Nukes in Space? - Nuclear Engineer Reacts to Startalk

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]The pieces will always stay in orbit and they become debris. You know what that's like? That's like peeing in your own toilet. It's >> what? Today we're going to be looking at space-based nukes in space with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Let's see.

[00:00:14]>> There nukes in orbit around the Earth.

[00:00:17]You ever wonder what's up with that?

[00:00:19]>> Russia developing a spacebased anti-satellite weapon. As far as nukes in orbit, I mean, yeah, they're designed to go up there for a little bit and come back down. That's that's ICBMs.

[00:00:31]>> Try to disable and destroy satellites in space.

[00:00:35]>> Congress has said perhaps that there's some scaremongering going on here.

[00:00:40]>> Nuclear space weapon.

[00:00:41]>> The idea that it's nuclearpowered, I'm not entirely >> convinced that that's like a strategic move.

[00:00:51]>> What's up with that?

[00:00:55]I mean, you see this kind of stuff and these news outlets see space weapon and they assume, okay, a fleet of nuclear satellites or orbital lasers or the rods from God or even the Death Star. But it's usually less showy than that in the form of jammers, cyber attacks, electronic warfare. Space warfare basically being infrastructure warfare.

[00:01:23]Cuz after all, satellites are basically the nervous system of modern civilization with things like GPS, logistics, missile warning and defenses, even banking and finance. So a few years ago, I co-authored a book with a longtime editor and friend Avis Lang.

[00:01:41]This 600 page book titled Accessory to War, the unspoken alliance between astrophysics and the military.

[00:01:51]Interesting.

[00:01:52]>> Which chronicled this two-way street between the fruits of research when we study >> why were they green? Did they get assimilated? the universe and the needs of the military for whatever their efforts or urges to conquest might have been throughout time. A lot of my interest in this topic came about because of tour of duty as a member of the defense innovation board of the Pentagon as well as a few commissions that I served under the George W. Bush White House and I served the Pentagon under Barack Obama going into Donald Trump. So that was kind of a baptism for me as fundamentally an academic just to see how the sausage is made, how people think about national security.

[00:02:37]>> That's an interesting career path and the like. What's come up recently is the question, are we now militarizing space?

[00:02:47]And this seemed to shock people when they learned of this because space >> maybe they had the idea that it is or should be pristine where everyone holds hands in space. And I had a little more of a >> showing a clip from Star Wars where it's all about militarization in space.

[00:03:05]>> Cynical view of that. And that was if you're going to sign a treaty that everyone is peaceful in space, which by the way was the basis of the 1967 treaty for the peaceful uses of outer space. The title of that treaty is much longer than that, but that's >> of course, and I get what he's saying because space has always been militarized. I don't see how this is different. Ever since Sputnik launched, space has become strategically critical.

[00:03:33]Recon satellites by themselves changed warfare. I mean, a spy satellites effectively permanent high ground with global reconnaissance. Before satellites, you hit armies with camouflage. Now you hide them with timing, deception, and mobility.

[00:03:49]Camouflage by itself isn't enough. the idea. I'm old enough and mature enough, I think, to reflect on how unrealistic that is for the following reason. If we can't get along on Earth's surface, why should the simple act of being in space change that? And >> human competition is going to follow infrastructure that includes orbit wherever shipping lanes, trade, energy, critical natural resources. After all, you can't make nuclear power plants without uranium. Yeah, same thing with orbit and even beyond once we get there.

[00:04:25]>> If we can get along in space as mandated by this treaty, then why can't we get along here on Earth? Let's call Earth space. How about that?

[00:04:37]>> I mean, you're not wrong when you call Earth space. Maybe it seemed easier because ah space is already out there and there's like what three people out there or something like that rather than everyone else on Earth. It's kind of funny though when you view it like that that Earth is where war is allowed but anything not there you have to have a peaceful stance. It's a very interesting look.

