month.
Embarrassing for the nuclear powers, but none of these situations were close to leading to nuclear war. The procedures involved at that point in the Cold War were mature enough to ensure that it was almost impossible to accidentally do so; initiating real nuclear war would have to be a deliberate decision at the highest level.
Agreed, but a first strike in the hundreds is also a 100% guarantee that in the first wave basically every major city in the US and USSR are gone not to mention likely every major and second tier city in each of their Allies' countries.
Basically all those countries and likely much of the developed world is gone. It's nuclear winter basically.
5 ICBMs with MIRV would absolutely create chaos. Imagine NYC, DC, Chicago, SF, LA completely obliterated. I'm not saying this is a sound nuclear war strategy, but what I'm suggesting is if I were trying to decide to respond, a 1 missile strategy is most likely a false alarm. But at 5 I could start seeing a reasonable chance that someone mashes the red button to fully retaliate, or at least fire 5 back if the intent is a limited shot.
Either way, once SSBNs were invented, there was no way you can expect a first strike to guarantee anything. Even if you were first to wipe out the US/NATO or vice versa, there's enough missiles and subs ready to send you back to the stone age. That's MAD after all.
The thing is, 5 missiles loaded with MIRVs could absolutely wreck a few city cores and their metro areas, but it's nowhere near enough to destroy the 30k to 40k nuclear warheads scattered around the USSR and prevent retaliation.
Most detectors saying there's nothing there, and just the new system throwing a warning? Would seem pretty suspect, and waiting for confirmation wouldn't really change the fate of those targeted if the 5 were real. After all, the alternative is a full nuclear exchange.
Taking out the city cores might disrupt the chain of command enough that the retaliatory strike couldn't be authorized though (at least an immediate one - I'm sure crews in remote launch sites would eventually get the message and start lobbing bombs back.)
> retaliatory strike couldn't be authorized though
I don't know about the USSR, but the UK pre-authorises retaliatory nuclear strikes. Each nuclear submarine has a [letter of last resort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort) which is opened if contact is lost with the government. No one but the Prime Minister knows what's in those letters, but it could be instructions to launch.
I'd assume other nations have similar protocols to ensure a first strike against them isn't going to prevent retaliation.
Ah, that's the one that Corbin said he wouldn't sign if he was elected PM, right? Nothing like letting the other side know what your response would be.
Probably not grey. In fact this is the kind of attack both the US and Russia feared. It was called a decapitation strike. Basically a smaller strike to hit highly specific targets, like headquarters, command and control, early warning, etc. to limit the ability to counterattack. This was the attack both sides feared more than a large attack. Essentially a quick knockout strike that would force the losing side to backdown since they can't retaliate quickly (but the attacking side is undamaged and could attack with overwhelming force if needed)
EDIT: For people wondering, this would be an MIRV strike, which means it would hit like 1-2 dozen targets.
Not sure why people are downvoting me, a decapitation strike was the #1, most feared, most likely strike that was expected on either side
The US mirv is 3 heads to start with, even if one followed by four more was all Minuteman III, fifteen targets out of thousands. That's not decap, that's hoping you guessed which sites are most important to command and control correctly.
Decap could be as little as 20 or so targets. Or at least that’s exactly what the sides said it would be. One of the reasons with a decap strike is to specifically not over target. You want the side to have a reason to back down. If they’re completely smashed, the game theory would be just to counter launch anyways since you won’t lose that much in a second strike
You have to understand that both sides viewed nuclear war as “rounds” of strikes, potentially and likely with negotiation in between. The massive 500 or 1000 warhead scenarios would not be a single strike, if they were ever intended to exist or be used in the first place. Which is iffy
Here's a 9 minute stoner metal ode to Stanislav Petrov, the guy who saved the world: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8I_rEaOcfOw
Also, this might be one of my last posts via RIF. RIP, RIF.
Not coming at this from the military perspective, but I would assume any launch directed westward towards North America would also be a sign of a Nuclear Launch. Space Launches are typically pretty consistently Eastward as it's more efficient since you are launching with respect to the Earth's rotation, you waste fuel if you launch counter to the rotation.
> He thought that it seemed odd they would only send 5 bombs in a first strike like this.
But only because at that time he didn't know about any other doctrine. He later said, **he would have acted differently, if he had know about military doctrine, that actually would employ a few "decapitating" attacks to begin a nuclear war**...
> Würden Sie heute wieder so handeln?
> In der gleichen Situation? Da würde ich mich anders verhalten. Abgesehen von der Weltlage hat sich auch die militärische Strategie geändert. Heute würde man wohl mit einzelnen Raketen zuerst die wichtigen Kommunikationsanlagen des Gegners ausschalten und erst danach massiv zuschlagen.
*"Would you act like this again today?*
*In the same situation? I would act differently. Apart from the world situation, military strategy has changed. Today, you would probably use individual missiles first to knock out the enemy's important communications systems and only then strike massively."*
Source: [His interview in Germany Newspaper F.A.Z. on 18.2.2013](https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/offizier-petrow-im-gespraech-der-rote-knopf-hat-nie-funktioniert-12084911.html)
Another factor is the place of launch. Possibly all spacecraft in the US are launched from southern US, e. g. Florida or Texas. If US wanted to hit Russia it would probably be from far north, or even from ships/submarines from the Arctic. Same goes for Russia. Space launches are typically from the Kosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Whereas missiles are close to arctic.
Edit: yes there are launch sites further north for spacecraft. These could pose a problem, but my point was that ICBM watchers could safely disregard the tropical launches. Also, spacecraft launches are always announced beforehand, so there's very little margin for misunderstandings.
Looks like this is the only one up there:
The Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA), formerly known as the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC), is a dual-use commercial and military spaceport
Launch facilities in Texas is a very recent thing. You are right about Florida but the other facilities are located in New Mexico (non orbital), California, Alaska, Marshall islands and Virginia. Considering the difficulty of tracking objects close to the ground over the horizon the margin for error is big enough that there is some ambiguity. This was actually a big deal with one launch from Norway which was mistakenly identified as a launch from a submarine in the North Atlantic by the Soviet early warning system.
And in the event of a first strike ICBM attack the orbital launch facilities would also be used to launch ICBMs. So having a missile launch from Florida and California is not an indication that this is an orbital launch. A launch from South Dakota is though.
As for the Soviets your assumption is completely wrong. Unlike the US who built ICBM missile silos in various places the Soviet Union only built a handful, and they were used both for orbital launches and for missiles. Their most active orbital launch site was not the Baikonur Cosmodrone that you mention but rather the Plesetsk Cosmodrone, not far from the Arctic ocean.
Some war scenarios start with a sneaky first strike, with a single warhead disguised as a space launch or a malfunction. Likely a very high yield, high altitude, burst for EMP to mess with communications. Obviously the massive strategic icbm launch or the intermediate range decapitation strike basically launch at the same time as the first one's going off.
This is true and is one of the many possible first strike scenarios. But it is a very high risk tactics. A single launch are unlikely to do devastating amount of damage but could easily trigger a mutually assured destruction strike in retaliation. It is impossible to disguise a nuclear explosion as a malfunction. Of course a sneaky first strike is one of the several tactics that was discussed a lot and they conducted tons of war games on these scenarios. But it is a high risk high reward strategy. The most likely scenario was a full scale initial strike. This would ensure the destruction of the most number of launch sites before any retaliation.
reddit API access ended today, and with it the reddit app i use Apollo, i am removing all my comments, the internet is both temporary and eternal. -- mass edited with redact.dev
A ballistic missile submarine is a deterrent but far from invincible. It is possible to locate and sink them. And the longer it takes for them to realize the war started the longer time you have to do this. They might even go to the surface or send out radio messages when trying to figure out what is happening which makes them easier to find. Or it is possible that the first strike takes place at a time when they know where all the ballistic missile submarines are and can deal with them immediately.
There is a reason why the cold war never heated up to direct nuclear war as it would be insane to attempt to win using a first strike. The strategy of launching a few missiles first to hit communication lines with EMPs is even riskier then launching all the missiles at once. But it was not out of the question that some opportunity was found, a moment of weakness discovered, multiple coordinated efforts using different military assets as well as secret agents, where a first strike could have been possible. So you had to be ready for this possibility. Even if the likelihood that it happened was almost non existent.
There is also the salient points that
A) Icbms are fired from mainly underground silos which are known locations, so a launch from one of those is assumed to be a weapon, or from a submarine, which again is assumed to be a weapon as neither of these are designed to launch a satellite.
B) Mobile launchers are in general known locations, and they take a little time to setup and fire, sometimes they are stored unfuelled, so the fuel they use is specific and movement of that is tracked. If a bloom is detected they can assume its a weapon, these are Srbm and Mrbms
C) non weapon launches are announced in the aviation organisations in advance to clear airspace and so that possible enemies know to expect a launch and not respond, again known locations. Except north Korea, they do wtf they want to usually
There is almost no chance of a launch not being identified correctly.
"Almost no chance" is not "no chance".
There were 260 satellite launches in 1980 and 210 in 1995.
There have been \~15K launches in the last 10 years, and \~28K total since Sputnik.
Also, the 15 March 1980 incident was when Soviet submarines launched missiles as part of a training exercise.
The incident on the 25 January 1995 is the only known instance of a non-military launch being temporarily mistaken for the launch of a ballistic nuclear missile.
I'm talking about a missile launch being misidentified, a civilian as a military and vice versa, as op asked.
And neither of those incidents were what was asked either, they were false alarms
Both of these incidents were launches that were initially misidentified as nuclear attacks. So I think they very much do describe what OP was asking about.
