Thanks for the extra info—this is good stuff! I figured the moon difference might be, like, some extra rocketry on top of ICBMs, but not necessarily a lot—but this makes sense that it’s in fact a pretty substantial difference.
Yeah, I think people signing onto the OST really helped bury the idea. (It did not stop the USSR from at one point from violating it in 1974-75 by attaching a 23mm gun to a space station. (For “self defense”. It was never used.) This probably isn’t that related to the larger nukes question, I just learned that recently and thought it was a fun fact.)
The OST does prohibit nuking the Moon, but stationing conventional weapons like the Almaz cannons (or the USSR’s IS anti-satellite weapons) in Earth orbit isn’t actually a violation. The prohibition on stationing weapons in space is specifically on “weapons of mass destruction”, so lasers and guns and conventional explosives are all fine. There was a Soviet program that arguably violated it though: the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, which would put nuclear warheads onto a low Earth orbit trajectory (rather than the higher and slower trajectories used by ICBMs) and then deorbit them onto their targets. The Soviet position was that because the nuclear weapons would only complete a fraction of an orbit, it didn’t violate their obligation “not to place in orbit” weapons of mass destruction.
Thanks for the extra info—this is good stuff! I figured the moon difference might be, like, some extra rocketry on top of ICBMs, but not necessarily a lot—but this makes sense that it’s in fact a pretty substantial difference.
Yeah, I think people signing onto the OST really helped bury the idea. (It did not stop the USSR from at one point from violating it in 1974-75 by attaching a 23mm gun to a space station. (For “self defense”. It was never used.) This probably isn’t that related to the larger nukes question, I just learned that recently and thought it was a fun fact.)
I appreciate your excellent comment.
The OST does prohibit nuking the Moon, but stationing conventional weapons like the Almaz cannons (or the USSR’s IS anti-satellite weapons) in Earth orbit isn’t actually a violation. The prohibition on stationing weapons in space is specifically on “weapons of mass destruction”, so lasers and guns and conventional explosives are all fine. There was a Soviet program that arguably violated it though: the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, which would put nuclear warheads onto a low Earth orbit trajectory (rather than the higher and slower trajectories used by ICBMs) and then deorbit them onto their targets. The Soviet position was that because the nuclear weapons would only complete a fraction of an orbit, it didn’t violate their obligation “not to place in orbit” weapons of mass destruction.
Oh, TIL, fascinating, thanks! Wild.