[00:05:04]>> Then there'd be peace everywhere but there isn't. And so we have a space force. Uh it came out under the Trump administration and a lot of Trump haters just don't didn't like anything Trump did without realizing that of course space force has been percolating for quite some time. And the >> a lot of people think the Space Force logo came from Star Trek, but it was really the other way round. It came from military. It's just kind it's just kind of funny to see that circle. Guess the circle's complete now.

[00:05:35]>> Space Force is not a new idea.

[00:05:38]It already existed within the Air Force.

[00:05:42]>> It was the US Space Command. It already had a budget. It already had people working and solving problems related to space security.

[00:05:51]>> The way I saw was just reorganizing of the government. I mean, that sort of thing happens all the time. I mean, this defense department didn't exist until after World War II, but it's like, well, before then, the US didn't defend itself or something like that. You might as well make that argument. Of course, it was called the war department then. But yeah, this wasn't suddenly inventing space warfare. It was giving space assets their own department. I mean, you see this in the case of modern nuclear deterrence. Depends heavily on satellites, early warning systems, communications, missile tracking, basically things that you need space assets for. If you lose the satellites, the threat of nuclear war actually gets much more dangerous because the margins of uncertainty increase and the whole nuclear deterrence balance can become at risk.

[00:06:43]>> It was just pulled out and now it has its own identity. Space is a very different environment from the air. If at any time you said to yourself, it makes sense that we had an air force, then by the same reasoning, >> that's another thing. We used to have the US Army Air Force and Air Force got its own thing. So, okay, the next step is space getting its own thing.

[00:07:07]>> You would be led to the conclusion that it makes sense we would have a space force, especially given assets we the United States have in space right now.

[00:07:17]Not only the value of the hardware, these are satellites that that provide communications for us, weather satellites, other monitoring satellites that tell us not only the weather or the climate but trends in the climate so we can understand the future of climate change. There's not only that space has been a place where surveillance has been a major feature of >> I mean even weather patterns I mean nuclear power plants are dependent on satellites and meteorological towers just for the off-site dose calculations and that's because that is the primary thing you look at post nuclear accident.

[00:07:58]So stuff like having access to satellites, access to weather towers, that sort of thing becomes critical systems because it's required to operate in a post accident condition. And that's where all the dose rates, dose assessments, and where you decide what zones need to evacuate and what zones need to shelter in place and what zones are completely unaffected. A lot of that depends on which way the wind's blowing, >> what it is to go into space. People say we shouldn't militarize space. You realize we've had surveillance satellites.

[00:08:30]>> Who do you think were the first types of personnel to go into space >> since the dawn of the space age? It's the new high ground. That's how it has been used. To think somehow that's something new or different. No, it is what's always been happening in space.

[00:08:47]By the way, I'm not defending it. I'm just declaring that it's true, which I >> Yeah, that's what kind of gets me is is the whole people's surprise by that. I mean, still the government. I mean, >> I think we should all hold hands and sing kumbaya. But until that day arises, >> then the value of national security has very high significance to our place in this world. So, what does that mean now?

[00:09:15]Well, you'd want a space force to protect your assets. And the assets are not just like I said the value of the hardware orbiting Earth in space that costs money. There's the value of the commerce. It enables GPS satellites that now track by the way a military project then turned into a commercial enterprise to serve commerce >> just like the internet >> that GPS there would be no Uber or Lyft without GPS.

[00:09:45]>> These are sponsors >> right? These are now billiond dollar operations in this world. Okay. So the value of space is huge to us. So you would want a space force to protect not only our assets in space but to make sure we always have access to space so that we will not be denied that access by any adversary. That's the primary role of the space force. So what does the treaty say from 1967 and there's a modified updated version of it that has come after that. But the treaty says no nukes in space, no weapons of mass destruction in space.

[00:10:19]>> Let's assume everyone abides.

