A World Without the Outer Space Treaty?

[NeoDesperado]

Exactly what it says on the tin. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty as signed by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union prohibits not only the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in orbit but also claiming sovereignty over any celestial body. It also forbids the establishment of military bases, installations or fortifications, but curiously doesn't ban conventional weapons from orbit.
In the event that the treaty fails to get approved by either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. (say someone's feeling extra confident about their capabilities) and the whole proposal falls apart, what are the consequences for our little chunk of space? Is the world doomed to a faceful of instant sunshine? Does the Cold War shorten with the added expenses of new systems going up? Would we see expanded/evolved versions of MOL and Almaz in orbit? Can the Project Orion enthusiasts see their nuclear battleships come to fruition?

 

[arrowiv]

We could see orbital nuclear platforms just like those seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

 

[mrmandias]

You'd see more manned missions and outposts in a grim effort to make wide claims of national sovereignty over extraterrestrial bodies. Probably a good thing, imho--if you ignore all the orbital nuclear platforms and stuff, although that probably doesn't make the world any more dangerous than it already was with the vast fleets of ICBMs.

Military and aerospace budgets on both sides are going to be crippling, which was why the OST was signed otl in the first place.

 

[EWHM]

Orbital nuclear platforms are BAD NEWS. The reason is because the time to impact on them is extremely short. This creates a very nasty potential decapitating first strike which pushes everyone to seriously upgrade their readiness level and operate on much closer to a 'hair trigger'. This means that the various screw-ups and mistakes that can happen, and DID happen during the Cold War are way more likely to escalate into a real exchange.

That said, much better would have been a treaty that demilitarized everything within a few tens of thousands of miles of the Earth, and dumped the 'common heritage of mankind nonsense'. Let nations, individuals, whatever claim things along the lines of the old homesteading laws (i.e., you have to make material improvements and occupy it before people will recognize your claims).

 

[strummist]

Clouds of ball-bearings infest most useful orbits, ripping apart satellites and making low Earth orbit unusable and very dangerous to cross.

Major powers get round this by using large and robust armoured Orion spacecraft, as suggested by the OP.

 

[MattII]

You realise it's a lot easier to shoot down a nuclear platform than to put one up right? The Outer Space Treaty was basically one of those redundant "no-one in their right mind would do it so we might as well ban it" affairs.

 

[Michel Van]

No Outer Space Treaty
would give the world a Orbital arms race during cold war
first nuclear weapon platforms, then Anti weapon against it. (anti sat or space Fighter ???)
also allot nuclear bomb testing in orbit or even on Moon.
but what get up must get down
Means sooner or later one of those Platforms malfunction or reenters earth atmosphere.
and the end of Cold War
USA must help bankrupt USSR, to disarm there nuclear weapon platforms, design to attack US space craft...

 

[Alex1guy]

USA must help bankrupt USSR, to disarm there nuclear weapon platforms, design to attack US space craft...

This is an interesting point. Assuming the USSR collapses similar to OTL (this is also assuming the war never goes hot) who would control the kill satellites? Would they be taken out of orbit?

 

[MattII]

Actually that's one reason the platforms are so daft, once you remove the warheads you just have to aim the thing at a bog body of water, or a dig desert, and de-orbit it. Hells, getting rid of the warheads just really involves finding a big patch of desert, disabling the detonator, and launching, then a bit of clean-up once they're down.

 

[simonbp]

Not nessisarily; a lot of the talk of orbital platforms had them at GEO, so their orbits would be quite stable. From GEO it would just about be eaiser to dispose of them into the Moon than Earth. The GEO platforms make sense as it you can attack the area below you (i.e. the central land masses of the US or USSR) at any time.

As far as property, the thinking before the outer space treaty was that a certain zone around a lunar base could be considered soveriegn teritory. That was certainly the thinking during Projects Horizon (the Army lunar nuclear missile base) and Lunex (the USAF equivalent).

 

[MattII]

Yeah, but from GEO straight down is going to require a hell of a heat-shield, and is going to get just about as soon as it launches, plus in the two-horse race that was the space-race back then, you'll know exactly where the enemies' platforms are.

This might give a boost to the Star Wars program if it becomes a serious threat, but I doubt it will, after all, it would require a fairly sizeable launch platform to get the stuff up there, which is going to be very costly.

 

[Shaby]

Economics work against orbital weapons. As Mat said, it is cheaper to knock one down, than to put it up. Furthermore, it is cheaper to maintain a ground arsenal of twice or thrice the power of the orbital platform. The most damning is that you'd need a large number of systems to ascertain one is over the potential targets all the time. This is made complicated as it is easy to calculate where each of those would be and move the target out of its range.

Finally, development of ICBMs shortened the delivery time to less than 30 minutes upon launch and SLBMs to 15 minutes. That is a good enough result. Shortening this interval requires much larger expenditures (launching and relaunching the orbital platforms) to a non-appreciable advantage.

 

[Michel Van]

Not nessisarily; a lot of the talk of orbital platforms had them at GEO, so their orbits would be quite stable. From GEO it would just about be eaiser to dispose of them into the Moon than Earth. The GEO platforms make sense as it you can attack the area below you (i.e. the central land masses of the US or USSR) at any time.

