Scientist Models Way To Make Sure No One's Violating The Ban On Nuclear Weapons In Space
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
Scientist models way to make sure no one's violating the ban on nuclear weapons in space
One scientist has produced a detailed model which proposes a way to verify that no government or rogue actors are secretly hiding nuclear weapons in the Earth's orbit.
Currently, international laws prevent the use of nuclear weapons in orbit, but it also presents a problem.
International space law was created by the Outer Space Treaty, which was drafted in 1966 and has been ratified by 117 nations, including the USA, China, and Russia, since then. It explicitly bans nuclear weapons from being used in space, which is reassuring, because a nuclear explosion launched from an orbiting object could destroy most of the satellites in low Earth orbit, creating havoc with vital satellite communications, imaging and weather forecasting, to say the least.
[...] Danagoulian's modeling showed calculations suggesting a CubeSat made of commercially available equipment weighing up to 18kg could detect the tell-tale signals emitted by nuclear weapons in space. Such a satellite could identify a thermonuclear weapon at a distance of 4 km after around a week of observations, the study found.
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