[00:10:21]>> It says like Yeah, it says installed in space. So big difference between ICBMs that go briefly go into orbit and then come back down. Guess they're not installed, they're just visiting. One foot in, one foot out kind of approach >> by that treaty. It's still odd that we all agree to not have it in space, but we don't agree to not have it on Earth's surface where we all live. That's just weird to me just as a rational scientist that >> Yeah, I'm kind of visualizing like an ICBM goes into space, some sort of um space defense force makes sure that it goes back to Earth cuz space is sacred and off limits or something.

[00:11:01]And of course, that force is just gravity.

[00:11:03]>> Oh, we're all friends up here, but not over here. you can't be friends everywhere. Whatever it takes to be friends in space, let's do that on Earth. Okay? But if you can't do that, then what next steps do you take? A couple of things about space here.

[00:11:17]Here's Earth. What we call space. I just I'm an astrophysicist, so I get to say this. But here's >> Oh, that's that that's great. Love that logic. Here's my uh little pinky finger.

[00:11:31]I'm a nuclear engineer, so I can say a fuel pellet this size contains more energy than a ton of coal. Oh, that's great. I I had to use that one right away. I'm sorry.

[00:11:43]>> If this were the actual size of Earth, do you know where Mars would be? It would be a mile away. You know where the moon would be? It would be in the next room 30 ft away. Do you know where the orbiting International Space Station is and where the Hubble telescope >> on the order of millimeters? I'm guessing >> it's 1 cm above Earth's surface.

[00:12:02]>> Okay, I was close. That's a good analogy. low Earth or orbit is is pretty close. And that's why stuff like atmospheric drag and debris fields and orbital congestion matters a lot because it's right above it.

[00:12:16]>> That's what everybody is calling space.

[00:12:19]Now, let's say you manage to put weapons of mass destruction in space. It would be orbiting Earth 1 cm above the surface. And let's say you wanted to attack some country. You kind of have to wait until your orbit brings the weapon over your target. You'd have to like wait around for that.

[00:12:40]>> Mhm. That's one thing that a lot of people and I think you mainly see this in movies with the secret satellite nukes or whatever. Orbit is not hovering. I mean, there is geostationary orbit. It is not that close cuz then you're going to have distance and latency problems. But yeah, your nuke flying around at few kilometers a second. So ultimately a less effective weapon than an ICBM cuz after all they launch when needed from where needed, not having to wait for it to be above the target country or the more expensive geostationary orbit sort of damocles nuke of Damocles if you will that you're going to park above your target country and if they misbehave it would still be more of a pain than just launching an ICBM.

[00:13:31]>> All right. Is it this orbit? Is it the next one? Because Earth is turning inside of your orbit. While you are orbiting Earth, Earth is also turning.

[00:13:39]>> Yep.

[00:13:39]>> So, you're exposed to many different parts at many different times. If Is that your goal? Think about that.

[00:13:45]Because we can already destroy cities from Earth's surface. You know what they're called? Intercontinental ballistic missiles. ICBM. I grew up with that stuff. I grew up in the Cold War.

[00:13:58]What is it? It's a missile in a silo that is a nuclear warhead. It launches, exits Earth's atmosphere, goes through the vacuum of space exactly towards its target, hits its target within 45 minutes between any two places on Earth.

[00:14:13]So, >> you know what? Maybe it was easier to ban the thing that they knew would be too costly to do to make progress and show some level of cooperation rather than the thing that everybody already knew how to do. That's a bit cynical.

[00:14:29]There might have been some good intentions behind there.

[00:14:32]>> To have something floating in a in an orbiting platform when it might not be where it needs to be is not even necessary if you're going to conduct warfare. Just consider that.

[00:14:44]>> Okay.

[00:14:45]>> Also, maybe there's you want a weapon to destroy another satellite that's in space. Now there is one potential advantage to this and there was this was briefly explored by the Soviets um partial orbital bombardment systems and that wasn't because they were more efficient cuz they still weren't but it's because they bypassed some early warning systems. So a bit of a snake attack if you will. So that is to say, a weapon approaching from an unexpected strike vector could complicate the adversar's defenses. Though that was more of a cold war limitation because radar coverage was a lot more directional and limited. So nowadays it wouldn't make as much sense. Radar got better before orbital weapon systems got better.