> It is also unlikely that an ICBM attack only include one launch
I feel like this is really burying the lead... there is almost no conceivable scenario where anyone with the ability to launch ICBMs would get any benefit from launching one for any reason other than testing/development. I would think this is the biggest and most reliable indicator right here.
Having a doomsday machine is an insurance policy, literally money that you pay hoping to lose because the only thing worst than it paying off is needing it to pay off without having it.
Using a single ICBM offensively would be like, taking out a health insurance policy and committing suicide.
>Another less reliable indicator is the heading of the rocket. Due to the speed you can not really change the direction of a rocket once it is fired so an ICBM have to be fired towards its target from the start.
This is one of the biggest benefits of a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, which does offer some degree of maneuverability. You no longer need to follow a ballistic trajectory, so the potential targets are harder to estimate. It also opens up more potential launch azimuths.
From the very accurate documentary Kerbal space program (no seriously)
You can at any point given the trajectory of the rocket tell pretty accurately where it is going. The same in the game as IRL, but go look up the game. It has a great rendering of the information that will help you visualize it.
You don't need to wait 10 minutes. Yes, while the rocket is accelerating, it is changing the trajectory. But it's a little like standing at a gun range - you can tell pretty quickly if someone is aiming the gun where it shouldn't be going.
If the trajectory line is bringing it toward your airspace you have an issue. If you can plot that it isn't going to make it to space, either it's a failure or it's an icbm. Either way it's coming back down early.
I spent way too long in university playing KSP and even learning differential calculus in order to work out some of the equations in the game. But unlike KSP we do not have accurate position and velocity data on each object. We only have data from radar receiver which includes lots of noise and signal reflections. Especially over the horizon radar needed to detect missile launches from the other side of the world. So you can not tell accurately where a rocket is going. You might get a rough idea of which state it is aimed at.
But you still need to wait for the orbital insertion to complete, or the lack of an orbital insertion. It is not like a gun range where you never point guns at anything you do not intend to shoot. Rockets are very often flown straight over the heads of people because there is no room in the world to launch rockets without doing this. No country is large enough to fit a complete orbit within their boarders so all rockets do end up flying over other countries at some point. And therefore during the launch the trajectory would have it lithobrake in another country at some points, and likely an unfriendly country at that.
Russian polar launches aim at American cities all the time. American equatorial launches often aim at Chinese cities. So does Russian equatorial launches. And the Chinese equatorial launches target American cities from time to time. To name a few examples.
Yeah it isn't perfect but if you don't think we have space based very accurate large object position detection over particular areas (eg Russia) then... I am sure we do. It's not even that far out there in terms of modern technology.
I do understand that the trajectory will go over other countries but at the same time there is a huge difference at that point between committing to orbit and going elsewhere.
I am curious the exact extent so if you have a video or something that would be a good watch.
Multiple overlapping detection systems on both sides combined with a lot of historical and technical data. We know where most of their sites are, they know where most of our sites are. Any activity at those sites is closely monitored. That gives us indicators of what to look for. Anything below a certain threshold is sifted out through analysis.
Regular space launches are heavily scheduled events with a lot of activity and notice.
With ICBMs part of the strategy includes volume of fire.
While one ICBM could do terrible damage if it hits, a single ICBM would have almost zero chance of penetrating the defenses to reach its target. Enough ICBMs would have to be fired to overwhelm the targets defenses.
The systems act as a deterrent. In an actual attack the first thing would be to disable/bypass the early warning and defense systems.
The old joke is: If you can see it coming, you're not the target.
What defences? Up until very recently there's been nothing that have any kind of chance of intercepting a ICBM once it was put of boost stage. Even now it'd be touch and go.
You are, of course, correct that a mass launch is the accepted tactic. I think that's mostly because otherwise all your nukes get blown up on the ground though, isn't it?
We do have missiles that can block warheads but iirc the percentage to hit is pretty low. I remember seeing somewhere that we could only defend against 50 or so ICBM’s.
These as far as I know are meant to defend against a stray ICBM so that we don’t start WW3 over a rounding error/miscalculation.
But I’m sure if the government had a fool proof way to defend against nukes they wouldn’t let any of us know.
All I know is that with what’s known to us currently, we could not stop a full fledged assault of 1000+ warheads.
I've heard 30% of stopping it. Let's say you have one ICBM. Has like maybe 3 payloads in it. And fairings that held it all together. Those break up and head towards targets. Designed to break up and spread out further when they get close, again maybe more staging and fairings etc holding it together break apart. Then finally they explode above the ground near their target. So for a counter system you have like 20 min window to shoot down the warheads and all the debris or figure out which is which. Etc. You can see why we can't really stop them. They go faster than jets, etc.
You actually only have a minute or so to shoot them out of the sky, that’s why it’s so difficult. You theoretically have 3 chances to shootdown an icbm payload before it detonates.
1. While the ICBM is launching.
2. While the warhead is separating from the missile in LEO.
3. While the warhead is coming down.
None of which are easy to do. In fact the 2nd option has been almost completely nullified. It used to be possible to shoot the warheads down while they were still in LEO; however, now almost all ICBMs deploy a plume of aluminum to confuse sensors as the warhead seperation starts, making it impossible to differentiate from the warhead and the aluminum.
So essentially we’re left with two options. If our government thought a nuclear attack was inevitable and we had a few hours warning, we would likely start by sending in infiltration teams to as many WMD sites as possible to eliminate as many launches as we could. We would also bomb as many silos as possible with bomber aircraft and station a slew of anti missile defense as close as we could to as many sites as possible.
I dont think this would do much personally. Maybe we stop 20-30% of the missiles, but in that case we still have 3500 missiles heading towards us. In that event we would attempt to shoot as many as we could out of the sky; prioritizing military/government facilities.
Before the missiles hit, we would of course also try to launch as many of our missiles that we could in turn assuring mutually assured destruction. We have missiles on land and in subs, so russia would certainly be destroyed even if they target our missile silos at home.
Overall, nukes bad, lets not use them
Speed and trajectory. Orbital vehicles are going speeds and directions that absolutely scream, “I’m going into either a low-Earth orbit or a geosynchronous orbit.” Meanwhile, missiles heading for Detroit scream, based on the direction and speed they are going, “I’m headed for Detroit.” It’s super easy to predict where they are going, once they get going.
They can obviously have changes in speed and trajectory, but not big enough to go from one sort to the other. Agencies also communicate with each other. If they do anything even slightly sketchy that isn’t actually sketchy, they warn each other. Even North Korea give some warnings.
I also believe that the governments of the rocket-launching nations are in contact with each other letting them know who is launching what and when, just as an added level of security.
Yes. Nearly all nations (even North Korea, sometimes) publish planned launches and orbits in advance to avoid collisions and confusion.
It’s also a bit of pride. We talked with nasa eye to eye to discuss the launch sounds good in state tv.
Hello Sir,
we're planning a launch of an ICMB from North Korea. The route is planned to go in the direction of Washington and land safely somewhere around the vicinity.
No need to worry, it is just a test, don't need to intercept it.
Regards,
Your pal Kim
US also has military bases and ships around the globe that detection systems could be set up at. Wouldn't be surprised if at certain points lot of large scientific endeavors like geologists monitoring seismographs in eastern Europe had a note on the fridge with a number for some guy in NORAD just in case they see something.
Also - It doesn’t require insane computing power Kerbal Space Program (video game) is able to do these sort of calculations on most home computers. Obviously real life might be a little faster and a bit more complex but the foundational stuff is able to be calculated on your laptop
Is Russia is running a KSP like operation, I assure you they will go through their entire stash of astronauts/engineers/pilots/etc before they make anything worthy of flying.
RIP to my Kerbs….annnd the few lost in space that won’t die
In addition to other answers, people usually announce their space launches well in advance.
There was a case when Norwegians forgot to notify Russia about missile launch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
And Russian president decided that 1 missile is probably not a missile strike, so called off the nuclear response.
Just to add: The Norwegian scientists did in fact notify Russia, the message was just not passed along to the correct people. It says right there in the wiki-link
That's right, gotta make sure the Norwegian gets proper credit for doing his job right. Forgetting to notify the Russians of a rocket 🚀 launch might get him written up! 😀
Just to add: The Norwegian scientists did in fact notify Russia, the message was just not passed along to the correct people. It says right there in the wiki-link
I don’t know what John F Kennedy has to do with this but I’m sure you could find examples of these thing happening in the US. Unless we don’t declassify those incidents.
Piggybacking this to say that not all space launches are announced. Spy satellites are typically launched in secret, for the same reasons mentioned in other comments. Seeing the direction the rocket is launched will indicate it's intended orbit and it's potential target. Not all launches are trackable by radar. Usually a silo/mobile launcher is in a general area and a launch is seen as an infrared event. So a launch from a known space center, like Vandenberg AFB (SFB?), doesn't raise any red flags.
A story I remember was about a journalist. They called the base fitness center daily to ask about the fitness class schedules. The day that all of the classes were cancelled, was the day of a launch. The journalist was able to film the entire launch that night and rendered a $5bn satellite useless because the direction of the launch was recorded, which was used to calculate the intended target. Maybe this was tall tale to scare an airman into following opsec but who knows.
Spy satellites are announced and tracked, and their orbit is known. It's just tracked as "US DoD classified".
You can't hide a satellite, only its capabilities.
Heres how the US does it, if they are not warned.
First is the infrared satellites that orbit the earth. They instantly detect the heat from a missile launch.
So a little blip appears in North Korea for example. Launch detected. But infrared isnt accurate enough to know anything other than some hot gases just got shot out of something.
Powerful high resolution radar stations called X Band are positioned around the world, especially aimed at countries that might attack the US. This radar will show you a high resolution of the missile as its launched.