As far as property, the thinking before the outer space treaty was that a certain zone around a lunar base could be considered soveriegn teritory. That was certainly the thinking during Projects Horizon (the Army lunar nuclear missile base) and Lunex (the USAF equivalent).

not quite
the Soviet FOBS use a R-36-O-rocket to park nuclear warheads in low orbit

a 5 tons heavy return vehicle with a 5 megaton hydrogen bomb in 200 km high orbit.

Launch in case of crisis, FOBS goes in orbit for a surprise Attack on USA.
but its orbit is not stable, without correction the Warhead will reenters the Atmosphere 2 years later and it's design to survive that !
it's more likely that in case the Crisis is solved peacefully the Soviets start a series of "Orbital Nuclear Tests" to dispose FOBS.

Other mad ideas
one was to install a ICBM base on Moon under the Motto "Who controls, the moon controls the World"
last proposal of this kind was under MX-program in 1970s.

Nuclear Orions
USAF and RAND corp. had also ideas:
one was USAF Orion Space Battle Ship

in high orbit between Earth and Moon a fleet of those wait until nuclear war.
then they goes on lower orbit and drop massive load of Nuclear bombs on the enemies of USA.

DOOMSDAY Orion
some maniac had idea: "Hey a ground launch Orion could carry 1500 tons of payload, why not launch the Biggest nuclear Bomb of all time with it ?"
here a Orion orbit high over earth with a ONE GIGATONS TNT as a Doomsday weapon,
if Soviet attack the USA the Orion park over USSR and destroys them and rest of the World with...

...some times i have the feeling that the US sign the Outer Space Treaty, in order to stop there own maniac's in the Pentagon.

 

[Dirk_Pitt]

Couldn't they just ban orbital weapons and not declaring celestrial bodies soveign territory?

 

[NeoDesperado]

On the subject of orbital launch platforms, one of the proposed designs for the Mir-2 station was a military variant that would have strapped on the cores of several Buran shuttles with nuclear missiles docked in their cargo bays. Realistically, not much of a threat but the fact that even with the OST in place this was still a plausible (if secret) option is kinda scary.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/mir2.htm

 

[NeoDesperado]

not quite
the Soviet FOBS use a R-36-O-rocket to park nuclear warheads in low orbit

a 5 tons heavy return vehicle with a 5 megaton hydrogen bomb in 200 km high orbit.

Launch in case of crisis, FOBS goes in orbit for a surprise Attack on USA.
but its orbit is not stable, without correction the Warhead will reenters the Atmosphere 2 years later and it's design to survive that !
it's more likely that in case the Crisis is solved peacefully the Soviets start a series of "Orbital Nuclear Tests" to dispose FOBS.

Other mad ideas
one was to install a ICBM base on Moon under the Motto "Who controls, the moon controls the World"
last proposal of this kind was under MX-program in 1970s.

Nuclear Orions
USAF and RAND corp. had also ideas:
one was USAF Orion Space Battle Ship

in high orbit between Earth and Moon a fleet of those wait until nuclear war.
then they goes on lower orbit and drop massive load of Nuclear bombs on the enemies of USA.

DOOMSDAY Orion
some maniac had idea: "Hey a ground launch Orion could carry 1500 tons of payload, why not launch the Biggest nuclear Bomb of all time with it ?"
here a Orion orbit high over earth with a ONE GIGATONS TNT as a Doomsday weapon,
if Soviet attack the USA the Orion park over USSR and destroys them and rest of the World with...

...some times i have the feeling that the US sign the Outer Space Treaty, in order to stop there own maniac's in the Pentagon.

I just learned about the Battleship concept recently, and I really have to admire the sheer audacity of the project. It's just such a break from anything of the period and if even one of these had been able to go up it would have completely changed the power dynamic. Not sure if the Soviets would have gone all Kaiser Wilhelm and tried to match us ship for ship or figured out some alternative means of countering the new threat. Sadly, Kennedy freaked the hell out when they showed him a scale model and helped to scuttle the whole thing.

 

[omega21]

I just learned about the Battleship concept recently, and I really have to admire the sheer audacity of the project. It's just such a break from anything of the period and if even one of these had been able to go up it would have completely changed the power dynamic. Not sure if the Soviets would have gone all Kaiser Wilhelm and tried to match us ship for ship or figured out some alternative means of countering the new threat. Sadly, Kennedy freaked the hell out when they showed him a scale model and helped to scuttle the whole thing.

I wouldn't say sadly. Although it definitely would have advanced space science, I find the concept of a mad Orion-type battleship with nuclear missiles strapped all over it and enough gun CIWS to defend against anything people could put up against it very, very scary...

 

[simonbp]

The FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombarment System) designs were in response to the Outer Space Treaty, and designed to circumvent it. They would basically put a warhead into LEO and then deorbit it before it made a full revolution. That's the "fractional orbit" part.

I'll need to do some further digging, but the pre-Treaty systems were in much higher orbits. The idea was, in a first stike, you'd launch everything and then abandon the platform. If the other guy fires first, however, at either the platform or the ground, you have plenty of time to launch off all your missiles at him. Even at 6 km/s, it would take an interceptor 1.7 hours to reach GEO.

IIRC, the Orion battleship concept would have spent most of its time out by the Moon, only flying in close to deliver the final blow. It's only with a ridculous propulsion system like it had that you could do such a thing.