Quote:
Originally Posted by ChalkLine
True, but apart from the causes what else would be different?
The Satellite War would now have to be fairly involved and, as usual, possibly causing a Kessler Cascade where all the satellites in orbit are destroyed by debris. This means there will be no future satellite launches either for those 2300ad people. Goodbye GPS targeting, one of the most important artillery advances. Also good bye to instant map updating.
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GPS satellites (of all varieties) are in MEO. They are not trivially destroyed as you need a launch vehicle with similar capability to the satellite's own launch vehicle to deliver a ASAT vehicle to it. There's a finite number of launch facilities in the world capable of handling such launch vehicles. The same goes for GEO communication satellites. If launch and construction facilities were disabled early in a conflict where ASAT warfare is a concern there's a lot of stuff out of reach.
What would be vulnerable to ASAT weapons would be LEO satellites. This includes things like IMINT and MASINT satellites. Lower altitude LEO satellites can be hit with some air and surface launched missiles.
The chances of a Kessler cascade are a bit overblown though. If a satellite is destroyed by an ASAT weapon it goes from being a solid hunk of satellite in orbit to a slightly less solid hunk of satellite in the same orbit. An ASAT weapon isn't going to provide so much energy as to majorly change the orbit of the mass of the satellite and definitely won't provide enough energy to send pieces into significantly higher orbits. Small bits of debris deorbit more readily than larger bits. They have less momentum and lose relatively more energy as they smack into molecules of the atmosphere.
Even if MEO and GEO satellites were successfully attacked, the surface of the Earth is a well measured place. INS navigation is also extremely advanced and accurate. Even without GPS there's lots of ways to accurately navigate (and target things). GPS is nice but not strictly necessary for a lot of things.