[00:15:40]So that yeah, that that idea didn't really make it very far. There was one brief period in history of cold war wackiness. There were some other things like that. Like that's why during the cold war multimegaton nuclear weapons were a thing was if you could miss your target by say several hundred meters or even kilometer or two, then you could still likely destroy it just with a bigger weapon. Whereas nowadays nuclear weapons aren't as powerful. They're still a lot more powerful than the ones during World War II, but they're not as powerful as the ones during the height of the Cold War cuz they don't need to be. They're accurate enough to get their job done. And yet, it's more efficient to uh make more smaller nuclear weapons than um and by smaller, I'm still talking several hundred kilotons rather than um multimegaton nuclear weapons.

[00:16:28]>> A satellite, you judge me, put you in harm's way on Earth.

[00:16:33]>> Well, where's your satellite that's going to do that? Is it near the other satellite? Probably not. You'd have to wait until the orbits might intersect.

[00:16:42]How long is that? Each orbit is 90 minutes. Is it 100 orbits from now? A thousand orbits? Is it a year? You're going to have to wait around for that to happen.

[00:16:51]>> And it's going to be highly predictable to your adversary. So, they know how much time they have to work with. So yeah, it's less strategically relevant than ICBMs >> because your trajectory in orbit around the Earth is predetermined. Instead, just do what Russia, China, India, and the United States has already done.

[00:17:13]Launch a kinetic missile from Earth's surface up into the orbital path of the satellite and destroy it that way. Well, that'll happen. You can do that within 6 minutes, at most 8 minutes. intersect the satellite that you want to destroy.

[00:17:30]All of these countries I listed, the United States included, that destroyed a satellite in that very way. We destroyed our own satellites in >> I remember seeing that. I think I was in high school and I saw one of those demonstrations. Um, yeah, that was fascinating. But yeah, orbital velocities are insane. Again, Newtonian kinetic energy formula 1/2 mv^2.

[00:17:53]Newtonian's good enough because we don't have anything approaching light speed.

[00:17:56]But yeah, even tiny masses hit with absurd energy. So velocity is your weapon and it's enough of a weapon. I mean satellites aren't these armored fortresses that you see in Star Wars for instance. I mean just a bolt, a kinetic dart traveling at kilome/s doesn't care about your feelings or your satellite.

[00:18:18]>> It destroyed one of its own, Russia its own. CH and so did we. It's a demonstration of power >> for sure. It looks like, oh, we needed to take out this the satellite was wandering so we and but everybody notices you have the power to take out a satellite. You can do that from Earth in 8 minutes and target the satellite at a moment's notice, but otherwise you're just in orbit waiting around till you happen to be near another satellite. My point is >> yeah, it's I mean, yes, uh he he's simplifying quite a bit, but yes, it is less complicated is the point. Weapons in space are much less useful >> militaristically, strategically, tactically than what we already have built to harm one another from Earth's surface. So these are just orbital facts to fold into any deliberations and conversations that anybody's going to have about the weaponization of space.

[00:19:14]There's also a talk about a electromagnetic pulse. You may have heard about this. electromagnetic pulse.

[00:19:21]Uh you can look it up, you can Google it, but it's shown in a few movies. One of them was um Oceans 11 had an electromagnetic pulse. You know what it is? It's a very intense pulse of electromagnetic energy and it basically fries electrical circuits. They >> I remember I forget what it was, but it was one video game where I think North Korea defeated the US with one simple EMP. Like it's going to be that easy.