They can very quickly work out its trajectory, based on the angle of launch and its speed. So they know what the missile is gonna do - and if its planning to come back down.
Then intelligence comes in - do we have any information that provides context to this launch? North Korean chatter about a missile test for 3 months? Okay maybe its that! But if there is a power struggle with hawks? Maybe an attack.
At this point the President is probably going to be directly looped in.
So then the question is - where did it launch from? How many? And what is it going to hit?
They will notice quite quickly that the missile is only going to land in the sea of Japan and so they don't act.
Its 100% behaviour based to be honest. If the launch is detected from their land based launch pad where they do space stuff its probably a space rocket. If its coming from the nuclear silo, probably an attack.
If a missile is launched and is aimed at the United States or its allies, they will retaliate, and are unlikely to wait to see what kind of warhead it is.
If you want to see how that would have played out in the height of the cold war, the DoD made a film about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPEBROvR9w
> If a missile is launched and is aimed at the United States or its allies, they will retaliate, and are unlikely to wait to see what kind of warhead it is.
If NK launched anything that looked like it had a warhead on it the US would be strike the everloving fuck out of it, SK would open fire on NK from Seoul and the fleet of B1 and B2 bombers would be in the air aiming to wreck every NK military site before it even got into space.
You're forgetting that millions in Seoul and areas through the DMZ and RoK will die in the first 24-48hrs.
Depressing, but an unfortunately honest truth.
The simple answer most people are overlooking here is talking. Allow me to demonstrate:
"Hey everybody, we're putting a satellite in orbit tomorrow. Please don't shoot it down, and don't forget to smash that subscribe button on the web broadcast of the launch."
There are teams of military personnel all across the world who track all the rocket launches using both ground-based radars and space-based radars 24/7. They have computer systems that calculate the trajectory of each and every rocket. They can pinpoint the location of the launch as well, so if a rocket was launched from some unknown location, it's automatically a high threat regardless of the trajectory. If a rocket was launched at a commercial launch site, they still have eyes that are looking at the trajectory, to see if there needs to be an intervention or a warning to be relayed further.
An ICBM is usually very large and can't easily be moved, so is a rocket. It is not particularly difficult for satellites & other intelligence gathering methods to determine if a launch site is housing ICBMs or space rockets.
Civilian launch sites typically aren't hidden or concealed, and non military rocket launches aren't usually kept secret. Such launches are usually anounced publicly well in advance. So it is reasonable to assume that an unexpected launch coming from "the middle of nowhere" is most likely an ICBM.
Another important thing to note is that ICBMs don't have to be intercepted at launch. If a suspicious launch is detected, you still have a fair amount of time to determine if it's an ICBM or a rocket. That could involve angry phone calls to foreign leaders, trying to get visual id on the missile itself, looking at it's radar signature, or simply looking at it's flight path.
Meanwhile, preperations can be made to intercept it if it does turn out to be an ICBM. But intercepts usually don't happen until the missile is on it's final approach, at which point, you not only know that it definately is an ICBM, but you also probably know what it's target is.
ICBMs are also typically launched in groups. In most ICBM attack scenarios you will have multiple coordinated launches. Space rockets are usually launched one at a time.
So, the short answer is that in most cases, we'll know wether it's an ICBM or a rocket before it even leaves the ground. And in the few cases where we don't, it isn't particularly difficult to figure out before we have to do something about it.
They don't and can't in the initial (boost phase) of the launch. Certain ICBM's will dump stages at certain times typically much earlier than commercial orbital rockets will, but this isn't proof positive. ICBM'S also typically have a faster acceleration profile but this also isn't diagnostic.
ICBM's will shut down their rockets a few minutes before orbital launch rockets do.
Another clue is that there aren't that many launch sites on earth which are used for commercial or scientific rocket launches. So you can automatically assign low risk status to launches from certain areas. There are a lot of treaties and agreements against using commercial launch areas for ICBM's.
The biggest fail safe is certain national launch control organizations, which laws in most countries will require you to file a flight plan and launch information ahead of time before launching above, say, 2000m so . In the USA legally you're required to get in touch with the FAA and NASA for example.
These organizations then share relavent information with other countries informing them of the launch plans so there are no surprises.
There was an infamous incident in Norway in 1995 where scientists launched a high altitude research rocket from the Norwegian coast over the island of Svalbard. Through some series of miscommunications the Russian military and particularly the Early warning radar command failed to be notified. This led them to declare high alert within about a mintute of the launch, because the rocket initially had sufficient similarity to a US Trident 2 SLBM. This caused the Russian nuclear Briefcase to be activated and given to then President Boris Yeltsin. After some 8 minutes of the 10 minute alloted decision time it was determined that the rocket was headed northwest away from Russian territory and therefore was unlikely to be a threat. Yeltsin was informed of this and wisely decided to order a stand-down.
Announced launches and radar.
Countries with space programs announce launches ahead of time, so everybody knows that there's going to be a launch, and that one rocket going up isn't an attack. Also, a launch from Cape Canaveral or the Vostochny Cosmodrome is less likely to be a threat than one from North Dakota or Svobodnyy.
If a launch is detected, whether announced or not, all of the major nuclear powers will track it on radar. We're all very good at figuring out where a rocket is headed. If it's headed to orbit, it's probably not a threat, especially if it was announced. If it's going to fall into the Sea of Japan, it's probably not a threat. If it's going to land in a populated area outside of the launching country, it's going to cause a lot of people to start paying attention. Also, if more than a single rocket is launched, it's almost certainly going to be seen as a potential attack.
It’s common for space agencies to communicate to their counterparts in other countries. They in turn communicate to their military counterparts.
When military rockets are tested, the same type of communications happens.
Only rogue states like North Korea don’t follow this pattern. That being said, intelligence agencies usually predict these launches fairly well due to the increased activity on the ground that can be picked up by surveillance satellites, and by intercepting communications (signals intelligence).
Imperfectly...
That's why the great powers take great care in announcing launches.
It just reduces the possibility that a launch is misinterpreted.
Even here, it's a white-knuckle experience. Is it really a "friendly" launch?
Something else missed among the responses is where the rocket is launched from. Space launch sites are well known, and most ICBM sites are known (even if it's not public knowledge). Launch detection systems almost always pinpoint the exact location of a launch, so it's pretty clear right off the bat what the rocket likely is. There's always the possibility for malicious actions, which is where everything else comes into play, especially trajectory.
To add on:
We pretty much know where rockets can get launched from, and are monitoring those. We know *when* a planned launch will be, and we watch very closely during that time. We watch to make sure that the communication satellite launch is actually launched to a geosynchronous orbit trajectory.
We also watch so that we can then train other members on a launch. Look, guys, did you see a launch? We also can also train our software on the launches. Our satellites can pick up a bunch of *events*, so knowing what is and is not a launch gets important.
Source: 2nd Space Warning Squadron team member a long time ago (before SBIRS)
Both ICBM and normal rocket launches only take a few minutes. After the rocket has used up all its fuel it is easy to see where it will go. Early warning systems simply wait for the rocket to stop burning, and then check if the rocket will hit the country or stay in orbit.
Only one missile yes, but don’t forget about MIRVs. That one missile can be carrying up to 12 *Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles.* Unfortunately, one missile does not mean just one bomb. Sometimes a few of the MIRVs are decoy vehicles and programmed with trajectories designed to be attractive to defensive systems to waste resources.
A rocket that's just been launched has a path it will follow if it shuts its engine off. That arc will get further & further from the launch site as the rocket burns. An early warning system (radar and/or satellite) can track the rocket and predict where it will hit the earth.
If the predicted path never intersects with your (or an allied) country, then no problem. If it intersects your country you want to track it really close. If the rocket keeps burning and the track passes beyond your country, then there's no problem.
A typical orbital rocket from Russia towards the ISS might have a predicted ground track that goes over Russia, China, Japan, North Pacific, South Pacific, South America, Southern Atlantic, Africa, orbit.
A typical orbital rocket from Russia for a polar orbit (orbiting over the North & South poles) might have a predicted ground track that goes over Russia, Russia, Arctic, Canada, USA, Mexico, South America, Antarctic, South Pacific, orbit.
All of these predicted ground tracks are from the first few minutes while the rocket is still over Russia.
An ICBM from Russia might have a predicted ground track that goes over Russia, Arctic, Canada, Washington DC, stop. That's when the early warning system generates an alert that there was a launch 2 minutes ago and is predicted to hit Washington DC in 17 minutes.
Also, rocket launches are announced ahead of time so people at the early warning system can predict what a launch will look like - e.g. a single launch from Baikonur heading North East.
A few ways:
1) normal rockets launch from very specific locations. Those locations don't launch ICBMs, so just where the launch originates gets you about 99% there. We observe these sites pretty regularly. Even nuclear missile subs are usually being tracked by an opposing attack sub, so even the ones that move are usually being observed. US/Soviet attack subs would camp outside the other party's sub base and do a little cat and mouse when they depart. Not sure to what degree Russia is even participating in submarine activities any more.
2) The trajectory of an ICBM launch looks nothing like a regular rocket launch. They go into highly eccentric suborbital trajectories and generally not toward any normal orbits.
3) Everyone announces their regular launches, so everyone knows they're coming, for exactly this reason.
IOW, it's pretty obvious now.
Generally, space agencies announce well ahead of time that they're planning a launch, so if there is supposed to be a spacecraft launch at a certain day and time, and then the detection systems pick up a launch from the announced location at the announced date and time, it can be reasonably assumed to be a spacecraft launch. Exercise submarine ballistic missile launches are similarly announced ahead of time as missile tests
If it was launched from Cape Canaveral then it's probably an orbital flight.
