Andrey Zlobin, Ph.D., expert of the Center for Planetary Protection
The title of the article may surprise. Is there an analogue of nuclear weapons? The answer is yes. Such weapons are called asteroid weapons, and, unlike nuclear weapons, they are not associated with radioactivity. At the same time, everyone can make sure that the impacts (falling on the planet) of asteroids and comets can be much more powerful than atomic bombs. For example, the famous fall of the Tunguska meteorite in 1908 is estimated at least a thousand (!) atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima.
Recently, a TASS publication cited the point of view of Anatoly Zaitsev, director of the Planetary Defense Center, about the possible development of asteroid weapons by the West. Such weapons can be created and tested under the guise of the development of planetary defense systems. According to A.V. Zaitsev, asteroids can be used as weapons in two ways. In the first — to hide information about a threatening celestial body, and in the second — to deliberately change the trajectory of the asteroid to ensure its fall into the territory of undesirable countries.
«The first option, although unlikely, is potentially possible, since we detect less than 0,1% of the approximately 2,500 near-Earth asteroids discovered annually in the world. And the second option is real, because over 30 years, the United States and other countries have organized 12 expeditions to 14 asteroids and 6 comets, during which methods and tools for controlling their trajectories were also tested,» Zaitsev explained.
The whole logic of the large-scale space activities of the West testifies to attempts to circumvent the ban on the deployment of the most destructive weapons in space. It seems that this is being implemented with the help of a hidden energy analogue of atomic bombs. Indeed, the plans for a sharp increase in the number of satellites in near-Earth orbits up to hundreds of thousands attract attention. Why so much? But why. Under the guise of the development of communication technologies, Internet technologies, the West is simultaneously rapidly increasing the total multi-ton mass of satellites in near space. Since many vehicles weigh hundreds of kilograms, in fact it is already a huge swarm of small «asteroids» rushing in orbits around the Earth at cosmic speed. Even a schoolboy will be able to calculate the total energy of this swarm. The conclusion is shocking: soon dozens of analogues of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima will be flying over everyone's heads. And this is completely official, without violating the ban on the placement of nuclear weapons in space! I will not go into details, but the combination of the multi-ton masses of a swarm of foreign satellites with their network information component, high controllability and intelligence, can cause such things that it will not seem enough.
Any doubts will disappear if you get acquainted with numerous scientific publications on asteroid hazards, in which the entry of a swarm of small cosmic bodies into the atmosphere is mathematically modeled. In this case, there is a difference from the fall of one large celestial body on the planet. Such problems can be solved by the so-called methods of direct hydrodynamic modeling, when the energy of the swarm affects the parameters of the entire red-hot track of the car. For example, the results of calculations performed by Americans on a supercomputer are well known. These calculations show that the shock waves generated by the collapsing swarm are quite comparable to those of an atomic explosion. If the swarm consists of thousands and tens of thousands of «man-made asteroids», then there is a danger of additional «surprises» in them. In those seconds during which such a man-made car will form in the atmosphere, it will be extremely difficult to react to it.
The concern expressed by the Director of the Planetary Protection Center has every reason. Various variants of asteroid weapons are not only possible, but, it seems, are already being secretly implemented. I have shown above that with the current level of technology, launching a large number of massive satellites into near-Earth orbits is practically no different from placing analogues of nuclear weapons in space. Today, the West regularly throws dozens of similar satellites into Earth orbit. Before it is too late, an international treaty on the non-proliferation of large multi-ton masses of spacecraft and other multi-ton objects in space is urgently needed.