[00:19:46]Now, high altitude nuclear detonations can generate significant EMP effects because gamma rays from that explosion interact with the atmosphere and Earth's magnetic field. So, it's going to produce some induced currents and could damage transformers, uh, electronic systems, that kind of stuff. But movies, video games oversimplification just like they oversimplify other aspects of nuclear war because there's still going to be shielding. There's going to be grounding of electrical components themselves. The altitude of the detonation is going to matter quite a bit. And components can be hardened. It depends on how your grid is set up and what sections can be isolated. I mean, their grid operators have procedures for um EMP effects and other cascading events that could potentially cause cascading grid problems such as heightened solar activity, for instance. And that would mainly affect civilian infrastructure more than military because a lot of military infrastructure is typically more hardened. But civilian infrastructure, I mean, you're still not guaranteed to take that out either. I mean, it's anyway. And as far as nuclear power plants are concerned, there's all kinds of procedures for um grid instability or even total loss of the grid to ensure that nuclear power plants can safely shut down. And that's because there are backup diesel generator systems. And by the way, those are going to be hardened and in their own independent buildings. So, good luck taking that out with an AM.

[00:21:21]>> Did it in Oceans 11 to cut the electricity of all of Las Vegas so that they can execute their heist with the money from the hotel. If there's an electromagnetic pulse, it basically takes out all electronic circuitry. That would be very complicated to do effectively and I don't know if it would be worth like I forget how much money they got from that heist but you might if you have enough assets to do a coordinated EMP strike on all of Las Vegas. Um do you really need to rob those casinos >> within a given radius? Well, if you put a pulse of that in orbit, remember you are only a centimeter above Earth's surface on the scale of this globe. A pulse, there's a limit to how far that pulse can reach.

[00:22:08]>> It'll go to its own horizon.

[00:22:10]>> Highly altitude dependent is what he's saying.

[00:22:12]>> So, it might be a couple of thousand miles.

[00:22:15]>> It also the yield of the weapon matters cuz that's that's going to affect how much gamas you get and what it's going to do to that portion of Earth's atmosphere >> across. It's not reaching satellites on the other side. There are thousands of satellites orbiting Earth at any given time and that number is only going up.

[00:22:32]Yeah, you could take out a bunch of them here, but one of them might be your satellite. Plus, if you're going to destroy a satellite with a kinetic kill, by the way, it's called a kinetic kill cuz you don't need warheads. You don't need explosives. The satellite is >> That's true. Um, that would just add additional weight and the satellite would already be taken out. It doesn't need to be more taken out if that makes sense.

[00:22:55]>> Going so fast to begin with. 18,000 miles an hour. All you have to do is hit it just or get in its way. You get in its way, it hits you, the thing explodes basically without any explosives at all.

[00:23:09]It's just the kinetic energy to make that happen.

[00:23:11]>> They're not armored fortresses again.

[00:23:13]Um, very susceptible to collisions. Now, if you do that too high up, the pieces will always stay in orbit and they become debris. You know what that's like? That's like peeing in your own toilet. It's >> what I mean, you should pee in your own toilet, right?

[00:23:30]>> Debris that'll then affect your other satellites. So, it's not >> Okay, I get what he's getting at. He's getting at Kesler syndrome, but that was a weird analogy.

[00:23:40]strategic to destroy somebody else's satellite with a kinetic kill and still expect to do business in space. It just doesn't really work functionally. There was talk that if we have the power to move an asteroid out of >> So Kesler syndrome is a real legitimate threat, basically a contamination cascade, though instead of radiological contamination, debris creates more collisions. More collisions create more debris and it's a vicious cycle to the point where large sections of Earth's orbit become unusable. And that's a legitimate strategic concern.

[00:24:18]>> Harm's Way, the NASA mission Dart, double asteroid redirect test. Look it up.

[00:24:22]>> Oh yeah, this >> it was successful effort to change the orbit of an asteroid that may one day hit us. It was a test case cuz if we're good at it, then we can just move them all out of the way so we never get hit and we'll never have the fate of the D.

[00:24:35]And on a smaller scale, you don't need to use dart impacts, but you can there are ways to clean up space to reduce the likelihood of Kesler syndrome. It's not this inevitable doom thing, but it is a real concern when you start blowing up satellites.