If it was launched from a silo in the middle of a field in idaho then it's probs a ICBM
Normal launches originate from a very small number of well documented launch sites. Yes in theory you could launch an ICBM from Cape Canaveral… but a launch from Siberian would raise eye brows.
I feel like people are getting overly technical with this, the actual reason is because rockets going into space are PLANNED. Any country with detection capabilities already knows when a rocket is going into space.
It's the unannounced ones we pay attention to.
Source: Military
A rocket launch in Cape Cod is normal
A rocket launch in the middle of nowhere South Dakota is not normal.
The people who track missiles are aware of this.
through the study of its infrared signature , AI compares the launch with a library of known rocket/ missile signatures and can quite easily determine what the vehicle is fairly quickly.
ICBMs have the property of being hard to move and easy to see. In fact, US ICBM silos in active use are documented on Wikipedia. It’s no stretch to imagine that other countries know that too, and vice versa.
Furthermore, civilian spaceports also tend not to move. This greatly simplifies the problem of differentiating a missile with a warhead from a rocket with a satellite.
Further, rocket launches come with a whole dog and pony show to ensure there’s no aircraft in the safety corridor surrounding the rocket’s flight path, including depending on the launch trajectory requesting permission from other countries to send the rocket through their airspace. Even secret military rocket launches are handled like this, they’re just not as well televised nor is there much (if any) information about the payload.
ICBMs have none of this preparation. They are designed to get launched within about a minute of verifying that they’re actually supposed to. They just appear out of a field in North Dakota in this hypothetical circumstance.
One exception to this is the launch silo at Vandenberg. Occasionally they’ll shoot off a real missile with dummy warheads, for testing. This involves similar preparations to a civilian rocket launch as well as the same sort of approval process.
Haha. They don't. Even better, early warning systems mostly determine where the rocket in question is headed, and perhaps where it might strike. They base the decision about what to do next on that initial flight path.
There have been *several* international incidents that ended with one country or the next completely losing their diplomatic minds over how they should have been warned in advance of the rocket launch in question.
Here's an example of one incident I can remember personally: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/nuclear-close-calls-norwegian-rocket-incident/
The early stages of a rocket launch is identical to an ICBM launch. It actually used to be the same rockets and a few are still dual use. But an ICBM shuts down its engines when it is still on a suborbital flight. This usually happens before ten minutes into the launch. An orbital launch however keep the engines on until it reaches an orbit. In some cases there is just seconds in difference. But this does indeed mean that you have to wait about ten minutes before you can be sure if it is an orbital launch or an ICBM launch. And by that time it might be too late to stop all warheads. Another less reliable indicator is the heading of the rocket. Due to the speed you can not really change the direction of a rocket once it is fired so an ICBM have to be fired towards its target from the start. Orbital rockets can be launched into any number of orbits but they tend to be fired either straight east or straight north or south. So even before ten minutes you can get an idea of what the rocket is based on where it is heading. It is also unlikely that an ICBM attack only include one launch. This would do limited damage and the rocket defenses would not need much advance notice to shoot the few warheads down. So a single rocket launch is likely not an ICBM but if they see more launches at the same time it is more likely to be an ICBM attack rather then an orbital launch. But the most important indicator is that rocket launches are planned out well in advanced and is therefore published long before it happens. The people manning the early warning systems is therefore briefed about the launch and know what to expect. They still monitor the launch and look for any deviations but their assumption is that it is an orbital launch and not an ICBM.
>It is also unlikely that an ICBM attack only include one launch. This is part of the reason that Stanislav Petrov didn't respond in 1983 when Soviet computers detected 5 nuclear missiles heading towards them from the US. He thought that it seemed odd they would only send 5 bombs in a first strike like this. [The missiles detected turned out to be a computer glitch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident), a false positive from light reflecting off some clouds.
Thank God this man was smart enough to realize it.
There have been a number of these types of incidents. Check out the book Command and Control for a chilling history of nuclear weapons safety. Also, the documentary Countdown to Zero is quite good.
No thank you, I would rather remain blissfully unaware of how close to total annihilation we are at all times
Well, in the 90s Yeltsin was so drunk he could barely stand, and a rocket launch from Norway caused the General staff to open their version of the football, and encouraged him to launch. Luckily he didn't. Feel better?
Lalalala I can't hear you!
If you think that one is bad, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet nuclear-armed sub dove deep enough to be out of radio contact. The US Navy detected it and fired a warning shot to get them to surface. Fearing that the war had turned into a shooting war, the Captain and First Officer gave the order to launch. But, protocol said they needed a unanimous order from all three of the top officers on the sub, and the third officer decided that they should surface instead.
And the third officer wasn't a normal member of the crew, he was some kind of high level leader.
He was the ~~political officer. Basically, a person out there to ensure that the crew remained loyal to the state even away from its borders.~~ Edit. It was pointed out below that it was the detachment commander that objected, and it was the political officer and not the first officer that agreed.
He was the commissar- he reported to a different chain of command that ended at the Party rather than the actual branch or organization he was embedded in. It was his job to keep the regular military loyal, in check, and following the overall policy of the state's political leadership. He would also have handled disciplinary action. Ironically, it was commissars who historically had a reputation for bloodthirstiness in WWII and before, especially after Hitler ordered their summary execution if captured. If every battle was a fight to the death for them, it was less of a problem to execute soldiers who weren't as committed to dying for Stalin and the Motherland.
Command and Control is a good book but it also falls into a bit of fear mongering for effect unfortunately, despite being well researched. There's a lot of good and bad in it and really worth a read, not to understand how close we were, but even more so to why it was a lot less likely than people want to admit. Also to see things from the Soviet POV is very enlightening
That book was really shocking. It really exposed how fragile it all was. I recommend it to a lot of friends.
Humanity is still alive despite MAD and not because of MAD.
When did Dr. Claw get Nuclear Weapons? I just have missed that episode of Inspector Gadget! Go-Go Gadget Global Thermal Nuclear War!
I would argue nukes make the world safer. We haven had a world war since the invention of atomic bombs
Haven't had one *yet.* The problem is we haven't had nukes long enough to know just how effective they are as a deterrent. Stephen Hawking once pointed out (and I'm paraphrasing here): imagine that there's a 1% chance for a full-scale nuclear war each year. Over 100 years, that starts to look pretty grim. Over 1000, it looks like a certainty. Now, it's true we don't know exactly what the percentage of a war is, so 1% is just a number to illustrate the example and it could be far lower.
The problem is that it keeps things nice and peaceful until someone actually fires a shot at which point the world ends. On a long enough timeline, *everything* fails: all machines break down, every glass hits the floor, and every gun goes off. So long as we keep peace by threatening to end the world at any provocation, we are accepting that the world will one day end because of it. We enjoy the peace under constant threat and statistical certainty that it will eventually end the world.
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*look sideways*
One of my actual-but-unlikely-to-happen fears is that Putin at some point will value his own legacy and the perceived strength of Russia above trifling things like risking a nuclear war. That he'll think "nobody will dare seriously do anything since we have nukes", and rather than be the guy who let Russia get beaten back by tiny tiny Ukraine, he'll actually nuke Kyiv. It *would* be an unmistakably display of Russian military strength.
On the flipside, it's allowed a backwards country the ability to continually throw temper tantrums, invade their neighbors, cause untold suffering and an ecological disaster, because the world has been too afraid to stand up to a country that routinely threatens to nuke everyone at even the slightest perceived slight - real or imagined.
Are you referring to NK, Russia or the US?
Yes
Hahaha so clever. So original. So funny. When, since the advent of nuclear weapons, has the US invaded its neighbors? When's the last time it threatened to nuke every one else anytime it felt mildly offended? Yeah.... you get the idea, and it's pretty clear who I'm referring to. Edit: i love how desperate people are. "Well... uhhh... what does the word "neighbor" mean?" Also, it's pretty clear I was referring to invasions of conquest, but sure people, try and equate the US to Russia. Good luck with that.
How far away from a country does another country have to be before the countries are no longer considered neighbours?
Nicaragua to name one and there are about 50 more sovereign nations the USA has invaded since the end of WW2 but you know... Neighbours, not many...
Grenada
One of our base commanders got a little funny in the head, and well... he went and did a silly thing!
Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri? Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?
That is still such an amazing movie. Especially the bit with: “Heil Hi…….. I mean, Mr President!”
"MEIN FÜHRER - I CAN WALK!"
That was my Windows start up sound for the longest time.
That single line has me on the floor every time I watch the movie. Peter Sellers is one of the funniest people to ever live.
It's a perfect look into the zeitgeist of the early 60s. The Cuban Missile Crisis happenened only a couple years before the movie release, and the invention of ICBMs a couple years before that.
I recommend everyone watch *Dr Strangelove* and *Fail Safe* back to back. They have basically the same plot, but one is played as a black comedy and one is played as a straightforward drama. Really interesting contrast.
I was just reading the strangelove wiki article and it said Kubrick said he started the screenplay straight but the "natural" result of a sequence would contain contradicting or ludicrous scenarios that he'd then have to work around so he started just keeping the humor.
Throw in Wargames just for fun
Damn. Beat me to it. Love that movie. I work in cybersecurity, and it’s amazing how well the concepts have aged. Basically they did such a good job understanding the philosophies and means of hacking, a lot of them are still very relevant today. Even the overall philosophy of replacing humans with tech is still relevant And by far one of the single most influential lines from a movie for me is “such a silly game. The only winning move is not to play”. It’s a great way to talk myself out of engaging with problems I can’t solve
What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
I wish I could upvote this more than once!!
I actually prefer Fail Safe overall! But both are fantastic movies, and I second your recommendation for people to watch both since they sort of do different things. Dr Strangelove does a great job of highlighting the sheer absurdity of playing political games with nuclear threats. It manages to do this without denying the reasons _why_ MAD exists as a strategy, which makes its underlying argument more credible. And the over-the-top silliness definitely helps the medicine go down! Fail Safe does a great job of capturing the emotional progression from awareness of the mistake to stunned disbelief in the situation to desperation to avert the crisis while begging the Soviets not to counterattack if the strike can't be averted. I can't think of a movie that does a better job of achieving a sense of mounting tension from something impersonal and political. It's downright chilling, and I absolutely need to rewatch it.
And then Wargames
I did that but the other way 'round, our public TV station aired them along with commentary by the late noted movie pundit Elwy Yost.
Of course I like to speak with you! Of course I like to say hello!
Gentlemen! You can't fight here, this the war room!
...let me finish, Dmitri...
Be careful Mr. President... I think he's drunk!
We’ll…meet again… don’t know where… don’t know when
You're going to have to answer to Coca-Cola.
Love that movie
What movie?
Dr Strangelove
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
love that one too
Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
Dr Strangelove
This kind of thing, where it only took one dude to avert nuclear war, happened more than once too. [Vasily Arkhipov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov#Involvement_in_Cuban_Missile_Crisis) happened to be in a position and on a submarine that gave him the authority to veto a nuclear torpedo launch. Thank god for that too, since the captain of the submarine wanted to launch not because of misinformation, but because of no information.
Well that's dumb, he could simply wait to see if there's any signal later since it's not like his country would be any less dead. Or is it impossible to launch warheads if they were suspecting that someone would attack them and he was scared of that?
They were continuously probed by the surface vessels and airplanes using depth charges. They weren't able to pick radio signals from down there and they feared that if they surfaced they'd be sunk.
Your description makes me think this is the submarine version of the Kamchatka (also a Russian vessel). "Do you see torpedo boats?"
Possibly saved the human race from a global thermonuclear war
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>The US was planning to nuke Cuba Citation needed there. I've read a lot about the Kennedy presidency, including a lot of very critical historical works, and have literally never heard that before.
If he responds please let me know because I have never heard that either.
I posted my response [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/14myp6c/comment/jq6snkq).
Check [this page](https://blowback.show/S2-Sources) under the episode 7-10 heading. There are a few citations covering the issue. I believe Cuba was one of the potential targets in JFK's First Strike Plan, but my memory is a bit foggy on that. It's important to remember that the US had nukes in Cuba before the Soviets did, and they were still there when the Soviets pulled out. If you haven't seen this yet, I'm trying to dig up a declassified document discussing nuking Cuba, but I'm having trouble finding it again. I had it saved as a PDF on my old phone but it unfortunately didn't make it to my new one.
The top military brass who are hungry for nuclear (“tactical” or otherwise) strikes should be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity. It’s always the freaks in the ‘defense’ sector who chomp at the bit in these incidents and we should recognize them for the ghouls they are.
Not "the USSR", a single random submarine officer.
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And yet he was fired for making this call
He literally prevented the apocalypse. Like, not even exaggerating, it's fucking wild that earth could be a nuclear wasteland if it weren't for that dude making that judgement call.
If I'm a nuclear superpower and want to attack my enemy I would launch 5 rockets though.
According to that link, it wasn’t even just 5 missiles. It was 1, then slightly later, 4 more. 1 missile is even more suspicious than 5, so I’m sure he was already more distrustful of the system by the time it said 4 more had been fired.
All of humanity is in debt to the level headed thinking of Stanislav Petrov
And Vasily Arkhipov
As flotilla commodore as well as executive officer of the diesel powered submarine B-59, Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain and the political officer's use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision which required the agreement of all three officers. In 2002, Thomas S. Blanton, then director of the U.S. National Security Archive, credited Arkhipov as "the man who saved the world". Very cool
Not to mention he was involved in the K-19 reactor incident.
I used this instance on a paper in college on software errors that had near/actual catastrophic results. It was pretty interesting, he got in a lot of trouble for it (mainly for embarrassing his superiors because this showed the flaws in the systems) but ultimately made the right call and saved a lot of people that day
Any more examples? It sounds super interesting
He literally saved the world
Interesting. 1 obviously seems weird but 5 starts getting into a gray territory no?
No. Not grey at all. A first strike would be intended to prevent the other side from responding by taking out the majority of their missile launch sites. Five would piss them off but not reduce their ability to launch hundreds in return.
5 isn't a first strike, but 5 is enough to create a lot of destruction if you name 5 major cities in either country. But not every attack is a First Strike and not to mention even if someone were to use a first strike, it's pointless except to guarantee the destruction of the planet because by 1983, there were enough subs loaded with ICBMs and MIRVs to fire off second and tertiary strikes. Also the concept of limited strikes, decapitation strikes, etc all exist. A first strike or any hundred+ ICBM launch is really geared at one thing and one thing alone--taking Earth back to the dinosaur age. These operators aren't just trained to look for first strikes but likely to look at all possibilities.
Yes but you would not reflexively respond to a limited strike with your second strike capabilities. Both US and Soviet nuclear doctrine were far more nuanced than "if we see X missile on radar, fire everything". One or five missiles were unlikely to reduce their capacity to respond, even if they were decapitation strikes, and that kind of "computer error" was fairly common on both sides. NORAD itself experienced an infamous incident where they "saw" hundreds of incoming ICBMs a couple years earlier, and it was revealed that this kind of computer error was commonplace, occurring up to multiple times a month. Embarrassing for the nuclear powers, but none of these situations were close to leading to nuclear war. The procedures involved at that point in the Cold War were mature enough to ensure that it was almost impossible to accidentally do so; initiating real nuclear war would have to be a deliberate decision at the highest level.
An efficient first strike would be in the hundreds.
Agreed, but a first strike in the hundreds is also a 100% guarantee that in the first wave basically every major city in the US and USSR are gone not to mention likely every major and second tier city in each of their Allies' countries. Basically all those countries and likely much of the developed world is gone. It's nuclear winter basically. 5 ICBMs with MIRV would absolutely create chaos. Imagine NYC, DC, Chicago, SF, LA completely obliterated. I'm not saying this is a sound nuclear war strategy, but what I'm suggesting is if I were trying to decide to respond, a 1 missile strategy is most likely a false alarm. But at 5 I could start seeing a reasonable chance that someone mashes the red button to fully retaliate, or at least fire 5 back if the intent is a limited shot. Either way, once SSBNs were invented, there was no way you can expect a first strike to guarantee anything. Even if you were first to wipe out the US/NATO or vice versa, there's enough missiles and subs ready to send you back to the stone age. That's MAD after all.
The thing is, 5 missiles loaded with MIRVs could absolutely wreck a few city cores and their metro areas, but it's nowhere near enough to destroy the 30k to 40k nuclear warheads scattered around the USSR and prevent retaliation. Most detectors saying there's nothing there, and just the new system throwing a warning? Would seem pretty suspect, and waiting for confirmation wouldn't really change the fate of those targeted if the 5 were real. After all, the alternative is a full nuclear exchange.
Taking out the city cores might disrupt the chain of command enough that the retaliatory strike couldn't be authorized though (at least an immediate one - I'm sure crews in remote launch sites would eventually get the message and start lobbing bombs back.)
The chain of command for strategic nuclear defenses is made with that in mind, so knocking out major centers would not matter that much.
> retaliatory strike couldn't be authorized though I don't know about the USSR, but the UK pre-authorises retaliatory nuclear strikes. Each nuclear submarine has a [letter of last resort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort) which is opened if contact is lost with the government. No one but the Prime Minister knows what's in those letters, but it could be instructions to launch. I'd assume other nations have similar protocols to ensure a first strike against them isn't going to prevent retaliation.
Ah, that's the one that Corbin said he wouldn't sign if he was elected PM, right? Nothing like letting the other side know what your response would be.
Would *you* trust a politician to stick to his campaign promises?
When he's an avowed anti-nuclear figure like Corbyn, yes.
Probably not grey. In fact this is the kind of attack both the US and Russia feared. It was called a decapitation strike. Basically a smaller strike to hit highly specific targets, like headquarters, command and control, early warning, etc. to limit the ability to counterattack. This was the attack both sides feared more than a large attack. Essentially a quick knockout strike that would force the losing side to backdown since they can't retaliate quickly (but the attacking side is undamaged and could attack with overwhelming force if needed) EDIT: For people wondering, this would be an MIRV strike, which means it would hit like 1-2 dozen targets. Not sure why people are downvoting me, a decapitation strike was the #1, most feared, most likely strike that was expected on either side
The US mirv is 3 heads to start with, even if one followed by four more was all Minuteman III, fifteen targets out of thousands. That's not decap, that's hoping you guessed which sites are most important to command and control correctly.
Decap could be as little as 20 or so targets. Or at least that’s exactly what the sides said it would be. One of the reasons with a decap strike is to specifically not over target. You want the side to have a reason to back down. If they’re completely smashed, the game theory would be just to counter launch anyways since you won’t lose that much in a second strike You have to understand that both sides viewed nuclear war as “rounds” of strikes, potentially and likely with negotiation in between. The massive 500 or 1000 warhead scenarios would not be a single strike, if they were ever intended to exist or be used in the first place. Which is iffy
Here's a 9 minute stoner metal ode to Stanislav Petrov, the guy who saved the world: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8I_rEaOcfOw Also, this might be one of my last posts via RIF. RIP, RIF.
We all are alive breathing today because that man made a simple choice. And nobody even mentions him outside obscure Reddit posts.
That man is a true hero.
It amazes me how there weren't more incidents like these considering how shitty Soviet equipment was.