[00:24:52]>> Dinosaurs, cuz you know, if they had NASA, they they'd still be here. Well, they need opposable thumbs to >> dinosaur NASA. Maybe that's what did happen. And uh the dinosaurs tried but they um were were unsuccessful. Were unsuccessful. They didn't have um dinosaur Bruce Willis to uh blow up the asteroid.

[00:25:13]>> Maybe a slightly bigger brain, but other than that, if they, you know, if they could deflect an asteroid, they would have. So now they're extinct and we're not for now.

[00:25:23]>> For now.

[00:25:23]>> So there was an argument. Carl Sean even posed this argument. If you have the power to deflect an asteroid out of harm way, you might have the power to aim it towards your enemy on Earth. And once again, the histrionics of that.

[00:25:37]>> Yeah. Who says we've moved beyond throwing rocks? We're just now throwing really big rocks at each other.

[00:25:44]>> Yet, you got to wait for an asteroid to exist to be headed towards Earth >> and then it would otherwise hit the ocean, but now you want it to hit some land mass that is occupied by your enemy. ideally not a land mass that is next to your land mass >> and you want to direct an ICBM will already do that. So this Star Wars >> thinking that goes on as portrayed in film doesn't have the practicality of weapons already developed deployable here on Earth's surface.

[00:26:16]>> That's because in Star Wars they are a hyper advanced high-end cardv type 2 civilization. The stuff they're doing might as well be magic to us.

[00:26:31]They make space look so easy.

[00:26:33]>> I'm just telling you this. So, what's our future? The space ideal place for spy satellites. And we've been doing that for 65 years. Ever. One other thing that he didn't really emphasize when he talked about the nukes in space is nuclear detonations are a lot different in space. There's no atmosphere. So, you're not going to get your blast wave.

[00:26:57]You're certainly not going to get a space mushroom cloud. And there's no over pressure cuz again, no atmosphere.

[00:27:04]And those are and that the over pressure, the blast, the shock wave, those are the most destructive parts of nuclear explosions on Earth. But instead, you're going to get a lot of radiation. No atmosphere also means less attenuation. Particles have a much longer slowing down length. So, a lot of gamma rays, a lot of X-rays. You're still going to get the thermal pulse because that's just thermal radiation.

[00:27:30]You don't need convection or conductive conduction to uh get that. And you're still going to get some EMP effects. So, it's more like a directed radiation. And when I say directed, I mean it would expand in all directions.

[00:27:47]Directed radiation catastrophe rather than what you think of when you think of an explosion on Earth. Not a very efficient use of energy to destroy satellites cuz like you said earlier, kinetic hit is all you need.

[00:28:00]>> Ever since we've been putting anything into orbit at all, that's still militaristic.

[00:28:05]It's not weapons, but access to information is fundamental to the conducting of any kind of war that people have. We've got spy satellites, we've got communication satellites, >> weather satellites. It's a crowded space. In fact, I think that's why we haven't really been visited by aliens.

[00:28:24]They looked at all the crap that we have orbiting Earth. Not only the satellites that work, all the debris that doesn't.

[00:28:30]>> Uh, we're a space disgruntled hobo. and they say, "Whoa, they think their orbital space is a trash bin and they just went on to another planet to visit them." Anyhow, just a little bit.

[00:28:46]>> That's one of the more hilarious solutions to the Fermy paradox of uh space physics and national security.

[00:28:54]>> One more thing he did not mention as was the whole rods from God thing. So the short version, so to be brief, the idea I've seen it in various sci-fi of dropping tungsten rods from orbit at hypersonic velocity sounds terrifying, but it's still expensive. ICBMs are going to be way more cost effective than what you would get from that cuz getting the tungsten in a space is going to be your hard part and the extreme energy density of nuclear weapons is ultimately going to give you more bang for your buck. Thanks so much for the recommendation and thanks so much for watching.