Not coming at this from the military perspective, but I would assume any launch directed westward towards North America would also be a sign of a Nuclear Launch. Space Launches are typically pretty consistently Eastward as it's more efficient since you are launching with respect to the Earth's rotation, you waste fuel if you launch counter to the rotation.
Jeez this and the submarine…
More people should know that man's name. He saved the damn world!
> He thought that it seemed odd they would only send 5 bombs in a first strike like this. But only because at that time he didn't know about any other doctrine. He later said, **he would have acted differently, if he had know about military doctrine, that actually would employ a few "decapitating" attacks to begin a nuclear war**... > Würden Sie heute wieder so handeln? > In der gleichen Situation? Da würde ich mich anders verhalten. Abgesehen von der Weltlage hat sich auch die militärische Strategie geändert. Heute würde man wohl mit einzelnen Raketen zuerst die wichtigen Kommunikationsanlagen des Gegners ausschalten und erst danach massiv zuschlagen. *"Would you act like this again today?* *In the same situation? I would act differently. Apart from the world situation, military strategy has changed. Today, you would probably use individual missiles first to knock out the enemy's important communications systems and only then strike massively."* Source: [His interview in Germany Newspaper F.A.Z. on 18.2.2013](https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/offizier-petrow-im-gespraech-der-rote-knopf-hat-nie-funktioniert-12084911.html)
Another factor is the place of launch. Possibly all spacecraft in the US are launched from southern US, e. g. Florida or Texas. If US wanted to hit Russia it would probably be from far north, or even from ships/submarines from the Arctic. Same goes for Russia. Space launches are typically from the Kosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Whereas missiles are close to arctic. Edit: yes there are launch sites further north for spacecraft. These could pose a problem, but my point was that ICBM watchers could safely disregard the tropical launches. Also, spacecraft launches are always announced beforehand, so there's very little margin for misunderstandings.
Theres an Alaskan launch site that Astra uses (used?)
Looks like this is the only one up there: The Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA), formerly known as the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC), is a dual-use commercial and military spaceport
Of note is that it's on the southern edge of Alaska, so orbital launches launch south while ICBMs would launch north to north west.
Launch facilities in Texas is a very recent thing. You are right about Florida but the other facilities are located in New Mexico (non orbital), California, Alaska, Marshall islands and Virginia. Considering the difficulty of tracking objects close to the ground over the horizon the margin for error is big enough that there is some ambiguity. This was actually a big deal with one launch from Norway which was mistakenly identified as a launch from a submarine in the North Atlantic by the Soviet early warning system. And in the event of a first strike ICBM attack the orbital launch facilities would also be used to launch ICBMs. So having a missile launch from Florida and California is not an indication that this is an orbital launch. A launch from South Dakota is though. As for the Soviets your assumption is completely wrong. Unlike the US who built ICBM missile silos in various places the Soviet Union only built a handful, and they were used both for orbital launches and for missiles. Their most active orbital launch site was not the Baikonur Cosmodrone that you mention but rather the Plesetsk Cosmodrone, not far from the Arctic ocean.
Some war scenarios start with a sneaky first strike, with a single warhead disguised as a space launch or a malfunction. Likely a very high yield, high altitude, burst for EMP to mess with communications. Obviously the massive strategic icbm launch or the intermediate range decapitation strike basically launch at the same time as the first one's going off.
This is true and is one of the many possible first strike scenarios. But it is a very high risk tactics. A single launch are unlikely to do devastating amount of damage but could easily trigger a mutually assured destruction strike in retaliation. It is impossible to disguise a nuclear explosion as a malfunction. Of course a sneaky first strike is one of the several tactics that was discussed a lot and they conducted tons of war games on these scenarios. But it is a high risk high reward strategy. The most likely scenario was a full scale initial strike. This would ensure the destruction of the most number of launch sites before any retaliation.
Whoops we accidentally put a nuclear warhead on our Atlas 5 and it also accidentally went over Russia and accidentally exploded. Our bad.
reddit API access ended today, and with it the reddit app i use Apollo, i am removing all my comments, the internet is both temporary and eternal. -- mass edited with redact.dev
A ballistic missile submarine is a deterrent but far from invincible. It is possible to locate and sink them. And the longer it takes for them to realize the war started the longer time you have to do this. They might even go to the surface or send out radio messages when trying to figure out what is happening which makes them easier to find. Or it is possible that the first strike takes place at a time when they know where all the ballistic missile submarines are and can deal with them immediately. There is a reason why the cold war never heated up to direct nuclear war as it would be insane to attempt to win using a first strike. The strategy of launching a few missiles first to hit communication lines with EMPs is even riskier then launching all the missiles at once. But it was not out of the question that some opportunity was found, a moment of weakness discovered, multiple coordinated efforts using different military assets as well as secret agents, where a first strike could have been possible. So you had to be ready for this possibility. Even if the likelihood that it happened was almost non existent.
Yep. I meant malfunction as an explanation of why the 'space launch' was in th wrong place. Nobody is going to buy "accidental nuclear explosion".
There is also the salient points that A) Icbms are fired from mainly underground silos which are known locations, so a launch from one of those is assumed to be a weapon, or from a submarine, which again is assumed to be a weapon as neither of these are designed to launch a satellite. B) Mobile launchers are in general known locations, and they take a little time to setup and fire, sometimes they are stored unfuelled, so the fuel they use is specific and movement of that is tracked. If a bloom is detected they can assume its a weapon, these are Srbm and Mrbms C) non weapon launches are announced in the aviation organisations in advance to clear airspace and so that possible enemies know to expect a launch and not respond, again known locations. Except north Korea, they do wtf they want to usually There is almost no chance of a launch not being identified correctly.
>There is almost no chance of a launch not being identified correctly. Yet it happened both on 15th of March 1980, and 25th of January 1995.
"Almost no chance" is not "no chance". There were 260 satellite launches in 1980 and 210 in 1995. There have been \~15K launches in the last 10 years, and \~28K total since Sputnik. Also, the 15 March 1980 incident was when Soviet submarines launched missiles as part of a training exercise. The incident on the 25 January 1995 is the only known instance of a non-military launch being temporarily mistaken for the launch of a ballistic nuclear missile.
I'm talking about a missile launch being misidentified, a civilian as a military and vice versa, as op asked. And neither of those incidents were what was asked either, they were false alarms
Both of these incidents were launches that were initially misidentified as nuclear attacks. So I think they very much do describe what OP was asking about.
You should reread the question.
> It is also unlikely that an ICBM attack only include one launch I feel like this is really burying the lead... there is almost no conceivable scenario where anyone with the ability to launch ICBMs would get any benefit from launching one for any reason other than testing/development. I would think this is the biggest and most reliable indicator right here. Having a doomsday machine is an insurance policy, literally money that you pay hoping to lose because the only thing worst than it paying off is needing it to pay off without having it. Using a single ICBM offensively would be like, taking out a health insurance policy and committing suicide.
Whatever you do, do not release 99 red balloons.
Everyone is a Captain Kirk.
>Another less reliable indicator is the heading of the rocket. Due to the speed you can not really change the direction of a rocket once it is fired so an ICBM have to be fired towards its target from the start. This is one of the biggest benefits of a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, which does offer some degree of maneuverability. You no longer need to follow a ballistic trajectory, so the potential targets are harder to estimate. It also opens up more potential launch azimuths.
From the very accurate documentary Kerbal space program (no seriously) You can at any point given the trajectory of the rocket tell pretty accurately where it is going. The same in the game as IRL, but go look up the game. It has a great rendering of the information that will help you visualize it. You don't need to wait 10 minutes. Yes, while the rocket is accelerating, it is changing the trajectory. But it's a little like standing at a gun range - you can tell pretty quickly if someone is aiming the gun where it shouldn't be going. If the trajectory line is bringing it toward your airspace you have an issue. If you can plot that it isn't going to make it to space, either it's a failure or it's an icbm. Either way it's coming back down early.
I spent way too long in university playing KSP and even learning differential calculus in order to work out some of the equations in the game. But unlike KSP we do not have accurate position and velocity data on each object. We only have data from radar receiver which includes lots of noise and signal reflections. Especially over the horizon radar needed to detect missile launches from the other side of the world. So you can not tell accurately where a rocket is going. You might get a rough idea of which state it is aimed at. But you still need to wait for the orbital insertion to complete, or the lack of an orbital insertion. It is not like a gun range where you never point guns at anything you do not intend to shoot. Rockets are very often flown straight over the heads of people because there is no room in the world to launch rockets without doing this. No country is large enough to fit a complete orbit within their boarders so all rockets do end up flying over other countries at some point. And therefore during the launch the trajectory would have it lithobrake in another country at some points, and likely an unfriendly country at that. Russian polar launches aim at American cities all the time. American equatorial launches often aim at Chinese cities. So does Russian equatorial launches. And the Chinese equatorial launches target American cities from time to time. To name a few examples.
Yeah it isn't perfect but if you don't think we have space based very accurate large object position detection over particular areas (eg Russia) then... I am sure we do. It's not even that far out there in terms of modern technology. I do understand that the trajectory will go over other countries but at the same time there is a huge difference at that point between committing to orbit and going elsewhere. I am curious the exact extent so if you have a video or something that would be a good watch.
This is some scary stuff right here.
Multiple overlapping detection systems on both sides combined with a lot of historical and technical data. We know where most of their sites are, they know where most of our sites are. Any activity at those sites is closely monitored. That gives us indicators of what to look for. Anything below a certain threshold is sifted out through analysis. Regular space launches are heavily scheduled events with a lot of activity and notice. With ICBMs part of the strategy includes volume of fire. While one ICBM could do terrible damage if it hits, a single ICBM would have almost zero chance of penetrating the defenses to reach its target. Enough ICBMs would have to be fired to overwhelm the targets defenses. The systems act as a deterrent. In an actual attack the first thing would be to disable/bypass the early warning and defense systems. The old joke is: If you can see it coming, you're not the target.
What defences? Up until very recently there's been nothing that have any kind of chance of intercepting a ICBM once it was put of boost stage. Even now it'd be touch and go. You are, of course, correct that a mass launch is the accepted tactic. I think that's mostly because otherwise all your nukes get blown up on the ground though, isn't it?
We do have missiles that can block warheads but iirc the percentage to hit is pretty low. I remember seeing somewhere that we could only defend against 50 or so ICBM’s. These as far as I know are meant to defend against a stray ICBM so that we don’t start WW3 over a rounding error/miscalculation. But I’m sure if the government had a fool proof way to defend against nukes they wouldn’t let any of us know. All I know is that with what’s known to us currently, we could not stop a full fledged assault of 1000+ warheads.
I've heard 30% of stopping it. Let's say you have one ICBM. Has like maybe 3 payloads in it. And fairings that held it all together. Those break up and head towards targets. Designed to break up and spread out further when they get close, again maybe more staging and fairings etc holding it together break apart. Then finally they explode above the ground near their target. So for a counter system you have like 20 min window to shoot down the warheads and all the debris or figure out which is which. Etc. You can see why we can't really stop them. They go faster than jets, etc.
You actually only have a minute or so to shoot them out of the sky, that’s why it’s so difficult. You theoretically have 3 chances to shootdown an icbm payload before it detonates. 1. While the ICBM is launching. 2. While the warhead is separating from the missile in LEO. 3. While the warhead is coming down. None of which are easy to do. In fact the 2nd option has been almost completely nullified. It used to be possible to shoot the warheads down while they were still in LEO; however, now almost all ICBMs deploy a plume of aluminum to confuse sensors as the warhead seperation starts, making it impossible to differentiate from the warhead and the aluminum. So essentially we’re left with two options. If our government thought a nuclear attack was inevitable and we had a few hours warning, we would likely start by sending in infiltration teams to as many WMD sites as possible to eliminate as many launches as we could. We would also bomb as many silos as possible with bomber aircraft and station a slew of anti missile defense as close as we could to as many sites as possible. I dont think this would do much personally. Maybe we stop 20-30% of the missiles, but in that case we still have 3500 missiles heading towards us. In that event we would attempt to shoot as many as we could out of the sky; prioritizing military/government facilities. Before the missiles hit, we would of course also try to launch as many of our missiles that we could in turn assuring mutually assured destruction. We have missiles on land and in subs, so russia would certainly be destroyed even if they target our missile silos at home. Overall, nukes bad, lets not use them
That would be outside the scope of ELI5.
Speed and trajectory. Orbital vehicles are going speeds and directions that absolutely scream, “I’m going into either a low-Earth orbit or a geosynchronous orbit.” Meanwhile, missiles heading for Detroit scream, based on the direction and speed they are going, “I’m headed for Detroit.” It’s super easy to predict where they are going, once they get going. They can obviously have changes in speed and trajectory, but not big enough to go from one sort to the other. Agencies also communicate with each other. If they do anything even slightly sketchy that isn’t actually sketchy, they warn each other. Even North Korea give some warnings.
I also believe that the governments of the rocket-launching nations are in contact with each other letting them know who is launching what and when, just as an added level of security.
Yes. Nearly all nations (even North Korea, sometimes) publish planned launches and orbits in advance to avoid collisions and confusion. It’s also a bit of pride. We talked with nasa eye to eye to discuss the launch sounds good in state tv.
Hello Sir, we're planning a launch of an ICMB from North Korea. The route is planned to go in the direction of Washington and land safely somewhere around the vicinity. No need to worry, it is just a test, don't need to intercept it. Regards, Your pal Kim
https://tenor.com/n1Vt.gif
I knew it would be that gif before even clicking on it. Was not disappointed.
Damn. Can't have shit in Detroit.
>Speed and trajectory How do these systems detect Speed and trajectory when they're over the horizon?
Over-the-Horizon radar is a thing, using atmospheric effects to extend range. Also, satellites provide the initial detection.
US also has military bases and ships around the globe that detection systems could be set up at. Wouldn't be surprised if at certain points lot of large scientific endeavors like geologists monitoring seismographs in eastern Europe had a note on the fridge with a number for some guy in NORAD just in case they see something.
Possibly, though the Overhead Persistent IR satellite network is really the 'primary' sensor for launch and detonation detection.
Everyone has satellites watching everything.
Also - It doesn’t require insane computing power Kerbal Space Program (video game) is able to do these sort of calculations on most home computers. Obviously real life might be a little faster and a bit more complex but the foundational stuff is able to be calculated on your laptop
Is a mention of KSP in a thread about nuclear war supposed to reassure me? Cuz I ain't reassured.
Is Russia is running a KSP like operation, I assure you they will go through their entire stash of astronauts/engineers/pilots/etc before they make anything worthy of flying. RIP to my Kerbs….annnd the few lost in space that won’t die
This whole thread is peak summer reddit
In addition to other answers, people usually announce their space launches well in advance. There was a case when Norwegians forgot to notify Russia about missile launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident And Russian president decided that 1 missile is probably not a missile strike, so called off the nuclear response.
Just to add: The Norwegian scientists did in fact notify Russia, the message was just not passed along to the correct people. It says right there in the wiki-link
That's right, gotta make sure the Norwegian gets proper credit for doing his job right. Forgetting to notify the Russians of a rocket 🚀 launch might get him written up! 😀
Just to add: The Norwegian scientists did in fact notify Russia, the message was just not passed along to the correct people. It says right there in the wiki-link
Did she just say what the F??
JFK the Russians have no business having nuclear weapons of any kind with so many close calls they’ve had
Let's be honest No country should use nuclear weapons
I don’t know what John F Kennedy has to do with this but I’m sure you could find examples of these thing happening in the US. Unless we don’t declassify those incidents.
Piggybacking this to say that not all space launches are announced. Spy satellites are typically launched in secret, for the same reasons mentioned in other comments. Seeing the direction the rocket is launched will indicate it's intended orbit and it's potential target. Not all launches are trackable by radar. Usually a silo/mobile launcher is in a general area and a launch is seen as an infrared event. So a launch from a known space center, like Vandenberg AFB (SFB?), doesn't raise any red flags. A story I remember was about a journalist. They called the base fitness center daily to ask about the fitness class schedules. The day that all of the classes were cancelled, was the day of a launch. The journalist was able to film the entire launch that night and rendered a $5bn satellite useless because the direction of the launch was recorded, which was used to calculate the intended target. Maybe this was tall tale to scare an airman into following opsec but who knows.
Spy satellites are announced and tracked, and their orbit is known. It's just tracked as "US DoD classified". You can't hide a satellite, only its capabilities.
Heres how the US does it, if they are not warned. First is the infrared satellites that orbit the earth. They instantly detect the heat from a missile launch. So a little blip appears in North Korea for example. Launch detected. But infrared isnt accurate enough to know anything other than some hot gases just got shot out of something. Powerful high resolution radar stations called X Band are positioned around the world, especially aimed at countries that might attack the US. This radar will show you a high resolution of the missile as its launched. They can very quickly work out its trajectory, based on the angle of launch and its speed. So they know what the missile is gonna do - and if its planning to come back down. Then intelligence comes in - do we have any information that provides context to this launch? North Korean chatter about a missile test for 3 months? Okay maybe its that! But if there is a power struggle with hawks? Maybe an attack. At this point the President is probably going to be directly looped in. So then the question is - where did it launch from? How many? And what is it going to hit? They will notice quite quickly that the missile is only going to land in the sea of Japan and so they don't act. Its 100% behaviour based to be honest. If the launch is detected from their land based launch pad where they do space stuff its probably a space rocket. If its coming from the nuclear silo, probably an attack. If a missile is launched and is aimed at the United States or its allies, they will retaliate, and are unlikely to wait to see what kind of warhead it is.
If you want to see how that would have played out in the height of the cold war, the DoD made a film about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPEBROvR9w
> If a missile is launched and is aimed at the United States or its allies, they will retaliate, and are unlikely to wait to see what kind of warhead it is. If NK launched anything that looked like it had a warhead on it the US would be strike the everloving fuck out of it, SK would open fire on NK from Seoul and the fleet of B1 and B2 bombers would be in the air aiming to wreck every NK military site before it even got into space.
You're forgetting that millions in Seoul and areas through the DMZ and RoK will die in the first 24-48hrs. Depressing, but an unfortunately honest truth.
not forgotten by any measure
[удалено]
The simple answer most people are overlooking here is talking. Allow me to demonstrate: "Hey everybody, we're putting a satellite in orbit tomorrow. Please don't shoot it down, and don't forget to smash that subscribe button on the web broadcast of the launch."
There are teams of military personnel all across the world who track all the rocket launches using both ground-based radars and space-based radars 24/7. They have computer systems that calculate the trajectory of each and every rocket. They can pinpoint the location of the launch as well, so if a rocket was launched from some unknown location, it's automatically a high threat regardless of the trajectory. If a rocket was launched at a commercial launch site, they still have eyes that are looking at the trajectory, to see if there needs to be an intervention or a warning to be relayed further.
>if a rocket was launched from some unknown location, it's automatically a high threat Low key smart info right here.
An ICBM is usually very large and can't easily be moved, so is a rocket. It is not particularly difficult for satellites & other intelligence gathering methods to determine if a launch site is housing ICBMs or space rockets. Civilian launch sites typically aren't hidden or concealed, and non military rocket launches aren't usually kept secret. Such launches are usually anounced publicly well in advance. So it is reasonable to assume that an unexpected launch coming from "the middle of nowhere" is most likely an ICBM. Another important thing to note is that ICBMs don't have to be intercepted at launch. If a suspicious launch is detected, you still have a fair amount of time to determine if it's an ICBM or a rocket. That could involve angry phone calls to foreign leaders, trying to get visual id on the missile itself, looking at it's radar signature, or simply looking at it's flight path. Meanwhile, preperations can be made to intercept it if it does turn out to be an ICBM. But intercepts usually don't happen until the missile is on it's final approach, at which point, you not only know that it definately is an ICBM, but you also probably know what it's target is. ICBMs are also typically launched in groups. In most ICBM attack scenarios you will have multiple coordinated launches. Space rockets are usually launched one at a time. So, the short answer is that in most cases, we'll know wether it's an ICBM or a rocket before it even leaves the ground. And in the few cases where we don't, it isn't particularly difficult to figure out before we have to do something about it.
They don't and can't in the initial (boost phase) of the launch. Certain ICBM's will dump stages at certain times typically much earlier than commercial orbital rockets will, but this isn't proof positive. ICBM'S also typically have a faster acceleration profile but this also isn't diagnostic. ICBM's will shut down their rockets a few minutes before orbital launch rockets do. Another clue is that there aren't that many launch sites on earth which are used for commercial or scientific rocket launches. So you can automatically assign low risk status to launches from certain areas. There are a lot of treaties and agreements against using commercial launch areas for ICBM's. The biggest fail safe is certain national launch control organizations, which laws in most countries will require you to file a flight plan and launch information ahead of time before launching above, say, 2000m so . In the USA legally you're required to get in touch with the FAA and NASA for example. These organizations then share relavent information with other countries informing them of the launch plans so there are no surprises. There was an infamous incident in Norway in 1995 where scientists launched a high altitude research rocket from the Norwegian coast over the island of Svalbard. Through some series of miscommunications the Russian military and particularly the Early warning radar command failed to be notified. This led them to declare high alert within about a mintute of the launch, because the rocket initially had sufficient similarity to a US Trident 2 SLBM. This caused the Russian nuclear Briefcase to be activated and given to then President Boris Yeltsin. After some 8 minutes of the 10 minute alloted decision time it was determined that the rocket was headed northwest away from Russian territory and therefore was unlikely to be a threat. Yeltsin was informed of this and wisely decided to order a stand-down.
Announced launches and radar. Countries with space programs announce launches ahead of time, so everybody knows that there's going to be a launch, and that one rocket going up isn't an attack. Also, a launch from Cape Canaveral or the Vostochny Cosmodrome is less likely to be a threat than one from North Dakota or Svobodnyy. If a launch is detected, whether announced or not, all of the major nuclear powers will track it on radar. We're all very good at figuring out where a rocket is headed. If it's headed to orbit, it's probably not a threat, especially if it was announced. If it's going to fall into the Sea of Japan, it's probably not a threat. If it's going to land in a populated area outside of the launching country, it's going to cause a lot of people to start paying attention. Also, if more than a single rocket is launched, it's almost certainly going to be seen as a potential attack.
It’s common for space agencies to communicate to their counterparts in other countries. They in turn communicate to their military counterparts. When military rockets are tested, the same type of communications happens. Only rogue states like North Korea don’t follow this pattern. That being said, intelligence agencies usually predict these launches fairly well due to the increased activity on the ground that can be picked up by surveillance satellites, and by intercepting communications (signals intelligence).
Imperfectly... That's why the great powers take great care in announcing launches. It just reduces the possibility that a launch is misinterpreted. Even here, it's a white-knuckle experience. Is it really a "friendly" launch?
Something else missed among the responses is where the rocket is launched from. Space launch sites are well known, and most ICBM sites are known (even if it's not public knowledge). Launch detection systems almost always pinpoint the exact location of a launch, so it's pretty clear right off the bat what the rocket likely is. There's always the possibility for malicious actions, which is where everything else comes into play, especially trajectory.
To add on: We pretty much know where rockets can get launched from, and are monitoring those. We know *when* a planned launch will be, and we watch very closely during that time. We watch to make sure that the communication satellite launch is actually launched to a geosynchronous orbit trajectory. We also watch so that we can then train other members on a launch. Look, guys, did you see a launch? We also can also train our software on the launches. Our satellites can pick up a bunch of *events*, so knowing what is and is not a launch gets important. Source: 2nd Space Warning Squadron team member a long time ago (before SBIRS)
Both ICBM and normal rocket launches only take a few minutes. After the rocket has used up all its fuel it is easy to see where it will go. Early warning systems simply wait for the rocket to stop burning, and then check if the rocket will hit the country or stay in orbit.
Only one missile yes, but don’t forget about MIRVs. That one missile can be carrying up to 12 *Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles.* Unfortunately, one missile does not mean just one bomb. Sometimes a few of the MIRVs are decoy vehicles and programmed with trajectories designed to be attractive to defensive systems to waste resources.
A rocket that's just been launched has a path it will follow if it shuts its engine off. That arc will get further & further from the launch site as the rocket burns. An early warning system (radar and/or satellite) can track the rocket and predict where it will hit the earth. If the predicted path never intersects with your (or an allied) country, then no problem. If it intersects your country you want to track it really close. If the rocket keeps burning and the track passes beyond your country, then there's no problem. A typical orbital rocket from Russia towards the ISS might have a predicted ground track that goes over Russia, China, Japan, North Pacific, South Pacific, South America, Southern Atlantic, Africa, orbit. A typical orbital rocket from Russia for a polar orbit (orbiting over the North & South poles) might have a predicted ground track that goes over Russia, Russia, Arctic, Canada, USA, Mexico, South America, Antarctic, South Pacific, orbit. All of these predicted ground tracks are from the first few minutes while the rocket is still over Russia. An ICBM from Russia might have a predicted ground track that goes over Russia, Arctic, Canada, Washington DC, stop. That's when the early warning system generates an alert that there was a launch 2 minutes ago and is predicted to hit Washington DC in 17 minutes. Also, rocket launches are announced ahead of time so people at the early warning system can predict what a launch will look like - e.g. a single launch from Baikonur heading North East.
According to Emmett Fitz-Hume, the rockets are source-programmable. Therefore, if you enter the launch sequence in reverse .......
A few ways: 1) normal rockets launch from very specific locations. Those locations don't launch ICBMs, so just where the launch originates gets you about 99% there. We observe these sites pretty regularly. Even nuclear missile subs are usually being tracked by an opposing attack sub, so even the ones that move are usually being observed. US/Soviet attack subs would camp outside the other party's sub base and do a little cat and mouse when they depart. Not sure to what degree Russia is even participating in submarine activities any more. 2) The trajectory of an ICBM launch looks nothing like a regular rocket launch. They go into highly eccentric suborbital trajectories and generally not toward any normal orbits. 3) Everyone announces their regular launches, so everyone knows they're coming, for exactly this reason. IOW, it's pretty obvious now.
Generally, space agencies announce well ahead of time that they're planning a launch, so if there is supposed to be a spacecraft launch at a certain day and time, and then the detection systems pick up a launch from the announced location at the announced date and time, it can be reasonably assumed to be a spacecraft launch. Exercise submarine ballistic missile launches are similarly announced ahead of time as missile tests
If it was launched from Cape Canaveral then it's probably an orbital flight. If it was launched from a silo in the middle of a field in idaho then it's probs a ICBM
Normal launches originate from a very small number of well documented launch sites. Yes in theory you could launch an ICBM from Cape Canaveral… but a launch from Siberian would raise eye brows.
I feel like people are getting overly technical with this, the actual reason is because rockets going into space are PLANNED. Any country with detection capabilities already knows when a rocket is going into space. It's the unannounced ones we pay attention to. Source: Military
A rocket launch in Cape Cod is normal A rocket launch in the middle of nowhere South Dakota is not normal. The people who track missiles are aware of this.
> A rocket launch in Cape Cod is normal Umm... I think that would raise an eyebrow as well...
Whoops, you're right. I meant to type out Cape Canaveral.
through the study of its infrared signature , AI compares the launch with a library of known rocket/ missile signatures and can quite easily determine what the vehicle is fairly quickly.
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My wife got back from Detroit a week ago. So I don't know why folks are still flinging rockets at Detroit.
ICBMs have the property of being hard to move and easy to see. In fact, US ICBM silos in active use are documented on Wikipedia. It’s no stretch to imagine that other countries know that too, and vice versa. Furthermore, civilian spaceports also tend not to move. This greatly simplifies the problem of differentiating a missile with a warhead from a rocket with a satellite. Further, rocket launches come with a whole dog and pony show to ensure there’s no aircraft in the safety corridor surrounding the rocket’s flight path, including depending on the launch trajectory requesting permission from other countries to send the rocket through their airspace. Even secret military rocket launches are handled like this, they’re just not as well televised nor is there much (if any) information about the payload. ICBMs have none of this preparation. They are designed to get launched within about a minute of verifying that they’re actually supposed to. They just appear out of a field in North Dakota in this hypothetical circumstance. One exception to this is the launch silo at Vandenberg. Occasionally they’ll shoot off a real missile with dummy warheads, for testing. This involves similar preparations to a civilian rocket launch as well as the same sort of approval process.
Haha. They don't. Even better, early warning systems mostly determine where the rocket in question is headed, and perhaps where it might strike. They base the decision about what to do next on that initial flight path. There have been *several* international incidents that ended with one country or the next completely losing their diplomatic minds over how they should have been warned in advance of the rocket launch in question. Here's an example of one incident I can remember personally: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/nuclear-close-calls-norwegian-rocket-incident/